Laughter in Dialect: The Sharp Wit of Silesian Folk Anecdotes

paciorki_jednego_rozanca_kutz_fototeka_12.jpg, default, ‘The Beads of One Rosary’, still featuring Marta Straszna and Augustyn Halotta, dir. Kazimierz Kutz, 1979, photo: National Film Archive / fototeka.fn.

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Anecdotes, humoresques, and inside jokes of local communities comprise a whole separate chapter in the golden book of folk traditions. They’re unique for their undeniable comedic value, their simple, sometimes crude humour, and the magnificent, lusciously authentic dialect. In this particular case, it’s the Silesian dialect, thanks to which the sayings cited below sparkle with one of a kind local colour.

Augustyn Feliks Halotta, a brilliant Silesian amateur actor, starring, for instance, in The Beads of One Rosary by Kazimierz Kutz, has proven himself to be an equally interesting writer. At the end of his book Śląskie Bery, Bojki i Opowiastki z Dawnych Lat (Silesian Beras [Sil. Anecdotes], Bojkas [Sil. Stories], and Tales of Old), he makes an appeal to

pass on to the young generations all our tales, beras, and bojkas of old, which have never been written down but only passed on through word of mouth from generation to generation. This way, we’ll plant in the minds of the young at least a little of that patriotism – which they need like flowers in a meadow need the morning dew, because with no patriotism, a person becomes empty like an unbuttered potato.

In deciphering the lesser known dialectal expressions, one could use the help of a glossary, enclosed below our selection of anecdotes. We focused on the most concise ones, following the advice of Stanisław Ligoń, an excellent Silesian writer, painter, actor, director, and expert on Silesian folklore. In his Bery i Bojki Śląskie (Silesian Beras and Bojkas), Ligoń formulates the rules that the tellers of jokes ought to follow:

Each jokester must realise three things about his riveting art, namely:
1. The joke has to be short, bite-sized.
2. It has to be told in a fun way.
3. And the ending has to be unexpected.

‘The Beads of One Rosary’, directed by Kazimierz Kutz, in the photo: Augustyn Feliks Halotta, 1979, photo: National Film Archive / fototeka.gn.org.pl

To see our introduction through to the end, we shall cite a distinction proposed by Stanisław Ligoń. Even though it seems more applicable to a living oral tradition than to textual transcription, it’s nevertheless worth mentioning, if only as a memento for those creating the culture of the spoken word, or perhaps as an inspiration for their listeners.
There are four kinds of the so-called tellers of jokes, namely:

1. The jokester always keeps his wordhole serious and composed, while those who listen burst into belly-shaking laughter.
2. The joke-tellers laughs, and so do those who listen. [Śmieje się ten, kiery łosprowio i ci, kierzy go słuchajom.]
3. The joke-teller chortles like a horse, or like a naked man among nettles, while those who listen lower their heads morosely and don’t utter a word.
4. The listeners grab stools, bottles, glasses or other, heavier items and throw them at the joke-teller.
Before the accessories listed above change their place (or not), let’s give the floor to the Silesian dialect, trusting that it won’t disappoint.

Before they wed

‘You see, honey’, says Jola Dugaj to her young man, Giynek Pieles, ‘after we wed, I’ll share all your sorrows and all your offences.’
Giynek responds, ‘I, thank God, have neither sorrows nor offences.’
‘Yes, that’s why I said: after we wed.’

A tempting offer

After the May Day parade, Gliwice, 1959, photo: Stefan Kraszewski / Polish Press Agency (PAP)

‘Stazyjka, my sweet flower, the weather’s beautiful, the sun’s shining, walk with me to the forest.’
‘No, I’m not going to the forest with you. You might do me harm there.’
‘But I swear, my dearest, I won’t do you any harm.’
‘Then why would we even go there?’

Still cheerful

I meet the overjoyed Gyniek Pieles on the street. I ask him about the reason for all this joy. Gyniek says:
‘Mr Józek, I’m getting married.’
‘What’s that? Have you gone mad? Why?’
‘Well, because I want my wife to close my eyes after I die.’
‘Is that so? I, my friend, have had three wives already, but all that did was open my eyes, oh, did they open my eyes!’

Nonbeliever

‘Irenka, my girl. Tell me, why won’t you accept Francik? He’s such a handsome and wise boy.’
‘Well, yes, mummy! He’s a pretty boy for sure, but you know, such a nonbeliever. I once fought with him when he said there’s no hell.’
‘Come on, come on. Such a trifle. When you wed, before he’ll have lived with you a few months, he’ll start to believe in hell, oh, he will!’

