A language question

[Taunton]

I've spent the evening debating this with my Polish friend... We think dworzec is for bigger stations where there are *facilities* - so Ealing Broadway, although having 4 mainline platforms and 2 underground lines, probably doesn't count and is relegated to stacja.

The German use of Hbf for a main station in a city is pretty consistent. It's helped by almost all cities only having one such, unlike in Britain.

 

[takno]

The German use of Hbf for a main station in a city is pretty consistent. It's helped by almost all cities only having one such, unlike in Britain.

That's Główny in Polish, except for Warsaw, where I think there was a Główny but it got replaced by Centralna in the 70s

 

[oldman]

We think dworzec is for bigger stations where there are *facilities*s

I think there is a distinction between the building with the facilities and the station. The dworzec can be closed even when trains are calling.

Stacja Bydgoszcz Główna posiada dwa budynki pełniące funkcję dworca kolejowego. Główny budynek dworca znajduje się ..., zaś dworzec zwany „wyspowym” usytuowany jest pomiędzy peronami 3 oraz 4.
Stacja BG has two buildings carrying out the function of a railway dworzec. The main dworzec building is situated ..., while the dworzec called 'island' is situated between platforms 3 and 4.

Poznań Główny to jedna z najważniejszych stacji węzłowych w Polsce oraz jeden z największych dworców wyspowych.
PG is one of the most important junction stacjas in Poland and one of the biggest island dworzeces.

(An island dworzec is one where the facilities are situated between the platforms, rather than off to one side.)

 

[181]

Comparable is the route of the first long distance railway, between St Petersburg and Moscow. Hearing of disagreements between engineers over the route, the Czar got them all together with maps on a table, pulled out his sword, drew a straight line along it between the two cities, and said "that is the route". It is, if you look at it nowadays, astoundingly straight, though over very easy and flat country. There's one significant S-bend deviation down to cross the Volkhov river, and back up the other side. "What's that then?" is the question, to which every Russian today will answer "Oh, that's where the Czar's thumb was holding the sword".

Apparently it's now been straightened out. Wikipedia on the subject.

That's Główny in Polish, except for Warsaw, where I think there was a Główny but it got replaced by Centralna in the 70s

Apparently there was both a pre-war predecessor (on an adjacent site) of today's Centralna, called Główna (-a rather than -y presumably for grammatical agreement with 'Warszawa'), and a temporary post-war one of the same name some distance away.

Przystanek is stop in the sense of bus or tram stops. Perhaps not grand enough for most train stations, but makes sense in the phrase "4 stops to go before mine". As far as I can see PKP like to use Dworzec everywhere, but stacja seems to be understood, and is used on the Metro IIRC.

I'm not convinced there's any set hierarchy. It seems more like the difference between saying train station and railway station in the UK - i.e. if the difference offends you then you might look into how fun you are at parties!

I've spent the evening debating this with my Polish friend... We think dworzec is for bigger stations where there are *facilities* - so Ealing Broadway, although having 4 mainline platforms and 2 underground lines, probably doesn't count and is relegated to stacja.

That's the interesting thing about languages, hearing a native speaker's gut reaction and trying to work out the pattern that causes it...

I think there is a distinction between the building with the facilities and the station.

Thankyou all. I always had the impression that the Polish for '(railway) station' was 'Dworzec' -- presumably phrasebooks and basic language guides are more likely to use the word associated with larger stations as those are the ones normal tourists are more likely to use -- but more recently I've noticed 'stacja' used quite often on the Internet. It seems I won't have caused too much confusion or offence by using what some might consider the 'wrong' word.

Which in the context of this thread brings to mind my father's story of asking directions to the railway station in a French town many years ago, but pronouncing 'gare' as if it was an English word, i.e. like the French word 'guerre' ('war'). Apparently the answer he got was 'la guerre est fini depuis 1945' ('the war finished in 1945').

 

[takno]

I think there is a distinction between the building with the facilities and the station. The dworzec can be closed even when trains are calling.

Stacja Bydgoszcz Główna posiada dwa budynki pełniące funkcję dworca kolejowego. Główny budynek dworca znajduje się ..., zaś dworzec zwany „wyspowym” usytuowany jest pomiędzy peronami 3 oraz 4.
Stacja BG has two buildings carrying out the function of a railway dworzec. The main dworzec building is situated ..., while the dworzec called 'island' is situated between platforms 3 and 4.

