# trzeba krzesnek?



## anthox

Cześć,

Another word I can't make sense of in some letters I am working on.

The writer is talking about her brother, who was born in America but is having trouble with proving that so he can move back there from England after the war. 

She writes: "...myśmy posłaly metrykie ale że on nie wpisany na korcie więc trzeba *krzesnek* ażeby się podpisaly że go znają..."

Attempt: "...we had to send his [birth] certificate but he's not registered in the court so we must ?? so that they can affirm that they know him..." 

I must be reading the word wrong, so here is the text itself:






Dziękuję bardzo za pomoc.


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## marco_2

They meant *chrzestnych*, i.e. godparents, there are three spelling mistakes here, probably because of dialectical pronunciation. So "_the godparents are needed to affirm that they know him."_


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## anthox

Thank you!


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## Ben Jamin

marco_2 said:


> They meant *chrzestnych*, i.e. godparents, there are three spelling mistakes here, probably because of dialectical pronunciation. So "_the godparents are needed to affirm that they know him."_


The word is actually spelled "krzesneh", a typical phonetic spelling used av people with little schooling in Polish. 
Until 1918 Polish language was not used as a language of instruction even in primary schools in the Russian and Prussian partition.


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## anthox

Ben Jamin said:


> The word is actually spelled "krzesneh", a typical phonetic spelling used av people with little schooling in Polish.
> Until 1918 Polish language was not used as a language of instruction even in primary schools in the Russian and Prussian partition.



Thank you for clarifying. Yes, I’m noticing many divergences in spelling from the “standard” Polish I’m used to reading, such as “-ie” for feminine accusative nouns. Most of them I can puzzle out by the context but in some cases the handwriting is unclear. 

Another thing is that though the writer is female, at one point she confusingly switches from feminine past tense (posłałam) to masculine (doczekałem się) for a whole page.


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## jasio

anthox said:


> Another thing is that though the writer is female, at one point she confusingly switches from feminine past tense (posłałam) to masculine (doczekałem się) for a whole page.


Maybe it's her handwriting? Sometimes "a" and "e" can be quite similar.


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## anthox

jasio said:


> Maybe it's her handwriting? Sometimes "a" and "e" can be quite similar.



In this case, the distinction is pretty clear. For example, both of these are found in the same letter:

"posłałam" 




vs.

"wysłałem"




I've come to suspect that multiple writers participated in this letter, even though this is not made clear by anyone writing.


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## jasio

anthox said:


> In this case, the distinction is pretty clear. For example, both of these are found in the same letter.


Indeed, the distiction is clear in this case. Moreover, though I'm not a specialist, to me they look like written by the same hand. So perhaps the letter was dictated indeed, at least partially.


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