WHAT DO WE CALL EASTER EGGS IN POLISH?
The period before and after Easter is the perfect time to talk about Polish Easter tradtions in your Polish classes.If we think „Easter“ we mustn’t forget coloured eggs called pisanki in Polish. They appear in Polish homes together with catkins (bazie, aka kotki, literally kittens, because they remind us of these fluffy animals), first spring flowers, garden cress (rzeżucha) and figures of bunnies (zajączki), chickens (kurczaczki) and a lamb (baranek). Traditionally, they are symbols of new life.
However, not everyone knows (it may be interesting for both foreigners and Polish native speakers) that the coloured eggs have different names depending on the technique used to make them.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN „PISANKA” AND „KRASZANKA”
Pisanki were initially eggs on which the patterns were painted (pisane) with hot wax and which where next put into a homemade dye. Nowadays this name is used to talk about coloured Easter eggs in general.The single coloured eggs are called kraszanki. Traditionally, natural dyes were used to colour them, such as onion skins to get red or bark of young apple trees to get golden colour.
You need to put a lot of effort into making a drapanka, which is made by scraping patterns in the soft layer of the egg shell. Oklejanki are eggs that have been covered with (oklejone) coloured pieces of fabric or yarn. The most challenging and time-consuming, however, are ażurki, which at first glance seem to be made of lace but are actually made from empty egg shells in which fine patterns are cut out.
 |
This is a drapanka of course :) Check out our FB profile for more information on Easter traditions and the Polish language |
No matter what name we call Easter eggs, they are beautiful items decorating Easter tables not only in Poland.