Poznań Główny to jedna z najważniejszych stacji węzłowych w Polsce oraz jeden z największych dworców wyspowych.
PG is one of the most important junction stacjas in Poland and one of the biggest island dworzeces.

(An island dworzec is one where the facilities are situated between the platforms, rather than off to one side.)

I like the thinking, and my polish is far from fluent so I could be wrong, but dworca is genitive, so in the first case it's clearly saying "building of the station" in exactly the same way that we would say station building in the UK. In the second case you could be right that it's more natural because the dworzec leans towards the non-train aspects of the station.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Quite a few common words are recognisable in other Slavic languages if you know the word in Russian - but I can't think of any language (not even Belarusian) where I've seen voksal used for station.

 

[rg177]

I've noticed that in Czech there is pretty widespread use of "Zastavka" as a suffix to stations, which usually denotes a smaller station, or equivalent to a "halt" as we'd have in the days of yore in the UK. Most are served only on request.

In a lot of cases you'll get a stop for a town/city followed by a smaller one on the outskirts. I think the largest is Plzeň Zastavka- served by fast trains and actually a fairly substantial platform structure.

It generally translates to "stop"- so on buses and trams it's common to hear "Priští zastavka..." (next stop).

 

[oldman]

dworca is genitive, so in the first case it's clearly saying "building of the station"

No nie, panie Takno . Dworca is genitive but follows 'function' - the buildings carry out the 'function of a dworzec'.

(It can be Główny, Główna or Główne, according to the gender of the place name (masc., fem., neuter or plural)

​

 

[52290]

Quite a few common words are recognisable in other Slavic languages if you know the word in Russian - but I can't think of any language (not even Belarusian) where I've seen voksal used for station.

Pivo is a useful word to know in Slavonic countries and it usually tastes better than it sounds.

 

[Calthrop]

Can anyone confirm / correct my impressions from -- as I mention upthread -- attempted looking into the words for "station" in various European languages: concerning that of the peoples of what was Yugoslavia? (by my understanding, essentially the same language throughout; with the exception of Slovene, which differs considerably).

I get the picture of a similar pattern to that in northern-Slavonic languages, as discussed in the thread: one word (stanica) for smaller and lesser stations; another (kolodvor) for large and important ones (e.g., Zagreb's main station is Zagreb Glavni kolodvor). Or would the word kolodvor be a Croatian idiosyncracy?

 

[S&CLER]

Can anyone confirm / correct my impressions from -- as I mention upthread -- attempted looking into the words for "station" in various European languages: concerning that of the peoples of what was Yugoslavia? (by my understanding, essentially the same language throughout; with the exception of Slovene, which differs considerably).

I get the picture of a similar pattern to that in northern-Slavonic languages, as discussed in the thread: one word (stanica) for smaller and lesser stations; another (kolodvor) for large and important ones (e.g., Zagreb's main station is Zagreb Glavni kolodvor). Or would the word kolodvor be a Croatian idiosyncracy?

According to Wiktionary kolodvor comes from kolo, (root meaning wheel), and dvor which mean something like castle, palace, court (cf. German Hof and Burg). I wondered if the -vor bit might be a loan word from Hungarian var, which has a similar meaning (cf. Keleti Palyudvar in Budapest) since Croatia was a land of the Hungarian crown for centuries, but apparently it is pure Slavic.

I cannot resist the temptation to point out that idiosyncracy should be idiosyncrasy (= personal or private mixture of characteristics); from a root meaning mix, nothing to do with words in -cracy from a root meaning "rule".

 

[Jamesrob637]

Stasiun in Irish Gaelic - there's a sign at Levenshulme which used to incorporate a massive Irish community. Unfortunately the Irish diaspora in Manchester is more spread out nowadays and some of the fine pubs along the Stockport Road are consigned to the history books.

 

[Gloster]

Stasiun in Irish Gaelic - there's a sign at Levenshulme which used to incorporate a massive Irish community. Unfortunately the Irish diaspora in Manchester is more spread out nowadays and some of the fine pubs along the Stockport Road are consigned to the history books.

A diaspora should be spread out.

 

[Calthrop]

According to Wiktionary kolodvor comes from kolo, (root meaning wheel), and dvor which mean something like castle, palace, court (cf. German Hof and Burg). I wondered if the -vor bit might be a loan word from Hungarian var, which has a similar meaning (cf. Keleti Palyudvar in Budapest) since Croatia was a land of the Hungarian crown for centuries, but apparently it is pure Slavic.

