Chrząszcz (''
beetle
Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...
,
chafer'') by
Jan Brzechwa
Jan Brzechwa (; 15 August 1898 – 2 July 1966) was a Polish poet, author and lawyer, known mostly for his contribution to children's literature. He was born Jan Wiktor Lesman to a Polish Jew, Polish family of Jewish descent.[tongue-twister
A tongue twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly, and can be used as a type of spoken (or sung) word game. Additionally, they can be used as exercises to improve pronunciation and fluency. Some tongue twisters p ...]
poem famous for being considered one of the hardest-to-pronounce texts in
Polish literature
Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland over the centuries have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Latin, ...
. It may cause problems even for adult, native
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
* Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...
speakers.
/ref>
The first few lines of the poem:
The first line "W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie"
(''In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed'') is a well-known Polish tongue-twister
A tongue twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly, and can be used as a type of spoken (or sung) word game. Additionally, they can be used as exercises to improve pronunciation and fluency. Some tongue twisters p ...
and dates to at least the 19th century.Szczebrzeszyn
Szczebrzeszyn (; ; ) is a city in southeastern Poland in Lublin Voivodeship, in Zamość County, about west of Zamość. From 1975–1999, it was part of the Zamość Voivodeship administrative district. The town serves as the seat to the Gmina ...
is widely known in Poland. Two monuments to the beetle
The Beetle Monuments (Polish language, Polish: ''Pomniki chrząszcza'') are two similar monuments in Szczebrzeszyn, Poland, statues of an Anthropomorphism, amphomorphic beetle wearing a Black tie, dinner suit and a top hat, and playing on a fiddle ...
were erected there, and a yearly sculpture festival has been held there ever since.
''Chrząszcz'' was translated into English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Culture, language and peoples
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
* ''English'', an Amish ter ...
by Walter Whipple
Walter Whipple (born 1943) is a Teaching Professor Emeritus of Polish in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages of Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. From 1990 to 1993, Whipple served as the president of the Poland Warsaw Mi ...
as ''Cricket'' (whose Polish equivalent, ''świerszcz'', is also considered difficult to pronounce for non-Polish speakers).
See also
* Strč prst skrz krk
() is a tongue twister in Czech and Slovak meaning 'stick a finger through the neck'. The sentence is well known for being a semantically and syntactically valid clause without a single vowel, the nucleus of each syllable being a syllabic&n ...
, Czech and Slovak tongue twister and shibboleth
A shibboleth ( ; ) is any custom or tradition—usually a choice of phrasing or single word—that distinguishes one group of people from another. Historically, shibboleths have been used as passwords, ways of self-identification, signals of l ...
References
External links
*
Polish poems
Tongue twisters
20th-century poems
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