LINGUIST List 12.2427

Mon Oct 1 2001

Qs: British Eng Lang Change, "Welcome"/Polish

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Dokis, British English Language Change Survey
2. Michael Johnstone, Polish word(s) for "Welcome"

Hello!

We are students of English linguistics at the University of Dresden,
Germany. We are carrying out a project on 'British English language and
its changes', in which we want to explore, how aware people are of
language change, what changes have been noticed and how people think
about these changes. By filling out the following questionnaire you will
help us find out more about this topic.
 
It is under the following web-page
http://www.activefeedback.com/af/user/form.cfm?formid=43058026
 
 
Thank you very much for your help.
Mandy and Kerstin
 
 
 

Dear all,

I was recently helping to welcome new students to the university, and as
part of this we produce a booklet of useful information which for many
years has had "Welcome" in several languages on the front cover.

Then a 2nd generation Polish immigrant, who said he could speak but not
write Polish, came and told me that the Polish word - "Witajcie" - was
incorrect, or rather, it was a literal translation of the imperative of
'to welcome'. Instead he said we should use "Witamy".

However, I did a quick search for these words on www.google.com, and both
seemed to be used to say "Welcome to X", as far as I could tell. I'd be
very grateful if someone could explain the morphology of these two words
and what the distinction is between them - is it just a matter of style or
something syntactic? I'll post a summary, of course. Thank you,

Michael Johnstone (Dept of Lings, Univ of Cambridge)
mjj1000cam.ac.uk