Ah ! kolo = wheel: hence, I realise, the much-liked folk-dance in those parts, the "kolo" -- the participants dance round in a circle, hands linked all round. And dvor as you state: presumably cognate with the Polish dwor, such as in dworzec; mentioned in this thread (and also in the other-board one which set me off on this course) -- dwor = court, manor.

I cannot resist the temptation to point out that idiosyncracy should be idiosyncrasy (= personal or private mixture of characteristics); from a root meaning mix, nothing to do
with words in -cracy from a root meaning "rule".

Thanks ! I like to get my use of English right... aide-memoire devised: "S: oneSelf's traits; C: pertaining to ruling -- think Chieftain, or Caligula".

 

[DanielB]

The German use of Hbf for a main station in a city is pretty consistent. It's helped by almost all cities only having one such, unlike in Britain.

In Dutch its quite common to use "Centraal Station" for the main station in a city. Although that's mainly used as an easy way to refer to the main station in the several cities which have multiple stations (for example by the local bus company). In most cases its used a lot although its not the official name.
The official suffix "Centraal" however is much more rare as the rules to be eligible for that suffix are quite strict: only cities having more than 100.000 inhabitants, with a main station having more than 40.000 passengers and which have at least three stations are eligible. And while the top 5 busiest stations got the suffix for free, the other three cities having it had to pay for it. (My home town Amersfoort for example paid € 200.000 to have the station renamed)

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

There used to be a station called Schiedam-Rotterdam West
Someone from Schiedam told me, the stubborn locals insisted on 'Schiedam First', not Rotterdam

Now it is 'Schiedam Centrum' because international trains no longer stop there
..
I always figured Wigan North Western was on the LNWR

 

[The exile]

The German use of Hbf for a main station in a city is pretty consistent. It's helped by almost all cities only having one such, unlike in Britain.

Although it has to be treated with a bit of caution - as it's often "main" in operational terms (whether currently or historically) rather than "most convenient/central" or "most useful". In most cases the two coincide, but woe betide anyone who arrives at Wittlich Hbf thinking they're actually in the town itself. For years Potsdam presented a similar anomaly - before the various rebuildings were complete and common sense prevailed over politics. Now passenger traffic is more important than the pick-up goods, several places have sprouted a new station with the suffix "Ort" or "Mitte" to point out that it is actually in the place whose name it bears, rather than somewhere out on the edge where the railway found it convenient to lay out lots of sidings.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The German use of Hbf for a main station in a city is pretty consistent. It's helped by almost all cities only having one such, unlike in Britain.

To be fair most British towns and cities have an obvious Hbf:
Liverpool: Lime St
Brum: New St
Manchester: Piccadilly (though Vic is now a bit more important than the sort-of S-Bahnhof it really was for a number of years)
Edinburgh: Waverley
Glasgow: Central (Queen Street is a bit like Manchester Victoria - more of a Regionalbahnhof in DB terms)
Newcastle: Central
MK: Central
Leeds: City
Etc.

It's only really London that doesn't have one you can see as more important than the others. In most cases it'll be where the London trains go from, if there are any, though HS2 will shift that a bit.

Although it has to be treated with a bit of caution - as it's often "main" in operational terms (whether currently or historically) rather than "most convenient/central" or "most useful". In most cases the two coincide, but woe betide anyone who arrives at Wittlich Hbf thinking they're actually in the town itself. For years Potsdam presented a similar anomaly - before the various rebuildings were complete and common sense prevailed over politics. Now passenger traffic is more important than the pick-up goods, several places have sprouted a new station with the suffix "Ort" or "Mitte" to point out that it is actually in the place whose name it bears, rather than somewhere out on the edge where the railway found it convenient to lay out lots of sidings.

Hbf specifically doesn't mean that it's the main one for the town centre. Often it won't be. Indeed, it's the Dutch "Centraal" that can be quite misleading in that regard.

To use a random odd example, Wrexham General is the "Hbf", Wrexham Central is a minor station (a bit) closer to the centre.

Of course, the UK has the quirk that you have railway company names in there as well. For instance "X Central" can mean "The Great Central Railway station serving X" (which had quite a habit of *not* being very central), and of course there's the classic that "Wigan North Western" (which most people probably think is to the north west of the town) is near enough due south (sort of SSSE) of Wallgate and is so named because of it being the London and North Western Railway's station, not because of where it is geographically located.

