Rhymes talk:Polish
@Shumkichi So I'm working on an overhaul of this rhyming dictionary, which has been neglected more than me as a child (I joke). I had a few points I'd like to discuss with you, as my knowledge of poetry and rhyming in Polish is rather limited (orthography too, ha). 1) It seems that historically geminates were treated as rhyming with non geminates, e.g. ucieka lekka. Granted they aren't perfect rhymes, but should we take a more historical approach to this? 2) Along those lines, how about -ą and -o rhyming? Personally I'd rather have them separate. Vininn126 (talk) 13:02, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Vininn126 This is a very good idea, I wanted to do the same, inspired by the well-maintained dictionary of Hungarian rhymes, but I was too lazy. Anyway, since Polish has fixed stress on the penultimate syllable in every single word except for some loanwords, "u-CIE-ka" and "LEK-ka" can be considered rhymes as they are both stressed on the same syllable and end in the same combination of phones but yeah, they aren't perfect rhymes. Do you think we should only have perfect rhymes like "noga"-"Boga"? Hungarian seems to treat every word that ends in the same combination of sounds as rhymes, irrespective of what precedes them which I find quite weird but ok. I'd personally go for perfect rhymes only, Dutch wiktioanry seems to do so. In English, rhymes are dependent on lexical stress, right? It doesn't really apply to Polish. Here you have a random site I Googled that explains how rhymes work in Polish: 1. -ą and -o are not rhymes as -ą at the end of words, when not followed by another word that starts with a fricative or a nasal that -ą could assimilate to, is realised usually as [-ɔm], and -o i just [-ɔ]. I think you meant ę which is completely denasalised at the end of words to [-ɛ] but -ą is not. Shumkichi (talk) 13:34, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Shumkichi Thanks for the link. I've been using wikipedia and this 1970's rhyming dictionary for Mickiewicz I got from Allegro xD Mickiewicz seems to treat them more as near rhymes, but I generally share the opinion we should only have perfect rhymes, as anyone trying to get into Polish poetry will quickly learn what's a near rhyme or not. And as far as -e, -ę, yeah those are going to be in the same entry for sure. Idąc tym tokiem I think we should separate eńka, enka, and ęka rhymes, despite the fact they historically rhyme. Currently I got a spreadsheet where I'm writing out the possible rhymes in cells. Vininn126 (talk) 13:39, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Shumkichi Also that said this book I have is missing some rhymes like ąsz and such, but we can add those as we see them, the important part will be getting the bulk of it in there. Also, adding non-lemmas is gonna be a lot more important now. Vininn126 (talk) 13:42, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Vininn126 Btw., I can see two possible problems: -ą and -ę are not well-defined as phonemes in contemporary Polish. In older Polish, they were just nasal vowels but nowadays, they are phonemes that don't seem to have any dominant allophones that could be considered the standard pronunciation. Some authors say they still should be considered //ɔ̃(w̃)// and //ɛ̃(w̃)// underlyingly for historical reasons but many modern linguists suggest that we should treat both of them as a single phoneme //N// (i.e. unspeciefied nasal) or even //ŋ//. But maybe this is not a problem at all since rhymes are a product of phonetics, not phonemic distinctions. We just must remember that these two letters, no matter if they are a single phoneme or two different phonemes, assimilate to the sounds that surround them, usually in a progressive manner, so that -ą in "wąż" is not the same as in "są". The second problem is whether we treat rhymes as single syllables only or two or even more syllables? "-enka" and "-eńka" both end in "ka" so they could be rhymes if we only focus on the last syllable, or not. Shumkichi (talk) 13:54, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Shumkichi Oh yeah, that's something I'm taking into account. I want to seperate out the nasal sounds and list the assimilations under their own entry, for sure. Vininn126 (talk) 13:57, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Shumkichi I'm going to list i based rhymes and y based rhymes as separate. So skibę and szybę won't rhyme. Vininn126 (talk) 20:22, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- scratch that. I dunno, it seems really unintuitive for me but I guess they rhyme. Vininn126 (talk) 20:58, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Vininn126 /i/ and /ɘ/ are separate phonemes only in open syllables when following a very limited set of consonants, such as nasals (e.g. "my" vs. "mi"). Otherwise, they're non-contrastive and in complementary distribution (so that /i/ doesn't appear after plosives and approximants while /ɘ/ doesn't appear after alveolo-palatal fricatives and affricates or /j/ in native words). "szybę" and "skibę" are imperfect rhymes but since they're both two-syllable words, that's probably why they feel more like rhymes to your ears than longer words. Idk what to do, maybe we could find some official source, some book on Polish poetics or something