Polish Learning Community and Resources

Polish Proverbs

A Polish proverb says “przysłowia są mądrością narodu” – proverbs are the wisdom of the nation because it is considered that proverbs, which very often are specific to a given nation and are able to capture, in very few words the traditional wisdom. Yes, today we’re going to talk about some Polish proverbs.

I believe I don’t need to tell anyone what proverbs are, right? It’s one of those elements of our languages and cultures that is so deeply rooted that mostly we’re not able to identify its origins or figure out its actual meaning. Needless to say, it is just impossible to find out when they entered our languages. The oldest proverbs in Polish come from the Middle Ages (remember the blog post about the history of the Polish language? This should come as no surprise!). The oldest recorded Polish proverb was written down in 1407 in a mix between Latin and Polish: quando sø lika drø, tunc ea drzi, in Modern Polish: kiedy się łyka drą, wtedy je drzyj. In English: when the bast fiber is torn, then tear it, which could be an equivalent of “strike while the iron is still hot”. This proverb, however, must’ve been forgotten because I’ve never heard it before!

As in any other language, Polish proverbs touch on various aspects of human life and use a wide range of themes, nature being probably the most prominent - the vast majority of folk proverbs talk about the weather, months and agriculture but these are used mostly in the countryside, where they are closely linked to the cultivation of the land. In this blog post I am going to share some of the proverbs that I consider the most common, here they are:

Nie chwal dnia przed zachodem słońca

Literally means: “Don't praise the day before sunset” and its closest English equivalent would be “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” – the message here is to not celebrate or be overly confident until we are absolutely sure that everything goes as planned.

A very similar one is:

Nie mów „hop”, póki nie przeskoczysz

Or, literally: “Don't say 'up', before you’ve jumped”, basically don't boast or don’t say that something’s done before you actually do it, you never know!

A very common one:

Kiedy wszedłeś między wrony, musisz krakać jak i one which translates to “When among the crows, caw as the crows do” which in turn, you’ve guessed that, has the well-known English equivalent: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. This proverb teaches us to adapt – very useful for those, like you, who spend a long time surrounded by different cultures, sometimes the best way to adapt is to simply imitate the behaviour of those around you!

Finally, one of my favourites: 

Szewc bez butów chodzi, its English translation is simply: The shoemaker goes barefoot. It simply means that those who work hard very often neglect their own needs.

These are, of course, very few examples, there are hundreds more Polish proverbs that are more or less common and I will be happy to share more of them with you in my future blog posts. Now off to you – do any of these sound familiar to you? Do you have similar proverbs in your language? Share them with me on the forums!