At the airport

A plane ready for take-off stands at the Katowice airport. The passengers start boarding.
‘Stop’, a mechanic shouts. ‘There’s a hole in the fuel tank. It’ll take an hour or so to fix it.’
‘An hour’s delay?’, moaned a passenger. ‘Then I won’t catch my connection from Poznań to Szczecin at 3:00, and my wedding’s at 5:00!’
Then the mechanic approaches the passenger and asks:
‘Wasn’t it you, then, who made the hole in the tank?’

On a train

On a train going to Chebzie, where they assemble tytki [paper bags], there’s a young gal. She could even be pretty, but there’s too much plasterwork on her face, her hair styled into a multitude of tiny waves, and her clothes have giant flowers on them.
Francek and Paulek are sitting opposite her. They’re looking at her, whispering between themselves, finally Francik comments:
‘I like flour, but in bread!’
Paulek doesn’t want to stay behind and says:
‘I like waves, but on the sea.’
And our girl only smiles and responds:
‘And I like apes, but in a cage.’

Between spouses

‘The Beads of One Rosary’, directed by Kazimierz Kutz, 1979, photo: National Film Archive / fototeka.gn.org.pl

‘Oh! I was a complete ass when I was marrying you!’
‘You are right, sweetheart. And I was so in love I didn’t even notice.’

From all the thinking

‘Francek, where did the bruise on your forehead come from? Damn! So purple, green, yellow…’
Froncek says:
‘You know, from all the thinking.’
‘Come on, give me a break! No one has ever gotten a bruise from thinking.’
‘Right! But I thought my old woman was coming home tomorrow, and she came home yesterday.’

About a hair

A man comes home from work and sits at the table, waiting for his wife to serve him dinner.
The woman quickly and gracefully serves her man, starting, as always, with soup.
But the man finds a hair in the soup. He gets all gruff and says:
‘What the hell’s up with your cooking?’
‘What do you mean, what? It’s the same as always.’
‘But there’s a hair in the soup. Can’t you tie your kerchief around your head, or what?’
‘A hair in the soup, my dear? My hair? But my dear, before the wedding you would’ve devoured me whole and entire, and now you don’t even want a hair of mine?’

A wise man

‘Antek, where are you going?’
‘Marika, my dear, remember, a wise woman never asks her old man where he’s going.’
‘So are you saying’, responds Marika, ‘that a wise man doesn’t ask his old woman where she’s going, either?’
‘I think’, Antek says, ‘that a wise man never marries.’

A button

‘Małgoś! God damn, what should I do? I’ve swallowed a shirt button.’
‘Well, that’s good. At least now you’ll know where you put it!’

At a concert

Mr and Mrs Tomanek are sitting at a concert. Suddenly, Mrs Tomanek prods her old man in the chest and says:
‘Are you seeing this? The one over there is actually asleep!’
To which Mr Tomanek only grunts:
‘Why’d you wake me for such a silly reason!’

At the doctor’s office

Lidia Pieleska at the doctor’s office:
‘Doctor, please, would you be so kind as to advise me what to do so that my Sztefan stops talking in his sleep so much?’
‘Tell you what, Mrs Pieleska. Let him get a word in edgewise during the day, and he won’t talk at night in his sleep.’

The wife’s wish

A woman was ailing in her old age, she was ailing badly. One day, she tells her husband:
‘You know what, my man? I want to ask you one thing. Please, swear on all that’s holy. I know you’re young, younger than I am, you’ll probably remarry, but you have to promise me that when I die, your next wife won’t wear my dresses. Please, remember. Otherwise I’ll come back to haunt you. I’ll haunt her alright!’
The man responds:
‘Alright, I’ll swear.’
He lifts his hand, raises two fingers, and says: ‘I swear to all that’s holy that my new woman won’t wear your dresses, because she’s much taller and plumper than you.’

Just two

The foreman asks Pultok, a young miner, how many children he’s got. He says he’s got two. The steiger comments, surprised:
‘A man as huge as a bear and just two children?’
To which Pultok responds:
‘But I may have more yet, I’ve only been married two weeks.’

A stork

‘My son, wouldn’t you like to see your new sister, whom a stork brought this morning?’
‘No, daddy. I’d rather see the stork!’

A prudent girl

‘Asia! Aren’t you ashamed? You’re already thirteen, and you can’t even spell your own last name correctly!’
‘And what’s the use?’, retorts Asia. ‘In a few years, I’ll marry, and I’ll have a new one anyway.’

