AboutMaciej St. Zięba Expertise I am native Polish and I used to teach Polish to foreigners. I know (passively of actively) more than 15 other languages - so I can answer many questions concerning Polish grammar, pronounciation, spelling, ethymology and usage - as compared to English, French, German, Russian, Dutch, Esperanto or Norwegian. Also questions concerning other Slavic languages, Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, or general linguistics, especially scripts (writing systems and transcriptions) - are welcome.
Experience Teaching English and French to Poles, Polish to foreigners, teaching Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan to philosophy students.
Question We have some difficult street names here in Hawaii, but surely, one of the names that even long time residents cannot agree on is right here in Mountain View, Hawaii. It is "Pszyk Road"
Some say "Size-zek" some say "Pizz-ek" What is your opinion? Thank you so much!
Answer Dear Donna
Pszyk is a Polish surname.
The word should be pronounced [PSHICK] - one syllable, no vowel between p and sz, Polish sz corresponds to English sh, Polish y corresponds to English short i.
Could you, as a reply to this answer of mine, tell me:
How come it has become a name of one of the streets in Hawaii?
Best regards
MAciej
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FOLLOW UP
The streets around this particular area of Mountain View (formerly called Ola'a "Oh Lah Ah") are named after families who lived in the area circa 1920's. Other street names are also named with family surnames: Oshiro Road for the Japanese family that had a donkey ranch and later a bus business. This family had several sons and I mention it only because it is amusing: When the sons grew up, one son became known as "Bus Oshiro" and the other unfortunately, "Donkey Oshiro." The street down from that is Canney Road, named after a family, just as Pszyk Road is named after a family. The names of the streets were not actual street names, but just told who lived on that street. Most of the street names here are Hawaiian names with meaning, not surnames. My own street name in the area, for example, is Kulani Road but this street is relatively new when compared to Pszyk, Oshiro, and Canney Roads up about a mile from us. Those areas were residential, where Kulani Road is relatively newly developed, having once been thick with sugarcane, and which continues to sprout patches of sugarcane today. In contrast, Pszyk is a heavily forested area, as are Oshiro, and Canney.
It seems that Pszyk is a relatively rare name, even in Poland, so we, here in Mountain View, Hawaii, a still rural community, are lucky to have had this person settle here long enough to establish a road which was identified as the way to his home. Sadly, there is no Pszyk surname listed in the State of Hawaii today.
Thank you so much for clarifying the correct pronunciation of this name. After you explained it, I recalled a young woman who lives on Canney Street telling me that her mother said the correct pronunciation of Pszyk is indeed "Shick." I had forgotten that, since the overwhelming majority call it "Pizzeck" or even "The one that starts with P and is all consonents!"
ANSWER:
Thanks for all the fascinating information about the custom of naming streets in Hawaii, the facts really unknown to me until now. Although I have to admit that this way of naming places (not really streets, but rather hills, small forests, ponds, etc.) after the owner or inhabitant is not unknown to rural Poland as well, although it is not prevailing. It was rather the whole villages that were named after the owner, especially the girl, the daughter of a nobleman, who has obtained the village (with the land and the peasants who lived there and were supposed to work for her) as her wedding portion or dowry.
As far as the pronounciation concerned, letter "y" in Polish is NEVER considered a consonant. It is a vowel (as it is in fact in English, most of the time). I understand that the pronounciation "shick" was due to the English tendency to drop the "p" before a "s"-like sound (like in "psychology"), and that when people do not understand that "sz" is a letter cluster analogous to English "sh", they don't know what to do about it. In Polish we have more such clusters:
sz => English sh (like in ship)
cz => English ch (like in church)
rz => English zh (like in Brezhnev, or like s in leisure)
dz => English j, dg (like in judge)
Thank you also for the nice words of your comment. The only point is that I am "he" not "she" - see http://www.kul.pl/maciej.st.zieba for a picture of mine. But never mind it. If you learn one day who were these Mr and Mrs Pszyk (Pszyk family) after whom the street is named, when did they come to your town, wherefrom, and how did they dispappear (averybody died without children?, emigrated elsewhere - where to?), please let me know by adding a follow-up to this question and the answer (or else use the KONTAKT link at my website). Even after several months or years I will still obtain your answer.
Hoping to hearing from you again,
Best regards
MAciej
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QUESTION: Dr. St. Zieba, my apologies for the error in gender! Your given name is another first for me, how wonderful. Again, thank you so much.
ANSWER: Dear Donna, Polish "Maciej" corresponds to English "Mathias". And it is pronounced [MAH-chay], "ah" as "a" in "father", "ay" as in "May", the first syllable stressed.
