Boy, this is weird, coming across this post. One of the posters mentions a person named Przybysz. My mother’s grandmother was named Przybysz. And my mother, a typical Pole, pronounced this name (which was apparently Austrian, or something like that) “p’shibish”. Later on, the family called themselves Prysbys, pronounced “priz-beez”. But the name Przybysz always stuck with me. Does anyone else know anyone by this name, and how they pronounce it? I would be interested in knowing.
Btw, my mother was Polish-Austrian. And I am Polish-French-German.
Thank you in advance to all who reply
Btw, I wasn’t exactly sure where to put this post. It is a simple question. But it is also a personal interest thing. So moderators, if I have put it in the wrong forum please accept my apologies and feel free to move it
“p’shibish” is the way it would be pronounced by Polish speakers I knew around Krakow, but the initial p sound is not very strong. It’s strength probably varies from speaker to speaker and perhaps regionally. It’s also pretty hard to hear if, say, you’re an English speaker and not used to hearing consonant clusters like that.
The one exchange studend I knew pronounced it p’shibish.
Well, more like p’shibish really. It’s not really that hard to pronounce these names after you figure out the "z"s are basically "h"s that is… damn Pol’s walks off mumbling.
Yep. PSHIH-bish is how I would say it. The “p” sound is definitely there but, like you said, it may not be obvious if you’re not used to odd consonant clusters like that.
I work with someone whose last name is P-R-Z-Y-B-Y-L. The first syllable is pronounced Prizz, rhyming with fizz. The second syllable is pronounced bull. The accent is just slightly on the first syllable, causing the bull to have just a bit of a mumble to it, moving it about 10% towards sounding like bill.
The problem with names like these, and your example illustrates this, is that the way these names are pronounced here are quite different than the way they are pronounced in the country where the name originates. In Poland, your colleague’s name would be pronounced “PSHIH-bihw” (and also spelled with a slash through the L at the end.)
Once a family comes here and Americanizes the pronunciation, it’s really a free-for-all. You just have to ask the family how they pronounce it, because there’s no guarantee one Przybyl will pronounce their family last name the same as another Przybyl.
My last name, for example, is Pawiński. The Polish pronunciation is something like “pah-VEENy-skee.” Now, there’s no universal pronunciation of this name in English. We settled on “poe-WIN-ski” or “puh-WIN-ski.” People who kinda know Polish may say “puh-VIN-ski” or “puh-VEEN-ski” (there’s an English tendency to schwa the first syllable.) Some folks say “paw-IN-ski” with a very definite “aww” sound on the first syllable.
That said, all of the English pronunciations are different, and none are the Polish pronunciation, so you just have to ask the person his or her preference. One name I always stumble with is the German “Koch.” I know how it’s pronounced in German (kinda like “loch”), but here, it can be “Coke,” “Kotch,” “Cook,” “Cock,” and who knows what else.
“As a group or an individual you have the right to be called whatever you want. Your name can be spelled S-M-I-T-H and pronounced ‘jenovsky’. What’s your name? Jenovsky. How’s that spelled? S-m-i-t-h. What?! They’re all silent, nevermind…”
I remember this name being shown on a tombstone in a “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” cartoon. I guess at one time it was hard to believe the Polish have names like this. In any event, I checked with the Polish-born members of my family, and the pronunciation was as I thought it should be – as zagloba, Jragon, pulykamel all state above.
I could see someone simplifying or even totally distorting the pronunciation to make it seem easier or more familiar to non-Polish speakers. But they’re going to get odd looks from anyone used to Polish if they try out things like “Perzzy Berzzy” or “Priz-bee” or even “Shibish”.
News reports never did get the hang of John Paul II’s real name, Karol Woytyla. And it annoyed me to hear the name of the character “Wojohowitz” pronounced on the old “Barney Miller” show.
I seem to recall that on the Ripley’s TV show, Jack Palance did something on unusual names and the kicker was his using his own real name – Volodymyr Palahniuk.
