Polish Minefield Markers

[Philippe]

Uploaded today at CMMODS:

The sign on the left is the anti-personnel mine marker. The sign on the right is for anti-tank mines.

These replace the standard minefield markers and should only be used when you are commanding Polish troops.

Polish is a highly inflected language that I don't happen to read. By comparing parallel versions of the International Convention for Banning Landmines I was able to convince myself that "Miny" is probably the equivalent of a nominative plural (a pity, because the nominative singular has a really neat diacritical mark under one of the letters). I'm fairly certain that a "pole minowe" is a mined field, but a bit uneasy about the possible anachronism factor. So if anyone can suggest some better phrases, I'll happily make a second version. I'd be particularly interested in an idiomatic rendering of "Danger! Mines" as an alternative to "Field Mined".

This completes my series of army-specific minefield markers. Russian, German, Finnish, Italian, Romanian, and Hungarian markers can be found at CMMODS under padivine/all/fortifications in the designer section.

[Zwollo2003]

Philippe,

you got it exactly right. "Pole minowe" is "minefield" or "mined field", whereas "Miny" means "Mines". You might want to add an exclamation mark to the "Miny" mark, it was often written that way.

"Danger!Mines!" should be translated as "Uwaga miny!"

Zwolo

[John_d]

Does that mean that the polish word for field or area is 'pole'? Do they call themselves Poles or is that what other ppl call them (like the Hungarian/Magyar thing)

[Zwollo2003]

John_d,

yes, the Polish word for a field or area is "pole." The Polish word for the Polish people is "Polacy". There might be a historical connection between the two, as the current words for Poland and Poles in the Polish language are derived from the historic name of the dominant Slavic tribe which settled in the area ("Polanie"). I guess it originally might have meant "field dwellers" (as opposed to "wood dwellers" or "river dwellers", or something).

Zwolo

[Philippe]

I've updated the Polish Minefield Markers to version 1.1 and posted it to CMMODS. Here's what the new version looks like:

I'm using Danger! Mines! as the anti-personnel marker, and Mines ! as the anti-tank. The problem with Field Mined is that the sign tends to show up in things that are not fields (like that inviting clump of trees the attacker will try to hide in so that his approach will go unnoticed).

As soon as I get some more commentary on my Hungarian Minefield Markers I'll declare this stage of the project done.

[BremerWeltmeister]

Pole minowe means not "field mined", but "minefield". so it would be still correct for a minefield in woods. But that new version ist nontheless very good.

If you maybe want so use a specific polish letter, you could try "uwaga! miny przeciwczołgowe!" for anti-tank-mines, but it may be too long, i dont know.

[Philippe]

I'm testing the alternate text for the anti-tank mine. I like the fact that the sign is gloriously Polish. What I don't like is how small the letters have to get to fit onto the writing surface. The problem is that not all of the surface of the sign is usable, because anything that appears on the outer right or left sections of the sign will also appear on the vertical stake (the bitmap is a rectangle, the sign is cross-shaped, and the program does this strange mirror-thing to make you see a sign). And to my astonishment Paint (as opposed to Word) refused to read that polish letter so I had to draw it by hand. If I decide that I like the overall effect I'll post it.

By the way, what exactly does "przeciwczołgowe" mean, and is it something that would have appeared on a sign in the 1940's ? A lot of anti-tank language may be either a modern anachronism (probably relating to the need to distinguish between what can be banned and what can't) or a game convention.

[Philippe]

The sign in the foreground and the sign in the background are sort of legible. The sign in the middle distance isn't. Because the last word is so long I can't make the letters on the sign any larger and still have it fit in the writing space. So it looks like we'll be staying with the posted version ("Miny!") of the anti-tank sign. Sigh.

[BremerWeltmeister]

OK, nontheless tank you for the good work.

przeciwczołgowe means antitank and was AFAIK used already in WW2. The other word that could be used would be przeciwpancerne (the polish word pancerz means armor [in the meaning of three inches steel].

Both those words are too long, so we should go with "miny!".