Bohemizmy czy latynizmy? Jak potwierdzać lub wykluczać pośrednictwo przy zapożyczeniach
Bohemisms or Latinisms? How to confirm or exclude mediation in borrowings

Summary/Abstract: 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.

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