International Journal of Philology

The article presents Ukrainian and/or Russian borrowings used by Poles living in a small petty nobility village in Zhytomyr region in Ukraine in comparison with some other Polish dialects in the same territory. There are excerpted and analyzed 121 borrowed words divided into several thematic groups: “General notions” – e.g. budzień ‘workday’, nazad ‘back’, semia ‘family’; “Person and his characteristics” – e.g. durny ‘foolish, stupid, silly’, harny ‘nice, beautiful’, Kacap ‘of Russian nationality’, pjanica ‘drunkard’; “Activities and physical condition” – e.g. rozpowiadać ‘to tell’, wzuć się ‘to put on one’s shoes’, otdychiwać ‘to have a rest’; “Feelings, emotions and behaviour” – e.g. przezierać ‘to despise, disdain’, swarzyć się ‘to argue, quarrel’, wołnować się ‘to worry about’; “Food, dishes and kitchenware” – e.g. hreczka ‘buckwheat’, deruny ‘potato pancakes’, kastrulka ‘saucepan’; “State, administration and policy” – e.g. pensja ‘retirement’, partiejny ‘belonging to a party’, bryhadir ‘brigadier’. Among the borrowings words of Ukrainian origin prevail – there are 59 of them, i.e. about 49%; there are 42 lexical units of possible Ukrainian and/or Russian origin, i.e. about 35%, and 20 lexemes of strictly Russian origin, i.e. 16%. The comparison with other Polish dialects in Ukraine showed that out of 121 analyzed words 91 words are known and used also in other neighbouring settlements, what constitutes 75%. The most similarities – 59 words, i.e. about 49%, have been noted with the petty nobility dialect of Siaberka and peasant Oleshkivtsi and Hrechany

Polish in Ukraine; petty nobility; peasant; borrowing