Poglish, also known as Polglish and Ponglish (Polish: polglisz, język polgielski; German: Ponglisch), is a blend of two words from Polish and English. It is the product of macaronically mixing Polish- and English-language elements (morphemes, words, grammatical structures, syntactic elements, idioms, etc.) within a single speech production, or the use of "false friends" or of cognate words in senses that have diverged from those of the common etymological root. Such combining or confusion of Polish and English elements, when it occurs within a single word, term, or phrase (e.g., in a hybrid word), may, inadvertently or deliberately, produce a neologism.
Poglish is a common phenomenon among persons bilingual in Polish and English; and is a manifestation of a broader phenomenon, that of language interference. As with the mixing of other language pairs, the results of Poglish speech (oral or written) may sometimes be confusing, amusing, or embarrassing.
Several portmanteau words have been formed, blending the words "Polish" and "English". Polglish (from as early as 1975) was followed by Pinglish (1984), Polilish (1997), Ponglish (2002), and Poglish (2006).[1]
An expression that has been used by some native Polish-speakers to denote the mixing of Polish- and English-language elements in oral or written speech is "half na pół" ("half-and-half").