like that that we could base our definition of a rhyme on? Because while I enjoy literature, I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert in this field. Shumkichi (talk) 21:20, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Shumkichi actually yeah you raise a good point. Most sources list it as /ɨ/ but it sounds more like /ɘ/ to me. But even on this very page there's a special entry for /ɨ/. I remember that historically ы and и rhyme in Russian. This Mickiewicz book I have lists them as rhyming, as does everyone else I ask. I, too, am not an expert. I'm leaning more towards merging them considering that most poetry seems to have them rhyme, in which case we'd delete the other category. Vininn126 (talk) 21:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Vininn126 I'm not sure about Russian but when I listen to Russian words with ы, the sound is definitely much closer to /i/ than the Polish equivalent which sometimes seems to approach your English schwa. Most sourcers I've read say that the sound signified by "y" is in between /ɨ/ and /ɘ/ but closer to the latter. Historically, it was actually realised somewhat like your English /ɪ/, my grandfather who came from historical Galicja had a very noticeable /ɪ/. Since this sound is phonetically very close to cardinal /i/, I'm not surprised they sounded alike to Mickiewicz. Perhaps it has moved closer to the centre of the chart in contemporary Polish so that the two sounds don't sound so similar? Anyway, idk if historical linguistics can be a good point of reference for something so subjective as poetry. Like, if you asked me what a rhyme is, I would actually have trouble explaining it, I've just realised it, lol. Idk if merging /i/ with /ɨ/ is a good idea, though. As I've said, the two vowels are only contrastive in very specific environments but maybe it's enough to treat them as separate categories of rhymes, even if most of them would actually form rhymes? Shumkichi (talk) 21:41, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Shumkichi No no, sorry, what I meant was that the Russian sound, which is indeed /ɨ/, rhymes with /i/. That was a separate point to /ɘ/ sounding not like /ɨ/. Also I've noticed that some Poles still sound like the sound /ɪ/, Bralczyk notably. Also the Pre-war Warsaw dialect used the same sound. But we're getting into a different territory there, albeit an interesting one. So let's keep them separate, sticking to the philosophy of perfect rhymes. This might be an awkward solution, but we could potentially have the rhyme template with two rhymes in it. If that's too clunky, let's just list them separately. Vininn126 (talk) 21:50, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Vininn126 I'm not sure about Russian but when I listen to Russian words with ы, the sound is definitely much closer to /i/ than the Polish equivalent which sometimes seems to approach your English schwa. Most sourcers I've read say that the sound signified by "y" is in between /ɨ/ and /ɘ/ but closer to the latter. Historically, it was actually realised somewhat like your English /ɪ/, my grandfather who came from historical Galicja had a very noticeable /ɪ/. Since this sound is phonetically very close to cardinal /i/, I'm not surprised they sounded alike to Mickiewicz. Perhaps it has moved closer to the centre of the chart in contemporary Polish so that the two sounds don't sound so similar? Anyway, idk if historical linguistics can be a good point of reference for something so subjective as poetry. Like, if you asked me what a rhyme is, I would actually have trouble explaining it, I've just realised it, lol. Idk if merging /i/ with /ɨ/ is a good idea, though. As I've said, the two vowels are only contrastive in very specific environments but maybe it's enough to treat them as separate categories of rhymes, even if most of them would actually form rhymes? Shumkichi (talk) 21:41, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Shumkichi actually yeah you raise a good point. Most sources list it as /ɨ/ but it sounds more like /ɘ/ to me. But even on this very page there's a special entry for /ɨ/. I remember that historically ы and и rhyme in Russian. This Mickiewicz book I have lists them as rhyming, as does everyone else I ask. I, too, am not an expert. I'm leaning more towards merging them considering that most poetry seems to have them rhyme, in which case we'd delete the other category. Vininn126 (talk) 21:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Vininn126 /i/ and /ɘ/ are separate phonemes only in open syllables when following a very limited set of consonants, such as nasals (e.g. "my" vs. "mi"). Otherwise, they're non-contrastive and in complementary distribution (so that /i/ doesn't appear after plosives and approximants while /ɘ/ doesn't appear after alveolo-palatal fricatives and affricates or /j/ in native words). "szybę" and "skibę" are imperfect rhymes but since they're both two-syllable words, that's probably why they feel more like rhymes to your ears than longer words. Idk what to do, maybe we could find some official source, some book on Polish poetics or something like that that we could base our definition of a rhyme on? Because while I enjoy literature, I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert in this field. Shumkichi (talk) 21:20, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- scratch that. I dunno, it seems really unintuitive for me but I guess they rhyme. Vininn126 (talk) 20:58, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Shumkichi I'm going to list i based rhymes and y based rhymes as separate. So skibę and szybę won't rhyme. Vininn126 (talk) 20:22, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Shumkichi Oh yeah, that's something I'm taking into account. I want to seperate out the nasal sounds and list the assimilations under their own entry, for sure. Vininn126 (talk) 13:57, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Vininn126 Btw., I can see two possible problems: -ą and -ę are not well-defined as phonemes in contemporary Polish. In older Polish, they were just nasal vowels but nowadays, they are phonemes that don't seem to have any dominant allophones that could be considered the standard pronunciation. Some authors say they still should be considered //ɔ̃(w̃)// and //ɛ̃(w̃)// underlyingly for historical reasons but many modern linguists suggest that we should treat both of them as a single phoneme //N// (i.e. unspeciefied nasal) or even //ŋ//. But maybe this is not a problem at all since rhymes are a product of phonetics, not phonemic distinctions. We just must remember that these two letters, no matter if they are a single phoneme or two different phonemes, assimilate to the sounds that surround them, usually in a progressive manner, so that -ą in "wąż" is not the same as in "są". The second problem is whether we treat rhymes as single syllables only or two or even more syllables? "-enka" and "-eńka" both end in "ka" so they could be rhymes if we only focus on the last syllable, or not. Shumkichi (talk) 13:54, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Shumkichi Also that said this book I have is missing some rhymes like ąsz and such, but we can add those as we see them, the important part will be getting the bulk of it in there. Also, adding non-lemmas is gonna be a lot more important now. Vininn126 (talk) 13:42, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Shumkichi Thanks for the link. I've been using wikipedia and this 1970's rhyming dictionary for Mickiewicz I got from Allegro xD Mickiewicz seems to treat them more as near rhymes, but I generally share the opinion we should only have perfect rhymes, as anyone trying to get into Polish poetry will quickly learn what's a near rhyme or not. And as far as -e, -ę, yeah those are going to be in the same entry for sure. Idąc tym tokiem I think we should separate eńka, enka, and ęka rhymes, despite the fact they historically rhyme. Currently I got a spreadsheet where I'm writing out the possible rhymes in cells. Vininn126 (talk) 13:39, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @BigDom Actually this just occurred to me. Would there be any way to write a bot or something that could count the syllables and automatically add a word if we just add the template on the lemma? Vininn126 (talk) 19:51, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Vininn126 I'm afraid I don't know the first thing about bots. Might be worth asking over at the Grease Pit. BigDom 19:56, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
- @BigDom No worries thought I'd just ask. I'll ask on the discord. Vininn126 (talk) 20:06, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
@Shumkichi Starting a new "thread" with updates. 1) Went to the grease pit with a few other editors in an attempt to automate the udpating of the rhyming dictionary. 2) depending on the outcome of this dicsussion, we still might have to make the actual rhyme pages themselves. I might add my current list to my sandbox later if you want to take a look (I finished for the most part cataloging this Mickiewicz rhyme dictionary, it's not complete but it's a huge start. I just have to add IPA. 3) I was thinking about systematically figuring out rhymes like over at the Hungarian rhyme dictionary but Polish medial and final consonant cluster are just too damn complex. So we'll have to add missing rhymes as we see them. Also I think we should put something at the entry page for the Polish rhyming dictionary explaining that i/y based words historically rhyme, as well as o-ą (i know it seems weird but if you look at poetry you'll see that they do), and that we're also deciding to split nk, ńk, and (Nasal)k (and the g counterparts), and that we decided to split all of these for the sake of documenting perfect rhymes. Also you'll notice that most rhymes are two syllables - perhaps we could systematically figure out all 1 syllable rhymes. Vininn126 (talk) 17:01, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
@Shumkichi, BigDom Okay. I made what rhymes I had. I know I'm missing more, but we can start adding rhymes. I might use zakonczone.pl/ to just go ahead and get a bunch of words to add them that way, but as you edit, go ahead and add the rhyme. The way it works is you use the last two syllables in IPA, no stress marks, no syllable dots, just the sounds. Also we added a ʲj to words like "szybkie" (so that would be ɨpkʲjɛ). If there's a missing rhyme we can add it. P.S. Most of these will be much more sparesly populated as they are inflected forms. Vininn126 (talk) 12:45, 13 August 2021 (UTC)