This article discusses contemporary revisions of viewpoints and texts undertaken by historians of the Polish language, discloses motivations behind the revisited views, and elaborates on further research avenues in this area, as well as pinpoints the most common limitations. The literature on the subject reveals that although the necessity of research revision is widely recognised by researchers, studies specifically addressing the issue are relatively rare. Nonetheless, revision should be seen not only as a pretext for altering the established beliefs, but also as an opportunity to revisit the research object in order to unearth new, previously unnoticed data. Such a broadly defined concept of revision brings tangible benefits not only to historians of language, but also to representatives of related disciplines. Revision can result in, among others, a change in the dating of literary monuments, a change in lexical chronology, a change in text interpretation, a changed view on text origin, a new relationship postulated between text editions, and, finally, an expanded state of research. These arguments speak in favour of seeing revision sometimes as a necessity, at other times as a privilege and an opportunity, but never as a threat to established scientific methods or theories.

The article provides a review of the literature on sixteenth-century nominal and verbal inflection of recent decades. It also addresses the issue of caesuras of language development phases, including the 16th century, an important one in the history of Polish. In doing so, we draw attention to vernacularization and literalization of the Polish language. We adopt a research perspective which assumes the separation in the synthesizing descriptions of a shorter period than several centuries, conditioned by change. We therefore postulate the need to develop a synthesis of sixteenth-century Polish using as source material Słownik polszczyzny XVI wieku [Dictionary of sixteenth-century Polish] and the method of synchronic cross sections. This is justified by the current state of research, which we show on the limited material of sixteenth-century Polish inflection, as well as in the syntheses created so far (e.g. of the seventeenth or nineteenth century) covering periods shorter than the historical era. An attempt at an overview of the literature on inflection in different periods of the development of the Polish language in 2023 by Władysława Książek-Bryłowa, and here the most recent literature concerning the historical-linguistic epoch of interest is indicated.

The subject of the article are methods of documenting parliamentary proceedings in Poland from the moment of its establishment to modern times. The aim of the study is to distinguish individual stages of the functioning of genres documenting parliamentary proceedings and to indicate the factors (political and cultural) influencing the changes taking place within genre patterns and thus enabling the distinction of these stages. The text falls within the scope of linguistic genology from a diachronic perspective. In the first stage of the functioning of the parliament in Poland, private, handwritten diaries of proceedings were prepared, but only over time this task was entrusted to employees of the royal chancellery, and from the second half of the 18th century, diaries were printed. Another form of documenting the proceedings are stenographic reports and parliamentary minutes, which began to be edited in the second half of the 19th century. Currently, in addition to these two forms, “Kronika Sejmowa” and “Kronika Senatu” are also published. The proceedings are also recorded in the form of audio and audiovisual files.

The analyses aim to identify the ways of creating a description in report prose in the 19th century from genological perspective, including 19th-century changes affecting travel reportage. The basic of the material consists of texts that mark the caesuras in the development of 19th-century travel reportage: Wspomnienia Wołynia, Polesia i Litwy [Memories of Wolyn, Polesie and Lithuania] (1840) by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Listy z podróży do Ameryki [Letters from a Journey to America] (1876‒1878) and Listy z Afryki [Letters from Africa] (1891‒1892) by Henryk Sienkiewicz, and Listy z Brazylii [Letters from Brazil] (1890) by Adolf Dygasiński. The analyses carried out show that in the 19th century two trends clearly clashed: artistic and factual. The stylistic layer of the descriptions was conditioned by the needs and defined purpose of the statement, while their final appearance depended, on the one hand, on individual decisions regarding the construction and selection of linguistic means, and on the other, on the artistic capabilities of the writers, their talent and sensitivity.

