Polskie wyrazy kobieta i mężczyzna w aspekcie etymologicznym i kulturoznawczym na tle słowiańskim
The Polish words kobieta and mężczyzna in the aspect of etymology and cultural studies against the slavic background

Summary/Abstract: The Indoeuropean words designing adults of both genders probably date back to the polygamist times and their semantics refer to procreation capacities. The Proto­‑Slavic word *žena ‘woman’ (> Pol. żona ‘wife’) comes from the root *gen‑ ‘to give birth’, which is known in Greek and Latin. The word *mžь ‘man’ (> Pol. mąż ‘husband’), coming from the root *men‑ ‘to protrude, project, protuberate, to tower’, has a parallel in Germanic languages (Eng. man) and, with a different evolution of the meaning, in Latin (mons ‘mountain’). The Balkan languages have conserved the primary meaning of the words *žena and *mžь. In the Middle Ages, the words żeńszczyzna i mężczyzna were used in Polish in reference to adults of respective genders. The former has disappeared and has been replaced by the word kobieta, known only in Polish. The dialectal form kobito (f), retained until today, indicates that in Old Polish it was an adjective: *kobitā žona ‘clairvoyant (fortune telling) woman’, formed with the ‑ita(‑ja) suffix from the noun *kobь ‘prediction, augury, good / bad fate’, whose Indo­‑European root *kob‑ has equivalents in many languages, i. a. Eng. happy. In Polish, this word has disappeared, leaving only one word derived from it: kobuz ‘Eurasian Hobby’ (Falco subbuteo L). Even though around 30 different etymologies were created in the 20th century, the origins of that word have never been fully proven. Some of the theories were also referring to the *kob‑ root, but the authors didn’t take into account the contemporary Balkan languages, where around 50 words derived from this root exist. It was mainly basing on this material that the existing hypothesis concerning the etymology of the word kobieta was confirmed.

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