 

[takno]

To be fair most British towns and cities have an obvious Hbf:
Liverpool: Lime St
Brum: New St
Manchester: Piccadilly (though Vic is now a bit more important than the sort-of S-Bahnhof it really was for a number of years)
Edinburgh: Waverley
Glasgow: Central
Newcastle: Central
MK: Central
Etc.

It's only really London that doesn't have one you can see as more important than the others. In most cases it'll be where the London trains go from, if there are any, though HS2 will shift that a bit.



Hbf specifically doesn't mean that it's the main one for the town centre. Often it won't be. Indeed, it's the Dutch "Centraal" that can be quite misleading in that regard.

To use a random odd example, Wrexham General is the "Hbf", Wrexham Central is a minor station (a bit) closer to the centre.

Glasgow Central is basically just the station for the southern suburbs, and I guess England if you want to go there. There's no very strong sense in which it's more important than Queen Street.

 

[S&CLER]

Many, perhaps most, of the big German stations also have a Bahnhofsvorplatz or station square; but in the UK I can think of hardly any (Carlisle?) and some of our bigger stations were/are in remarkably hole in the corner sites.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Many, perhaps most, of the big German stations also have a Bahnhofsvorplatz or station square; but in the UK I can think of hardly any (Carlisle?) and some of our bigger stations were/are in remarkably hole in the corner sites.

The Bahnhofsvorplatz at Milton Keynes Central has a very German or Dutch feel to it indeed (even has the customary clock on a stick), particularly with the presence of the bus interchange out front and a load of pushbike racks. Cardiff Central was perhaps a bit like that before they trashed it? But I agree, there are very few. I wonder if Germany's need to do quite a lot of rebuilding in the 40s and 50s led to more of those? Or do we just get too tempted to build there as it's prime development land for offices?

Glasgow Central is basically just the station for the southern suburbs, and I guess England if you want to go there. There's no very strong sense in which it's more important than Queen Street.

I think it would take that importance by virtue of having the "international trains" (quotes may be removable in a few years).

 

[oldman]

Or would the word kolodvor be a Croatian idiosyncracy?

It would.

Croatian has a name for using (and inventing) Slav words e.g. months are totally different from western ones, whereas Serbian months are similar to ours. Kolodvor is an example; so are zračna luka for airport (Serbian is aerodrom) and zrakoplov for aircraft (avion). Train is vlak in Croatian and voz in Serbian. Not all neologisms take off - zrakomlat for helikopter is regarded as a joke except by hardcore grievance nationalists.

Some of this seems to go back to the Austrian empire where not using German sounding words was a political gesture - music is glazba rather than muzika. Since 1918 it has been more about being different from the Serbs.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sounds like Welsh. "Popty ping" anyone? (I believe "microdon" is more usual).

The Germans by contrast seem to do anything they can to put bits of English in their language, with bonus points for not using it quite the same way English or American people would, e.g. Haendy for mobile phone - yes, with the umlaut pronounced even though it's not written. (It seem usual for Germans speaking English to pronounce any A as A-umlaut, probably because it sounds slightly American, and Germans learn a lot of their English from US films and TV, and their youth culture is very heavily US influenced).

 

[Gloster]

Small story about the way American English pervades the languages. The first time I went to Finland I travelled from Gothenburg to Stockholm and then took the ferry to Turku. At the the small tourist kiosk in the pedestrian tunnel under Stockholm C. I asked the girl how to get to the Finland ferry. She said,”You use the subway”. “Subway! It’s about five miles”, thinks I. Then I realised that she was using American English and I should use the underground (T-bana).

 

[oldman]

t seem usual for Germans speaking English to pronounce any A as A-umlaut, probably because it sounds slightly American,

I remember a German teaching assistant 50 years ago telling my Liverpool school class that the Queen's English - The ket set on the met - was the correct pronunciation and we were speaking dialect. That attitude seems to have survived.

 

[madjack]

The Germans by contrast seem to do anything they can to put bits of English in their language, with bonus points for not using it quite the same way English or American people would, e.g. Haendy for mobile phone - yes, with the umlaut pronounced even though it's not written. (It seem usual for Germans speaking English to pronounce any A as A-umlaut, probably because it sounds slightly American, and Germans learn a lot of their English from US films and TV, and their youth culture is very heavily US influenced).

