From ours to alien: The journey of Polish obcy
From ours to alien: The journey of Polish obcy

Summary/Abstract: 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 swoj is contrasted with cudzy vis-a-vis property and with obcy vis-a-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.

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