Może i mnie niedługo coś się urodzi w języku angielskim - ostatnio przerabiam różne historyczne rzeczy związane z wierzeniami przedchrześcijańskimi i szamanizmem, głównie u Indoeuropejczyków. W zasadzie takie treści są o wiele częściej wyszukiwane i podejmowane jako tematy artykułów, referatów, prac badawczych w języku angielskim niż polskim - co widać przede wszystkim w sieci, także w zawartościach różnych baz danych (np JSTOR). U nas za to ciągle dominuje utwierdzona od czasów kontrreformacji XVII wieku postawa "wierz, nie szperaj". Wierz temu, co mówią różni "nauczający" - nawet na przekór źródłom - a broń cię Boże od własnej refleksji! Skutkiem tego internecie w języku polskim możemy znaleźć głownie bzdury że Polska "od zawsze katolicka" i tym podobne.

Tak, Michale! Urodź coś, po angielsku, do en-Taraki.

Congratulations on your first venture in publishing an English language website - well done,, and I'm sure it took some courage. However, and whenever you begin something, there's going to be a lot of "howevers"......

The standard of translation of your articles is "middling" - not elementary, but not at a standard that merits the text. Leonid Lars' text is at a similar level. Nimue's and Kasia's texts, whilst not perfect, are better, and my guess is that both spent some time in an English speaking environment where they could "soak up" colloquialisms relevant to their subject matter. In some ways they were more fortunate as they dealt with inner perceptions, feelings and intuitions. I perceive your task as being harder - I see you as trying to bring a rigorous, (perhaps even scientific, or technical?), approach to subject matter that is ignored, or worse, vilified by present-day science, and I heartily commend you for that.

I don't need to tell you that imperfect or "niezreczne" translations create a barrier worse than a text in a foreign language, particularly if the subject matter is unfamiliar to the reader. Whilst we may criticize many aspects of Americanism, their supreme success has been to create a language system that informs readers, particularly antagonistic ones, and at all intellectual levels, precisely what the writer wants to say. Consider listening to a foreigner trying to speak Polish - we applaud the attempt, but eventually end up listening to his torturing of the language, and miss the sense of what he's trying to say.

On a personal level, and I hope this won't sound offensive - your name. "Wojciech" in english orthography is problematic. The curse of both languages using the same alphabet is that in English it is unpronounceable, so that in many cases in the English-speaking world it has been changed to "Voytek" - still alien, but pronounceable. This is not a unique problem specific to lazy English speakers. In high school in England I had a polyglot Polish teacher, Professor Bryl, who spoke seven languages and taught five, and who was always defeated, when marking the school register, with the name "Wainwright", a common enough English name - he just couldn't pronounce it. It may be something you want to consider.

The last thing I want to do is to criticize you and your work - it is of a high standard, and I always look forward to your emails, and to the surprises they bring. I think it is worthy of a wider audience, and I applaud you for it.

Dear Amzielinski,

thank you for your review :) I hope that it starts a real life of Taraka in English.

But I notice that that set of articles is not new indeed: they were published, as you can see their dates, in 2004, 2011, and so on. The only thing I made was collecting them in a new lay-out. (And with a new server engine.) You can see them all here as well: www.taraka.pl/spis.php?spec=en. Or even some items more...

You are right, obviously, about the past and background of the texts – e.g. the two girls, Emilia and Nimue, have spent much time in English-speaking environment and their texts were written originally in English, not translated, or even re-translated, as the article by Leonid Lar, from Russian to Polish and again to English. Such texts must be a little bit crude. (And citations in Lar's article were translated three times, first time to Russian form Nenets :)

About my names... In my (humble!) opinion I have got my names as I have. My personal name is Wojciech and never was else, not “Voytek” and – I think – people who interest in “shamanism and Slavs” (as it was stated in Taraka some time ago) find nothing strange in my name. The more, my second name: Jóźwiak, how to make it more pronounceable? All the world must tire of names as „Houellebecq” or „Csíkszentmihályi” - why not Wojciech Jóźwiak?

Much thanks again and I hope that this would be not our last e-meeting. (Thanks for "applauding"!)

And what you think about  Luis Eduardo Luna and his article? I translated it to Polish but I found many places in it be at a verge of comprehension. Exotic names, professional "box" with its own vocabulary, too long sentences... The content - sensational, but what an effort to understand...

Hello again....re. Luis Eduardo Luna - the text is written in what I would call standard Academic American English, pretty typical of anthropologist humanists who weave a fabric of meaning from very diverse fields, in this case history, psychology, shamanism and drug use, art criticism and anthropology. Because of this he has tried to use a rational methodology, taking the reader step-by-step to present his conclusion - in other words using a scientific system to talk about something which has in some ways been orphaned by science. To do this any other way would be merely an assertion, and not academically very convincing. The end result is a somewhat plodding text, but he makes his point well.

ps - ..."translated into Polish"....and ......"places in it to be at the verge"........

Hi, Arthur. Yes, I agree with you. The article by Luna, though not easy to read, gives a wealth of information about the "inner space" of Native Americans' mind.
("Into" .... "to be at the" .... - Thank you, I will remember. :)