Example

After spanking Wicek, dad lectures him:
‘You should be ashamed, son! You obey no one, you keep misbehaving. Well-behaved children always follow their fathers’ example!’
‘And did your daddy beat you?’
‘Never.’
‘So why won’t you follow his example?’

Columbus’ egg

‘Listen here, boy! I’m not happy at all with your progress in the history class’, says the teacher. ‘You don’t even know who Christopher Columbus was, even though your father is the manager of the egg shop!’

[a wordplay on the Polish version of Columbus, ‘Kolumb’, and pigeon, ‘gołąb’, the two of which are potentially similar phonetically – editor's note]

A school report

The neighbours’ son brings home a school report. Only one A. Still, he has to show the report to his father.
‘Come, son, give me the report, show me!’
He reads, and as he reads, he comments:
‘Polish literature: F, history: F, arithmetics: F… Singing: A… You piece of crap, you get all Fs and you still feel like singing?!’

Pension

The teacher asks, ‘Józik, why didn’t you come to school for three days?’
Józik responds, ‘Because my old man died.’
‘Stop trying to fool us, he was looking out the window as recently as yesterday!’
‘We only put him in the window because the postman was coming with his pension.’

In the army

A commemorative photo after the completion of the military service, Gliwice, 1959, photo: Stefan Kraszewski / Polish Press Agency

The corporal says:
‘Serafiński, you’re going to the kitchen, you’re cleaning today!’
‘But corporal’, responds Serafiński, ‘I report myself obligingly, but I can’t possibly work in the kitchen, I’m a carrier of an infection.’
‘It’s Ostafiński who’ll be carrying infections, you march to the kitchen right now.’

Direction

The corporal asks the soldiers:
‘In which direction are we marching now?’
Piotrek Kierys:
‘To the south, corporal!’
The corporal:
‘Correct, and how could you tell?’
Pietrek:
‘Because I’m getting hotter and hotter with each step.’

In court

Franek Dómagała comes before the court.
‘Defendant! When did you meet your wife?’
‘Your Honor, I swear, I never did! Because if I had, I would’ve never married that devil.’

At his own request

An accident happened at a construction site. A bricklayer pushed the foreman off the scaffolding. A trial takes place.
The judge asks:
‘Defendant, approach. Do explain: how did all this happen?’
The bricklayer says:
‘It’s simple! I punch the foreman in the face, he punches me in the face, too, so I take him by the collar and hold him like this beside the scaffolding. So, I hold him like this, hanging from the third floor. And he screams, “Karlik! Jesus! Have mercy, I have a wife and children! Let me go!” So I did as he asked and let him go. And the foreman fell down. But at his own request, Your Honor. At his own request.’

Efficiency

The director of a coal mine goes down into the pit to see how the extraction is going. He meets two miners carrying wooden planks. One of them carries five planks at a time, the other only one. The director summons the miner who goes so easy on himself and asks:
‘Why just one plank at a time? Your comrade carries five.’
‘Director’, says the miner ‘I carry one at a time, because I’m not as lazy as he is.’
‘How so?’, asks the director, baffled. ‘Are you saying your comrade is the lazy one?’
‘Certainly’, retorts the mind. ‘He carries five planks at a time, but he stops to rest after each load. I only carry one at a time, but I’ll have enough energy to last me the whole shift.’

An unknown note

Everyone knows miners like to play music. One of the musicians from the miners’ marching band comes up to the band master and asks:
‘Kapellmeister, what kind of a note is “zy”?’
‘“Zy”? There’s no such note’, answers the band master.
‘How so? When I was coming home from rehearsal yesterday, it clearly said on the tram car: “do-re-mi-zy” [‘to the firehouse’]. “Do-re-mi” I understand, but the “zy”? I’ve never heard of a note like this.’

Foreman & the rabbits

A miner, who is a passionate breeder of rabbits and who sometimes struggles to express himself, sees his foreman walk past his house. He wants to show off his rabbits, so she shouts:
‘Hey, Mr Foreman, come over, let my rabbits take a look at you.’

Fear

‘Listen here, Mr Kwaśny. You must’ve suffered some misfortune at work once, correct?’
‘Why, Mr Foreman?’
‘Well, because you have such an awful fear of work!’

Drunken sight

A father is walking with his son. The kid asks:
‘Dad! Who’s a drunken man?’
The father responds:
‘You see, son, here’s what a drunken man is: if instead of those two men over there you were seeing four, it’d mean you’re drunk.’
To which the child says:
‘But dad, there’s only one man.’