The research aims to overcome the limitations of the systemic examination of phraseology in historical texts using available digital tools. The article seeks to answer the question posed in the title by presenting a functional study of phraseology using the Korpus dawnych polskich tekstów dramatycznych (1772–1939) [A corpus of Polish dramatic texts (1772–1939)] and the intonation analyzer Wydźwięk. I conduct pragma- and sociolinguistic analysis in the context of language functions identified by Michael Halliday; I also propose using selected sociological factors included in the corpus that may correlate with the choice of phraseology in a given context. I verify the evaluation of the intonation of expressions by comparing the tool’s results with my linguistic intuition. The research results are presented in a separate section, juxtaposed with the state of research (systematic analysis) and the researcher’s linguistic competencies. The prospects for using digital tools in phraseological research in ancient texts are presented in the conclusion section.

The subject of the study consists of 17th-century surnames derived from common nouns, recorded in the parish registers (birth records) of the Daleszyce parish. These surnames have not previously been the focus of onomastic analysis. The aim of the research is to identify the semantic spheres, fields, and subfields to which the appellatives forming the motivational basis of the studied surnames belong, as well as to conduct a frequency analysis of the collected anthroponymic units. This allows for a characterization of the linguistic picture of the world emerging from the examined anthroponymic system. The article employs the method of semantic fields and uses the thematic classification of vocabulary applied in the WSJP. The research results indicate that the appellatives forming the studied surnames represent nearly all aspects of human life, with a dominant role played by names of animals, plants, and occupations. The analysis of anthroponyms also allows for the reconstruction of the thought patterns and cultural values of the 17th-century inhabitants of the Daleszyce parish, revealing their way of perceiving the world as well as their individual and emotional
approach to the nominated persons.

This article has been devoted to the mechanisms of influencing superior communities on language behaviour in subordinate communities, as part of official, formal, including legal and legislative behaviour. The texts preserving these simple and complex speech acts were created in a small urban communicative community over a period of about two centuries. It refers to the creation, transfer, consolidation and modification of patterns of linguistic behaviour produced for the needs of the craftsmen’s community, exemplified by preserved official documents of the Krakow brewers’ guild from the 16th–18th centuries. The analysis was based on the theory of communicative communities and communicative needs. Selected lexis and phraseology as well as genre determinants of the preserved texts, conditioned by the socio-historical context, were subjected to observation. The conclusions from the analysis present a direct relationship between the hierarchy of the social structure and the text, genre and language of the preserved documents.

The paper focuses on Old Polish loanwords of Latin origin connected to religious terminology. Many works on this topic assume that most of these loanwords were borrowed via Czech mediation. However, in recent years, the thesis about the Czech origin of Polish Christianity has been disputed. In this paper I discuss the types of arguments that can be used to confirm or exclude the possibility of Czech mediation for the discussed loanwords: phonetic, morphological, semantic, orthographic, chronological, and extralinguistic arguments. Each type of argument is described, followed by examples from the Old Polish material and evaluated (ex. gr. the phonetic argumentation is generally more useful and compelling than orthographical). In the conclusions I point out the difficulties concerning the study on the possible Czech mediation (relatinization, similarity between Old Czech and Old Polish), and I give examples of loans where mediation can neither be ruled out nor confirmed using any of the arguments mentioned in the article.

The aim of this paper is to form a hypothesis regarding the functional development of the conjunction ali in Slavic languages. The conjunction is derived from the Proto-Slavic compound *a li, which introduced a rhetorical question in Old Church Slavonic. It has appeared in several languages and has served a variety of functions, such as adversative, disjunctive, mirative, introducing conditionals. The hypothesis assumes the existence of two branches of its functional development, one of which is initiated by the use in rhetorical questions, which could have been later interpreted as adversative sentences. The paper analyses word uses in the oldest texts of selected Slavic languages: Serbo-Croatian, Old Polish and East Slavic languages. The methodology is based on the achievements of modern theoretical and typological linguistics, the functional-typological approach to coordination relations and the theory of semantic maps.

