"Styczeń, luty, marzec"
Translation:January, February, March
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What do the names of the days and months in Polish actually mean? In the Germanic and Romance languages they are mostly derived from classical gods or heroes like Julius Caesar - have they any such meaning in Polish?
At least half of them are derived from words that are almost not used at all in modern, everyday language. Those that are most... 'clear' would be:
April = Kwiecień - from "kwiat", meaning flower
July = Lipiec - from "lipa" known as the linden tree
August = Sierpień - from "sierp", the sickle used while working in the field
November = Listopad - the time when liście (leaves) (s)padają (fall).
Those are the similar to ukrainian ones, what about luty? In Ukrainian лютий(lutyj) is also name of the same month, but it is a word that means angry(somewhat archaic) or strong(about weather, mostly about frost).
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I remember that my first Polish teacher explained luty as the word for the coldest month, too. The German Wiktionary explains styczeń as being related to some proto-Slavic word with the meaning "the time when you cut the trees": https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/stycze%C5%84
"s(j)eći" is still used across ex-Yugoslavian republics and it means "to be cutting" (it's an imperfective verb). Also, January in Croatian is "siječanj" (read like s-ijeczań).
It's also interesting how the same month names changed their meaning in South-Slavic and West-Slavic languages :D "Listopad" is October in Croatian, and previously in Serbian and Macedonian, while being November in Polish and Czech, etc. Interesting stuff :D
The big count of Polish names of month came from Ukraine. I dont know about Polish meanings but can tell you about some of Ukrainian. I think it can help you.
March -березень - the month when береза(Birch) is awaking from winter sleep
May - травень - the month when трава(grass) is green fresh and young
June - червень -the month when червець ( cochineal bug) appear
September - вересень - the month when верес(heather) blooms
October - жовтень - the month when leaves are comming yellow(жовтими)
December - грудень - the month when грудки(pieces of hard cold earth) were in the earth
They should actually ranmdomize the sequence of the months and weeks because otherwise I can just use logic to determine which means which and get them right. I obviously would put extra effort but I don't know it feels kind of tempting when you hear the rewarding sound at the end of a trumpet. Please RNG the dates.