It's not voluntary, it's "first language interference". because the English short a sound (/æ/) doesn't exist in standard German. After the age of 5 or so, children stop being able to recognise and make new sounds, so if they start learning English after this age, Germans usually hear the short a as an e and find it difficult to distinguish and produce the different sounds.

Similar to English people not distinguishing German u and ü, Italians confusing ship and sheep, Spaniards b and v, etc.

I remember a German teaching assistant 50 years ago telling my Liverpool school class that the Queen's English - The ket set on the met - was the correct pronunciation and we were speaking dialect. That attitude seems to have survived.

If you could go back 50 years in time and ask him/her to repeat your "a" sound, I bet they would have failed to.

 

[43096]

It's only really London that doesn't have one you can see as more important than the others. In most cases it'll be where the London trains go from, if there are any, though HS2 will shift that a bit.

Once HS2 opens, is there a case for the Euston/St. Pancras/King's Cross triumvirate to be properly linked as a kind of "London Hbf"?

 

[30907]

Although it has to be treated with a bit of caution - as it's often "main" in operational terms (whether currently or historically) rather than "most convenient/central" or "most useful". In most cases the two coincide, but woe betide anyone who arrives at Wittlich Hbf thinking they're actually in the town itself.

Wittlich Hbf is peculiar, as it was called Wengerohr until the branch to Wittlich itself closed (Soligen Hbf likewise "moved" to Ohligs)

To be fair most British towns and cities have an obvious Hbf:

Most do - but a Hbf is the station traditionally served by all (or almost all - think Nürnberg-Nordost) trains travelling to/from the city (Frankfurt-Süd and Köln-Deutz as alternatives to the respective Hbf are very recent developments).
So neither Manchester nor Glasgow has a Hbf, for example, and historically nor did many UK cities (York and Newcastle did, but they are exceptions).

I remember a German teaching assistant 50 years ago telling my Liverpool school class that the Queen's English - The ket set on the met - was the correct pronunciation and we were speaking dialect. That attitude seems to have survived.

Thank you - as a middle-class southerner who has lived half his life in the north of England, that has always puzzled me: even the southern "cat" is more like a Katze than a Kette!

 

[Bletchleyite]

I remember a German teaching assistant 50 years ago telling my Liverpool school class that the Queen's English - The ket set on the met - was the correct pronunciation and we were speaking dialect. That attitude seems to have survived.

I suppose to be fair the old Underground "shouty man" basically said "Mind the Gaep" very similarly to the way a German does.

Once HS2 opens, is there a case for the Euston/St. Pancras/King's Cross triumvirate to be properly linked as a kind of "London Hbf"?

I think some sort of underground travelator has been proposed, but I don't know if it'll happen. Might still be worth keeping the names so you know which "terminal" to go to - calling them Terminal 1, 2, 3 and 4 (the 4th being Thameslink) of the same station would be a bit boring.

Of course, once they put an entrance to Euston Square Tube station directly outside, as will be happening, it's a very quick Tube ride. (With it where it is you walk half way in the wrong direction; amazes me it's taken so long to fix that).

Most do - but a Hbf is the station traditionally served by all (or almost all - think Nürnberg-Nordost) trains travelling to/from the city (Frankfurt-Süd and Köln-Deutz as alternatives to the respective Hbf are very recent developments).
So neither Manchester nor Glasgow has a Hbf, for example, and historically nor did many UK cities (York and Newcastle did, but they are exceptions).

I suppose it's a bit like Takt in that it depends on how purely you use the term. Takt has basically 2 main elements - clockface timetabling and planned connections - but it's sometimes used on here to describe just the former.

Hauptbahnhof literally means main station (OK, really literally "main railway yard"), and Manchester Piccadilly is certainly Manchester's main station. We can debate Glasgow but I'd still go for the one with the "international" trains over the one without. The Hauptbahnhof-Konzept in its entirely does involve concentrating services on one station - but wasn't that basically what the Windsor Link was built for, and indeed what the Ordsall Chord also does? Victoria of the 1990s was basically just an S-Bahnhof with a few regional services - lots of 2-car Sprinters and Pacers and not a lot else - though admittedly it's increased in importance since then.

 

[Panceltic]

Slovenian uses postaja for a station and postajališče for a halt. Both are derived from the verb stati (to stand, to stop). There is also kolodvor ("wheel-court") which is a bit archaic but still understood just fine, and the colloquial štacjon which is loaned from Italian stazione.