Poland

Name

Poland's official name in Polish is Rzeczpospolita Polska. The names of the country, Polska, and of the nationality, the Poles, are of Slavic origin. Their name may derive from the tribal name Goplanie - people living around Lake Gop?o - the cradle of Poland mentioned as Glopeani having 400 strongholds circa 845 (Bavarian Geographer). Common opinion holds that the name Polska comes from the Slavic Polanie tribe who established the Polish state in the 10th century (Greater Poland). The conventional etymology of the ethnic name of the Poles relates it to these Polish Polanie, "dwellers of the field"; pole, "field", analogous to Russian polyî, "open land", from Indo-European pelè-, "flat" + -anie, "inhabitants", analogous to Latin -anus, "originating from" (please compare Yuriev-Polsky). In old Latin chronicles the terms terra Poloniae (land of Poland) or Regnum Poloniae (kingdom of Poland) appear.

Related Topics:
Polish - Rzeczpospolita - Poles - Slavic - Gop?o - Bavarian Geographer - Greater Poland - Polanie - Yuriev-Polsky - Latin

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Parallel to this terminology, another one, Lechia, came into use, thought to derive from the tribe name L?dzianie. It gave rise to an alternative name for "Pole": L?ch, L?chowie in Old Church Slavonic, Lechia, Lechites in Latin, Lach in Ruthenian, Lyakh in Russian, as well as to old German Lechien, Hungarian Lengyelorszag, Lengyel, Lithuanian Lenkija, lenkas and Turkish Lechistan (from Persian Lehestan.)

Related Topics:
Lechia - Old Church Slavonic - Latin - Ruthenian - Russian - German - Hungarian - Lithuanian

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

See:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~