Talk Polish

2 Responses to “What is the name Nicholas in the Polish language?”

1. pepsimonster2002 Says:
   October 11th, 2009 at 4:21 pm

   Mikołaj is the name.
   As for Mikołaja it will depend on the context. It can either be sth that belongs to Mikołaj or a way of marking grammatical case which is codified in the morphology of the noun in the case of the Polish language. So the ending reflects the case. So Mikołaja in a sentence such as: dzieci nie wierzą w Mikołaja will just be translated as kids don’t believe in Santa

   hope that helps you out

2. Tomasz W Says:
   October 11th, 2009 at 4:21 pm

   Polish language has a case system, so nouns have different forms depending on grammatical role, like verbs in English. It goes like this:

   N. "Mikołaj" – "Nicholas" (as subject and in neutral context)
   G. "Mikołaja" – "Nicholas’s"
   D. "Mikołajowi" – "to Nicholas"
   A. "Mikołaja" – "Nicholas" (as sentence’s object)
   I. "Mikołajem" – form used with some prepositions, without prepositions it means "using Nicholas", but it’s not really used like that with people. "z Mikołajem" = "wich Nicholas" etc.
   L. "Mikołaju" – form used only with some prepositions, "w Mikołaju" – "in Nicholas", not used much with humans
   V. "Mikołaju" – "Nicholas" – it’s a form used to address someone outside sentence like "Nicholas, come here" = "Mikołaju, chodź tu". Modern Polish uses Nominative form like "Mikołaj, chodź tu" almost exclusively for proper names.