# Why dzień dobry in Polish?



## Roel~

The word 'good day' is pretty similar in a lot of languages:

Goedendag = Dutch     (good + day)
Guten Tag = German  (good + day)
Bonjour = French (good + day)
Buenos días = Spanish (good + day)
buongiorno = Italian (good + day)
bună ziua = Romanian (good + day)
Good day = English (good + day)
góður dagur = Icelandic (good + day)
god dag = Danish (good + day)
добрый день = Russian (good + day)

Even a non-Indo European language like Turkish:

Iyi günler = (good + day)

Polish is:

Dzień dobry (day + good) 


Why does this discrepancy exist and is Polish one of the only languages with this difference? Is this a certain language policy or just a coincidence?


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## Ёж!

Hi,


Roel~ said:


> добрый день = Russian (good + day)


This is one of the options, the default one. The other option is to say "день добрый", it's used when the speaker thinks that "день" will do better in the beginning so that the listener won't have to wait for it.


> Why does this discrepancy exist and is Polish one of the only languages with this difference together with Czech, Slovakian and Slovenian? Is this a certain language policy or just a coincidence?


I do not see any discrepancy. Just some languages have used to speak this way, and other languages have used to speak that way. I don't think there is much of difference between the two ways.

Cheers.


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## Roel~

Ёж! said:


> Hi,
> 
> This is one of the options, the default one. The other option is to say "день добрый", it's used when the speaker thinks that "день" will do better in the beginning so that the listener won't have to wait for it.
> 
> I do not see any discrepancy. Just some languages have used to speak this way, and other languages have used to speak that way. I don't think there is much of difference between the two ways.
> 
> Cheers.



Well, the discrepancy is that from what I see 'dzień dobry' is most used in Polish and I have not seen 'dobry dzień', although I don't know if it exists in Polish. In all other languages the combination good + day is by far the most used way to say it. I wonder why in the Polish language it is so different from other languages, because dzień dobry is the regular way to say it.


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## CapnPrep

As a general point, most languages have a preferred order for adjectives, and most of those prefer to put the adjective after the noun. See this map, for example, for a large survey of languages.

However, keep in mind also that _good_ is such a common, basic adjective in all languages that it may go against the general rule. And fixed expressions like greetings may also have exceptional syntax. Polish normally puts _dobry_ before the noun, so you are right to say that the greeting _dzień dobry_ is a little strange. But it's strange within Polish, not really in comparison to other languages. Because there are plenty of other languages that use "day good": Gaelic, Arabic, Hebrew, Basque, Persian, …


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## Ригель

I always interpreted Russian "день добрый" as an affirmative statement _(It is a) good day _since Russian lacks copula, but I don't know enough about Polish to judge if it's the same model or possibly even a loan translation from Eastern-Slavic. I'm under the impression that Polish has copula at least to some extent.


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## LilianaB

Language is mostly a convention -- I don't see it as any type of discrepancy. You are right, however, that adjectives have a preferred place in some languages -- in Polish they are usually before the noun, unless for special emphasis.


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## Maroseika

Ригель said:


> I always interpreted Russian "день добрый" as an affirmative statement _(It is a) good day _since Russian lacks copula, but I don't know enough about Polish to judge if it's the same model or possibly even a loan translation from Eastern-Slavic. I'm under the impression that Polish has copula at least to some extent.



Russian день добрый is just a less formal way to greet. The same like вечер добрый.


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## myšlenka

This is by no means an explanation, only a funny observation. Polish _dzień dobry_ analyzed as a single unit, adheres to the requirement that stress is placed on the penultimate syllable. _Dobry __dzień_ on the other hand, leaves the penultimate syllable unstressed. Putting the adjective after the noun gives a better prosodic unit in Polish.

 One can only speculate as to why this is not transferred to other cases, but the answer probably lies in the idiosyncratic nature of greetings. Many of the examples mentioned by Roel~ are "weird" in some sense:

Spanish _buenos días_ - plural.
German _guten tag_ - accusative/dative marking on the adjective.
Icelandic _góðan daginn_ - accusative definite form.
Norwegian _god dag/goddag_ - adjective has no stress.


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## LilianaB

Yes, I agree with you -- I think the only explanation might be esthetic, or just to be in accord with the harmony of the language.


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## francisgranada

myšlenka said:


> ... Polish _dzień dobry_ analyzed as a single unit, adheres to the requirement that stress is placed on the penultimate syllable. _Dobry __dzień_ on the other hand, leaves the penultimate syllable unstressed. Putting the adjective after the noun gives a better prosodic unit in Polish.


This may be an explanation also for "_dobry wieczór" _(good evening) in Polish. _Wieczór _has two syllables, so there's "no need" to change the word order (from the prosodic point of view).