The subject of the observations made in the article are old lexemes related to the thematic field CULINARY (documented in lexicons of historical Polish language, mostly unknown to the users of the contemporary language, which have been preserved in Silesian dialects to this day. The aim of the study is to present and discuss these lexemes from different thematic fields (such as NAMES OF DISHES AND THEIR INGREDIENTS; NAMES OF FURNITURE AND KITCHEN FACILITIES; NAMES OF DISHWARE; NAMES OF MEAL; NAMES OF ACTIVITIES RELATED TO EATING), showing their historical continuity, as well as demonstrating formal and semantic relations between the old word and the dialect. The material basis of the text constitute 45 selected lexemes concerning widely understood culinary, which were excerpted from Leksykon dziedzictwa kulinarnego Śląska [Lexicon of the Culinary Heritage of Silesia] (by Lidia Przymuszała and Dorota Świtała-Trybek), as well as Słownik gwar śląskich [Dictionary of Silesian Dialects] (ed. Bogusław Wyderka). The text meets with the postulate of the needs for research on dialectal culinary vocabulary and on the linguistic history of Polish cuisine, combining both of these issues.

The aim of the article is to observe changes in the meaning of selected lexical archaisms that are still alive in the Silesian ethnolect, but have been forgotten or going out of use in the general Polish language, particularly those related to the traditional cuisine of the region. The research material was extracted from lexicographical works documenting regional vocabulary, i.e., Mały słownik gwary Górnego Śląska [Little Dictionary of Upper Silesian Dialects], part 1, Słownik gōrnoślōnskij gŏdki [Dictionary of Upper Silesian Godka], and confronted with the lexis collected in Mały słownik gwar polskich [Little Dictionary of Polish Dialects]. The considerations made in the study led to the following findings: the analysed lexical units, which previously enriched the active vocabulary in the general Polish language, still maintain their vitality in the Silesian ethnolect and often acquire new symbolic meaning. Moreover, a conflict between two contrasting cultural tendencies becomes evident – the departure of certain lexemes from the general Polish language into the passive vocabulary, as well as the return to tradition and a trend towards regionalism. The use of historical and linguistic analysis, as well as reference to National Corpus of Polish [Polish Language Corpus PWN], allowed to conclude about determining the limited scope of a given lexical unit.

Subjects focused on history and diachrony are often treated marginally in German studies curricula. Their complexity and deviation from the predominantly communicative and pragmatic-oriented study model contribute to this marginalization, leading to a gradual reduction of such courses. However, it is crucial not to overlook the fact that these subjects form the foundation for understanding the essence of language development and transformation, representing a fundamental element of philological knowledge. The author of this contribution aims to highlight the importance of language history and linguistic transformations in the didactics of German Studies. Simultaneously, the author recognizes a tendency toward excessively theoretical approaches in teaching such subjects and advocates for a more substantial reliance on authentic historical-linguistic corpora. The article also provides examples of the author’s contribution to bridging historical-linguistic research with academic and outreach practices, emphasizing the practical and popularization aspects of this endeavor.

The text presents the results of a syntactic-semantic analysis of the Middle Low German verb blîven, which was borrowed into the Nordic languages and whose semantics and syntactic status in both the original and target languages are disputed. The study covers a wider than before range of linguistic material from the period between the 13th and 15th centuries and consists of texts available within the annotated Referenzkorpus Mittelniederdeutsch/Niederrheinisch (ReN) corpus and texts of the Diachrony of passive voice in North Germanic (DiaPass) corpus. The temporal limitation of the texts has made it possible to conclude that the development of the periphrastic passive voice in Swedish with bli(va) cannot be attributed to Lower German influence. The above conclusion is confirmed by the sporadic use of blîven in combination with the past participle in the Lower German material with the simultaneous increase in the overall frequency of this construction in Swedish in the 15th century. The use of both corpora made it possible to rule out differences in the use of the verb blîven between Lower German texts written in the Lower German area (ReN) and Lower German texts from the Scandinavian area (DiaPass).

