The Polish language, like most others, has swear words and profanity. Some words are not always seen as very insulting, however, there are others that are considered by some greatly offensive and rude. Words that might be considered most derogatory, based on multiple sources,[1][2][3] are not necessarily a general and have not been decided upon in a more definite manner.[4]
There are different types of swearing (as coined by Steven Pinker): abusive, cathartic, dysphemistic, emphatic and idiomatic.[5][6]
The Polish language uses all types of swearing mentioned. Research has shown that "Polish people hear profanity more often in a public space than in a private space".[7] 65% of surveyed adults said they have sworn due to emotions and only 21% claimed they never swore.[7]
The CBOS (Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej; The Center for Public Opinion Research) has done surveys to examine the use of profanity. In the research report, it was pointed out that information given about the private sector might not be accurate, as it is a protected and idealized space, meaning that the subjects of the survey could be downplaying or changing their answers providing a false report.[8]
Linguist Jerzy Bralczyk calculated that there are only five basic vulgarisms in Polish. These are "cock" (chuj), "cunt" (pizda), "fuck" (pierdolić, jebać) and "whore/shit/fuck" (kurwa). The rest are combinations of these five, derived words and phraseological relationships. New vulgarisms appear when new word configurations are created or their semantic context changes.[9] The dictionary of real Polish gives four words in 350 configurations, including the word "shit" in 47 functions.[10]
Numerous studies have been done to examine the way that profanity is used in everyday life situations as well as online. No studies give a definite answer as to whether vulgarity is more common online or not and has proved to be a difficult topic to study as it can change with time as well.[25] One such study looked at different internet forums: one that was an open discussion, a closed discussion, and a social networking site. An open discussion allowed for the most anonymity while the other two conditions required some form of the users identifying themselves. The study found that users often used vulgar expressions criticized other users arguments in the discussions, attacked the users directly or used that language to insult a larger group. At times it is also just used as a way for users to express their general frustrations.[25]
It is said that profanity started being used in songs around the late 1970s and into the 1980s in Poland. It was a response to the state of the country at the time. The youth used vulgar expressions to show their frustrations.[26] Though songs that used such language would not be presented in the mass media, works with profanities more often circulated within communities.[26] This censorship caused for more creative ways of expressing frustrations which lead to a faster development of Polish rock in the 1980s, which became quite popular and influential. Nowadays profanity is also used in more mainstream media at times. Polish pop music does not appear to have as much use of profanity as Polish rap music does. Movies of different genres also use profanity at times.
A number of words in the Polish lexicon have been borrowed from foreign languages and used with similar meanings. There are several profane words or expressions that have been borrowed from other languages. One such word would be MILF. Borrowed from the English language, it means exactly what it does in its original context. The use of the abbreviation "WTF", as in "what the fuck" can also be used in Polish profanity. The noun "swołocz" is a borrowing from the Russian "сволочь". Some profanities have been borrowed from German and transcribed phonetically according to their pronunciation, e.g. "szajs" was derived from the German "Scheiße" which carries the same meaning as the Polish word. The appearance of this word in the Polish lexicon could be attributed to the historical partition of Poland where the country was occupied by its neighbors which tended to suppress the use of Polish language and enforce the use of theirs.