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## francisgranada

LilianaB said:


> Yes, I agree with you -- I think the only explanation might be esthetic, or just to be in accord with the harmony of the language.


Not merely esthetic. As Myšlenka has explained, as we consider (pronounce) this greeting as a single unit, than _dobry dzień_ would become _dobrydzień_, with the accent on "_bry_" that doesn't sound "natural". But in case of _dzieńdobry_, the accent remains on it's "natural" position.



myšlenka said:


> ... German _guten tag_ - accusative/dative marking on the adjective.
> Icelandic _góðan daginn_ - accusative definite form ...


The accusative seems to me "logical", e.g. in constructions like "I wish you a/the good day". For curiosity, in Hungarian it is "jó napot" (jó-good, napot-day in accusative).


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## CapnPrep

francisgranada said:


> As Myšlenka has explained, as we consider (pronounce) this greeting as a single unit, than _dobry dzień_ would become _dobrydzień_, with the accent on "_bry_" that doesn't sound "natural".


But it sounds perfectly natural in _dobr*a*noc_. As others have said, this is probably just a matter of conventionalized usage.


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## francisgranada

CapnPrep said:


> But it sounds perfectly natural in _dobr*a*noc_....


Interesting ... However, there is a difference (I don't know if relevant): _dobranoc _is already written together (as one word), but _dzień dobry _is still written separately.


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## myšlenka

francisgranada said:


> The accusative seems to me "logical", e.g. in constructions like "I wish you a/the good day". For curiosity, in Hungarian it is "jó napot" (jó-good, napot-day in accusative).


Yes, I am aware of the fact that these are probably eroded expressions which have retained the accusative. I used the term "weird" to point out that there is more going on than a simple combination of _good_ + _day_.


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## myšlenka

francisgranada said:


> Interesting ... However, there is a difference (I don't know if relevant): _dobranoc _is already written together (as one word), but _dzień dobry _is still written separately.


These are just spelling conventions but it is probably to reflect the difference in pronuncation and meaning:
_D*o*bra n*oc*_ - a/the good night
_Dobr*a*noc_ - Good night! (greeting)


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## francisgranada

myšlenka said:


> Yes, I am aware of the fact that these are probably eroded expressions which have retained the accusative ...


I agree. An example: in Slovak "dobr*ý* deň" can be (formally) interpreted both as nominative and accusative, but "dobr*ú* noc" (good night) is clearly in accusative (the nominative is "dobr*á* noc"). 



> I used the term "weird" to point out that there is more going on than a simple combination of _good_ + _day_.


Of course 

P.S. I can imagine that the Polish _dobranoc _comes  from a former _dobrą noc. _


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## LilianaB

francisgranada said:


> Not merely esthetic. As Myšlenka has explained, as we consider (pronounce) this greeting as a single unit, than _dobry dzień_ would become _dobrydzień_, with the accent on "_bry_" that doesn't sound "natural". But in case of _dzieńdobry_, the accent remains on it's "natural" position.
> 
> 
> The accusative seems to me "logical", e.g. in constructions like "I wish you a/the good day". For curiosity, in Hungarian it is "jó napot" (jó-good, napot-day in accusative).



Yes, basically esthetic-- the beauty of sound and harmony or phonetic cohesion of a language has to do with the esthetic perception -- doesn't it? It might be also harder to pronounce, if the phrase followed the AN order.  

And as an answer to another question: "dobry dzie_ń"_ is not used in Polish at all. (as a greeting).  "To był dobry dzie_ń"_ -- it was a good day (but this is a totally different usage).


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## LilianaB

myšlenka said:


> These are just spelling conventions but it is probably to reflect the difference in pronuncation and meaning:
> _D*o*bra n*oc*_ - a/the good night
> _Dobr*a*noc_ - Good night! (greeting)



Yes, actually there is a big difference in pronunciation. "Dobranoc" has been spelled together for many years, at least a century, I would think, perhaps longer.  

By the way "dzie_ń_ dobry' is not in the Accusative. It is the Nominative in my opinion. It would have been: "_ż_ycz_ę_ ci dobrego dnia" (the Genitive), if you wnated to write it out. "Życz_ę_ Ci dobrej nocy" (Genitive) not dobrą noc.


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## Roel~

myšlenka said:


> Yes, I am aware of the fact that these are probably eroded expressions which have retained the accusative. I used the term "weird" to point out that there is more going on than a simple combination of _good_ + _day_.



I used the combination good + day just to point out the difference with Polish, I could have mentioned the differences in accusative and so on too, but that wasn't what my question was about.


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## Ben Jamin

The most plausible explanation must be the better euphony of _dzieńdobry_ than _dobrydzień*_.  
*This is a hypothetic spelling of a non existent greeting. “Dobry wieczór” is spelled separately, but pronounced as if it were a single word.


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