Shifting Sounds

I no longer inwardly fume and outwardly decry the seven cases of Polish grammar, nor the rules and the exceptions of basic noun declension that derive from them. After fifteen months of exposure I’ve come to believe that in the score of years biblically remaining to me, a diligent person could achieve a reasonable, even relatively supple, grasp of their workings. After all, there are only seven cases, WHEREAS, in the Locative Case alone, twenty sound shifts occur. And what I mean by sound shifts is that in addition to remembering the appropriate endings by case, gender, and number (there are 5 endings), the ending itself can cause a shift in the sound of the consonant ending the noun stem. For example, one of the two standard endings for masculine singular nouns is e. But the e ending requires a sound shift, a “softening” of all hard consonants, which number 20. For example, the locative of kot (“cat”) would seem perfectly pronounceable to the English tongue as kote, “KOT-ay.” But this would be far too simple. Instead, Polish “softens” the t to a c and adds ie: kocie, “KO-chiej.” Admittedly, eight of the consonantal shifts require only an additional i before the e, an i which audibly, even visibly, softens the likes of p, b, f, w, m, s, z, and n to the American ear and perhaps even the eye. But what of r? It softens not with an i, but with a … any guesses, correct! How did you know? A z! The locative of biuro (“office”) is biurze, “byOR-zhe.” As if biurie were not soft and euphonious enough—which it is, btw.  And the velar g softens to … dze; k to c, pronounced, by the way as “ts.” As I reflect upon my making peace with the case system in Polish, I suspect that it has something to do with my emerging frustration with shifting sounds, just as a new and barbarous nemesis makes an honorable and worthy ally of an immediate previous nemesis.

Our instructor no longer refers to the regularity and mathematical precision of Polish. In some deep, historico-linguistic analysis the logic of the linguistic structure may be true and clear, or at least arguable, but to us, the heritage learner, the rules of Polish grammar seem just a little of rhyme with no reason, a bit of reason, but rhymeless. Learning Polish is like life: we have hopes (mam nadzieje) that it will all make sense at some point in the distant future, that it will not only be comprehensible, but comprehensible to me. We have glimmerings of its possible orderliness, assurances of its order with frank confessions of its disorderliness and exceptionality. We choose to persevere because, really, there is little choice. And tonight I realize, having just had my ass kicked by the quiz on Locative Case, that learning Polish isn’t a metaphor for life: just now it is life, or a large part of it.

All Souls

All Souls Day this week, Zaduszki, and All Saints, though I have less to do with them—and they with me. The souls, however, the old, the dead and the lost, are my preferred company; they’re quiet, wistful, wise, and don’t eat a lot. The Poles observe, even celebrate All Souls, with food and fire in the cemeteries in a way little imaginable in the squeamish U.S. A candlelight picnic among the tombs and stones would seem morbid here. Sources infer, and I’m happy to believe, in the holiday’s pagan origins: food to appease the dead and candles to light their way elsewhere, redirect their wandering. I’ve lighted my own candle here in the study, and Joanna Koslowska, soprano, calls out now on CD to the composer himself, Henryk Gorecki, lately enrolled among the souls. The somberly perfect start to November, listopad, the month of the fallen leaves.

Our third quiz returned Tuesday night, the class spent All Saints eating pizza and watching Andrzej Wajda’s film version of Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz. I’d forgotten most of the story line, having read a translation some years ago and not followed it terribly well in translation. The Wajda viewed excellently, refreshed my memory, and renewed my love of all language not grammar. How I miss literature.

Poland has distinguished itself on two counts this week. A LOT pilot succeeded in belly-landing a Boeing 767 with 230 passengers after the landing gear failed to deploy. I was reminded of my second trip to Poland, in which my LOT seatmate, more or less out of the blue, complimented Polish airmanship as second to none. I was not aware that it had been questioned. I was not aware that Poland had had a particularly illustrious flight tradition. The heavy cavalry, the husaria, were magnificently winged, but they never actually took flight. And Sikorski, the WWII president in exile, became the namesake of a helicopter. At any rate, Poland has produced a hero, and, also noteworthy, the most successful economy for growth in Europe in these troubled times. No joke.