Patty wrote: We grew up next to Polish neighbors and when my grandparents would come visit, the languages were close enough that they could converse. Patty, I have a similar situation. My grandmother was born in Croatia in a community that included Germans, Croats, and immigrants from what is now Czech Republic. She and her family moved around in that area, so she had to learn to communicate wherever they went. She came to America and went to Chicago where she met my Grandfather, who was born in Western Bohemia, and probably knew a bit of German as well as Czech. My guess is they never spoke any German (Czech dislike them - they were the 'ruling' class and German not language of choice). My mother grew up speaking their combined languages. When she married my father, who spoke a combination of Polish spoken by my grandmother whose parents were German-Polish, and Russian-Polish (meaning not ethnically but 'nationally'), he was able to converse with my Czech-ish speaking grandparents. Enough of the language was similar for them to communicate. I get what little I know in Czech confused with what little I know in Polish.... Anettka