Re: Hi from Ukraine
| From: | Paul Sherrill <sherril2@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Saturday, December 1, 2001, 19:01 |
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On Sat, 1 Dec 2001 13:39:06 -0500, Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
wrote:
>Nicole wrote:
>>--- Andreas Johansson froge sionk:
>> > BTW, in Swedish literature the Polono-Lithuanian union is often
>> > refered to
>> > as simply "Rzeczpospolita". Is this in use in English too?
>> >
>> doesn't 'rzecz' mean 'thing/item' in polish...?
>
>Not the slightest, but as "Rzeczpospolita" is ultimately from Latin "res
>publica" I doubt it's related.
But isn't Latin "res" used in much the same way as
English's "thing"? "Thing" is how my textbook says to translate "res", so
it seems to me there could be a connection. Perhaps either "res" was
borrowed into Polish and then used in a calque of "res publica", or the two
words were borrowed at the same time?