#I love the idea of ranking typological features for no other reason than vibes.

[meichenxi]

Hello!! Tell me what you think about Polish 😊

hiiiiii karo!!!

SO. I am fairly ignorant about Slavic languages in general - I have never learnt any and I don't have imminent plans to.

given that I know relatively little - let me go on wikipedia and RATE POLISH for typological features I PERSONALLY find very sexy.

(for legal reasons, all languages have intrinsic value, this is just for fun, and I know very little about polish. my opinions hold no weight and that's ~just fine~)

'characterised by a high degree of inflection, and has relatively free word order' >>>>> VERY sexy objectively speaking, cases are sexy, the ability to put random words in random places to mean slightly different things is very sexy 10/10 would go home with probably

'dominant arrangement is subject-verb-object' >>> hmm very averagely Indo-European, 5/10

'frequent dropping of subject pronouns' >>>> this means I assume that if there's relatively free word order that the verb endings are distinct enough. I'm assuming there is NOT the same tolerance for ambiguity as in chinese (lmao) so this bodes well!!! all cool people hate obligatory subject pronouns, so 11/10

'vowel alternations which cause vowel changes in some words depending on whether the syllable is closed or open...' >>>> EXCELLENT FUCKING. YESSS. no further comments 9/10

'consonant changes....now produce a number of different changes depending on which consonant is involved' >>>>> Ohhhhhhhh we love a good bit of fossilised grammar from a previous stage in the language!!!!! conservatively going to go for 100/10

'it retains seven cases' >>>>> YESSSSSSSSSSS *sicko meme* haha....yess......1000000/10

'singular and plural; it used to have dual' >>>>> very indo-european, points for effort, like the synchronically irregular plural but COULD 5/10

'there are three cases that always have the same ending in the plural, regardless of gender or declension class' >>>>> you better keep a fucking EYE on that syncretism!!! we don't want your nouns going the way of the old english!!!

dative plural -om!!!!!! instrumental plura -ami or -mil!!!!!! hello my old indo-european friends!!!! so good to see a familiar face in my time of need!!!!! loses two points for predictability, but 8/10 for those nostalgic proto-indo-european vibes

oh I am So intrigued by this. a THREE WAY animacy distinction??? but only in the masculine???? what, and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck. and for EVERY plural to collapse into a generic non-personal-masculine category and be exactly the same (te)!!!!! also hiiii to neuter nominative and accusative being the same, waving at my other little indo-european friends across the table <3

(after spending time doing Weird indo-european languages like scottish gaelic i.e. ones that really don't....do typical indo-european things, and then languages like chinese....it is so immensely comforting to look at an inflection table of a language I have never studied in a language FAMLY I have never studied and go...hm. that looks familiar.)

I'm also very intrigued by the nom. plural masculine personal demonstrative 'ci'. I don't know enough about polish orthography + phonology to know but...is this an expected pronunciation change? like is it because of the vowel / palatalisation? how would 'ti' be pronounced? or is this properly suppletive?? (i.e. is it a word that originally came from a different source and has sort of Snuck its way in?) if so YES ALL my homies love suppletion

Absolutely 100000/10, and this is ONLY nominative and accusative. what a stonker of an ability to inflect!!! I am SO curious!!

this is getting SPICY!

'emotionally charged nicknames' >>>> this is even better than the german 'some rivers'. 16/10 polish can have that point.

but also I'm going to take away some points for predictability. oh?? your masculine nouns end in a consonant??? you can KNOW that? boring 4/10

.....I take it back. it's pure chaos. 16/10 once again.

Ok, it's FAR too late for me to unpack all of these delicious animacy treats, but....my gosh!!!!! I think this has to be my favourite thing so far. I LOVE animacy, and the personal / animate distinction here is fascinating to me. the idea of elevating objects to animate that have something to do with human activity / beloved objects is fairly common with what I know of animacy in general.

'it is common for personal masculine nouns to change gender to inanimate to create semantic neologisms' >>> OHHHHH this is EXTREMELY cool and makes total sense. an editor = not a person, but a thing that edits = becomes inanimate to showcase that difference in meaning. EXCUSE ME 5000000/10, extremely cool.

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that's it for now - thank you Karo and thank you Polish for this wild ad wonderful cornucopia of delights!! I am not likely to learn it soon, but I may spend some more time pouring over the wiki page. the stuff about animacy is FASCINATING.

thank you!!!

#polish #please do not bully me this is so far outside my sphere of knowledge #I am just reacting to what I read. if there is controversy or disagreement I Do Not Know Of It #thanks karo!!!! #will get to the other languages tomorrow~ #I love the idea of ranking typological features for no other reason than vibes. #yes I love suppletion. no I will not elaborate #linguistics #I guess??? lmao