The difference

Do you know what the difference is between a camel and a man? Let me tell you. A camel can work for six days with no drinking. A man can drink for six days without working.

What’s best

‘Why do you complain about our MP Most Venerable Earl Larysz?’, a porter at a coal mine in Karwina asks the Union coalminers. ‘He only wants what’s best for you.’
‘That’s right’, responds one of the miners. ‘And we don’t want to give what’s best for us away to him.’

A wire

Old man Gruchlik, seriously worried because of his son’s much prolonged vacation, sends him a wire:
‘Antek, why aren’t you coming home? Stop. Father.’
On the next day, the father receives a cable:
‘Dad, I’ll be back in a week. Stop. I’m lying in bed with angina. Stop. Antek.’
Gruchlik responds angrily:
‘Antek, come home. Stop. Pay Angina and send her off. Stop. Father’.

Spurs & feathers

Romek, a great sportsman from Ochaby, likes horse-riding. But what of it? He has no horse. All he can do is wear spurs on his shoes. Once, Mariola runs into him and says, mockingly:
‘Why do you wear spurs, dummy, if you can’t ride a horse?’
To which Romek responds:
‘And why do you wear feathers on your hat if you can’t fly?’

After the return

‘Erwin, where on Earth did you stay away so long?’, I ask Kowalski.
‘Well, I was in jail’.
‘And what did they jail you for, Erwinek?’
‘I was banging the head against the wall’.
‘But they had no right to jail you for that!’
‘They did, too, because the head wasn’t my head’.

A sharper tongue

Gerard Drobny is buying apples at the market. But he’s digging and digging in the basket to choose the largest ones. And then he’s also trying to haggle.
The tradeswoman gets sick of him, wrenches the apples from his hands and, as tradeswomen normally tend to do, begins to call him names.
But Gerard turns out to have a sharper tongue and to be better at inventing names. He retorts:
‘Shut your mouth, you old diagonal! You frustum! You regular octahedron! You circular sector! You cube root! You left-hand indefinite integral!’
The old woman freezes and immediately pipes down.

Kings

‘Dad! Are kings always good?’
‘Well, son, depends if they come with a queen and an ace.’

Glossary

chłop, chop – mężczyzna, mąż – a man, a husband
czepań, czepoń – a head, a skull
dyć – but, after all
dziołcha – a girl, a daughter
egzorta – a sermon, an admonition
furgać – to fly
gańba – shame, a disgrace (e.g. ‘niy ma cie to gańba?’ – ‘aren’t you ashamed?’)
godać – to speak
gryfny – beautiful, handsome, good-looking, neat, elegant
gupielok – someone dumb, foolish, goofy
hereszt, hareszt – jail, prison
istny, ten istny – the same, the one in question, none other than
kaj, każ, ka – where
kajś, kajsi, kańsi – somewhere
kejś, kiejś – one time, once
kery – that, which
kerzy – (the ones) who
kiejsik – one time, once
kiejżech – when
kiery – (from Czech) that, which
knefel, kneflik – (from German) a button
kragel, kragiel – (from German) a collar
moc – very, a lot
myrcha – carrion, a piece of shit (as an offensive term)
niyskoro, nieskoro – late, later
padać – to say (short for ‘powiadać’)
pieróna! – a kind of a profanity, an exclamation (like ‘damn!’)
prawić kómu – to tell someone something, to say to someone
przeca, przecaś, przecaż – after all, but
rechtór, rektór – a teacher
skirz, skirz tego (skiż) – because of that, for that reason, that’s why
starzyk, starzik – a grandfather
szkirboł, szkirboły, szkiyrboły, szkyrboły – old shoes; here: a husband
szoł, szeł – went, walked
sztajger – (from German), a steiger, a foreman
strzewiki, szczewiki – shoes, boots
ściepnąć – to push off, to push from, to throw off
śpik, we śpiku – sleep, while sleeping, in one’s sleep
tyrpnąć – to push, to prod, to wrench
tytka – (from German) a paper bag
warzyć – to cook, to make (food)
wiela – many, how many
wyciepnąć – to throw out
zawrzić, zawrzyć – to shut, to close

Sources: Stanisław Ligoń, Bery i Bojki Śląskie, Katowice 1980; Augustyn Feliks Halotta, Śląskie Bery, Bojki i Opowiastki z Dawnych Lat, Katowice 1984; Anegdoty, Humoreski i Żarty Ludu Śląskiego (Anecdotes, Humoresques, and Jokes of the Silesian People), collected, selected, and edited by Aleksander Widera, Katowice 1983.

Translated from Polish by Anna Potoczny

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