Rzeczpospolita,was: Hi from Ukraine

It's a calque from Latin, not direct borrowing.

_rzecz_ 'thing, cause' is a native word ( = Russian _rech'_ 'speech'; the
intermediary meaning could be 'subject' or something like that).

_po-spol-ita_ is an adjective (f. sg.) derived from _spól/_ (l/ = l-bar)
'together', <- _s-_ 'with' + _pól/_ 'half'.

Pronounced [ZEt_SpO'spOlita].


Basilius

On Sat, 1 Dec 2001 14:01:49 -0500, Paul Sherrill <sherril2@...>
wrote:

>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?

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