BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture Translation help please

I was once told that there is a word in Polish that describes the "delicate lack of coordination" a new-born fawn (deer) might diplay when trying to stand or walk for the first time...pronounced (if memory serves me correct) 'chel-lay'. Can anyone confirm this word and more importantly, its spelling please.

Dziekuje-
TV

Hi TV,

I was hoping that one of the native Poles in this forum would answer your question, but they must all be snoozing. Our moderator Jaga is away ....I have asked your question on a language list and will let you know if I get an answer

best,
Nancy

Hi,
no particlular word describing the state of diccoordination of a fawn comes to my mind. However the word 'chel-lay' sounds in my ears like 'cielę'. Cielę is a general worls for newborn cattle, deer , fallow deer etc.
There's a popular idiom 'być jak cielę' (to be like a fawn' which geberally depicts foolish or UNCOORDINATED behaviour, though. Perhaps this is what you've heard: 'the fawn is like a cielę'
Hope this helps a bit
All the best and regards from Warsaw, Poland.

Hello Nancy,
we're not snoozing, we are crawling out of mountain-high snow-difts :-) :-)

TV:

Before I saw YyU3's answer, I got this one from my language list:

"I'm not an expert on fawns, but what comes to my mind is that someone compared the behavior of a fawn to that of a new-born calf. Calf is "ciele" (second "e" with a "hook") pronounced more or less "che-lay". Otherwise I would
say that a fawn is wobbly which in Polish is "chwiejny" phonetically maybe "khvieyni? (but don't take my word for it)."

So I think that the two answers are the same and I hope this helps solve your mystery!

I do not envy you if Warsaw is having fresh snowfalls resulting in mountains made of snow. So far this winter we have had over 6 feet (1.8+ meters) of snow. There is still a lot on the ground here, in fact I cannot see any ground in my yard, and I am not sure that spring will be here anytime soon. <img src="/images/graemlins/easter.gif" alt="" />

Thanks to everyone! I knew I could count on this forum.

Na zdrowie.
TV

1.8 meters of snow!!
Nancy, let me change my mind then. We were not crawling out of the mountain-high snow-drifts. We were just thinking we are. Actually we were snoozing :-)