Why is kielbasa pronounced "koo-basa"? And what's a "keeshka", anyway?

[pulykamell]

@Indistinguishable

I think you’ve got it backwards, as Johanna points out. Though, of course, some instances of the Polish ‘Ł’ might be rendered as ‘L’ by those not aware of the difference or without access to the means to use the right character.

Yeah, that was backwards…I missed it on first read. English “L” and Polish “L” are basically the same. It’s the slash-L that gets the English “w” pronunciation.

[pulykamell]

@Johanna

I just learned an interesting fact from WP - the word is derived from Turkish külbastı. Growing up in Cleveland, I heard the Polish-Americans mispronouncing it “kolbasi” - they had a humorous song about it, “I Like Kolbasi”. I just found out that’s a Germanization of the word.

Interesting. I think “kolbasi” (or some other spelling for the final “i”) would also be the correct Russian plural for “sausage,” as “kolbasa” is the Russian for sausage.

[Scumpup]

Kishka, as my family makes it, is basically pig blood and buckwheat stuffed into natural sausage casing (intestine). Some Ukranian Jews make a kosher form of kishka by mixing buckwheat and chicken fat and stuffing into the neck skin from the chicken.

[Johanna]

@pulykamell

Interesting. I think “kolbasi” (or some other spelling for the final “i”) would also be the correct Russian plural for “sausage,” as “kolbasa” is the Russian for sausage.

колбасы - Thanks, that explains it.