The article deals with the analysis of the oldest Greek lexical elements in the Romanian language, more precisely Greek borrowings in Balkan Latin, which has continuations in the Romanian language. Greek borrowings in Balkan Latin should be treated as a different group, as they do not have continuation in other Romance languages. The analysis has focused on words classified by the Romanian researcher H. Mihăescu as oral borrowings from Ancient Greek into Balkan Latin. The article uses the historical-comparative method. The analysis is not limited to the Romanian language only as other Balkan-Romanian languages, as well as regional variants of Italian, are equally important in the study. The presented analysis indicates that Greek elements are deeply rooted not only in the Romanian language but also throughout the whole linguistic area where Balkan Latin was used.

The analysis is an attempt to compare the genetic development of the spirants [ś] and [ź] in Polish and Montenegrin, and is a kind of Polish response to the theses put forward by the Montenegrin researcher Radoslav Rotković and later developed by the Montenegrinist Vojislav Nikčević regarding the common origin of these sounds in both languages. In view of the problem posed, the starting point is to present the theses put forward by Rotković in the monograph Odakle su došli preci Crnogoraca [“Where did the ancestors of Montenegrins come from”] and the evidence in support of them, as well as their linguistic development by Nikčević. Then, their reception by the Montenegrin and Polish Slavic community is analysed in order to compare the genesis of the Polish and Montenegrin spirants [ś] and [ź] in the light of previous accepted research and its results. This comparison speaks against the thesis put forward by Rotković, as it indicates different paths of the appearance of the spirants [ś] and [ź] in the Montenegrin and Polish languages.

The paper traces the history of obcy, whose original meaning of common, mutual, communal, has changed to mean alien, foreign. In other Slavic languages, the reflexes of the Common Slavic *obьtjъ tend to retain its original meaning: Czech obec “community,” Russian, obščestvo “community, society,” obščenije “contact,” etc. I show how the original dichotomy between swój “one’s own” and cudzy “some else’s” becomes a trichotomy, whereby swój is contrasted with cudzy vis-à-vis property and with obcy vis-à-vis people, places, ideas, etc., belonging to the out group. The emergence, in the baroque period, of a new word wspólny “common” further facilitates obcy’s spectacular shift. I argue that the semantic shift of obcy was motivated to a large degree by the rise of the szlachta social class and its ethos of sobiepaństwo “self-mastery.” As szlachcice grew more powerful over time they came to view things that were communal as things which were not theirs and therefore alien.

This article investigates the naturalist epistemic intervention in Auguste Brachet’s introduction to his Etymological Dictionary of the French Language, focusing on its impact on the conceptualization of key topics in the history and evolution of languages. The primary research question addresses how Brachet’s naturalist approach influences linguistic understanding. Utilizing a cognitive semantics framework, the study reveals that Brachet’s intervention transcends mere rhetorical flourishes, functioning as a cognitive device that facilitates the transfer of abstract ideas. The research employs a qualitative analysis method, drawing parallels between the comparative anatomy of living organisms and the explanatory regimes of the natural sciences. The findings demonstrate that these analogies provide mental images that enhance comprehension of complex linguistic mechanisms.

It is not only in Poland that the need to initiate new research on cluttering and disseminate up-to-date reliable knowledge on this phenomenon is recognised. The main aim of the research was to identify whether young adults notice in themselves any characteristics of cluttering, and if so, which ones, and with what severity. The study involved N = 726 Polish-speaking students from 54 higher education institutions, including: n = 638 (87.8%) non-logopaedics/non-speech therapy students and n = 88 (12.2%) logopaedics/speech therapy students. In the survey Forms questionnaire was used, developed by Monika Kaźmierczak on the basis of the Predictive Cluttering Inventory and the COCAF-4 Checklist of Cluttering & Associated Features. The analysis of the self-assessment results identified three groups of respondents with: I – slight, II – moderate and III – high severity of the features of cluttering. The vast majority of respondents have never heard of cluttering and are unfamiliar with this linguistic and communicative phenomenon. Therefore, any action aimed at raising awareness of cluttering among students is vital.