Talk:Rzeczpospolita

the word in picture is rzeczypospolitej non-polish speaker's questions: the word declines as adjective and has a "y" inserted. is this right?

-both unsigned comments by User:Rmo13, the latter migrated from Image talk:IV rzplita.jpg

Yup. Polish language has grammatical cases. Hence in singular we have the following:

Case	Poland	newspaper
M	Rzeczpospolita	Rzeczpospolita
D	Rzeczypospolitej	Rzeczpospolitej
C	Rzeczypospolitej	Rzeczpospolitej
B	Rzeczpospolitą	Rzeczpospolitą
N	Rzecząpospolitą	Rzeczpospolitą
Ms	Rzeczypospolitej	Rzeczpospolitej
W	Rzeczypospolita!	Rzeczpospolita (?)

In fact it has two traditional declinations, one used for the state and the other for the newspaper. In the earlier case the word is declined as if it was composed of two words. The first one (Rzecz) is declined along the lines of the Feminine noun VI group and the other (pospolita) following the standard adjectival forms. In the other case the word is declined along the adjectival lines, as if it was a single word and not a compound noun.

It is to be noted that even Poles have a problem with that and speak of Rzeczpospolitej when they should be speaking of Rzeczypospolitej. Hope that solves the riddle. Halibutt 17:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay--which is which? The genitive and locative of the STATE is rzeczypospolitej, or the paper?--Crestodina 09:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I knew this question would come sooner or later. Now, a question to Rmo13 or any other non-Polish speaker: do you think the information on how this word is declined (which is quite unusual) is interesting, relevant or useful enough to put in the article, or is it OK, if it just stays here, on the talk page? The corresponding article in the German Wikipedia does have a paragraph about it. Kpalion 20:30, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The trivia section could indeed grow huge if we mentioned that, for instance, our current president does not know the name of the state he lives in... Anyway, I also added the proper forms of the Rzeczpospolita (newspaper) to the table above just in case. I'm not sure about the vocative though. Rzeczypospolita? Rzeczpospolita? Any ideas? Halibutt 20:58, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The Czech Wikipedia says that President Kaczyński called the roof collapse in Katowice "one of the greatest tragedies of the Third Rzeczpospolita" – which would indicate that even he doesn't believe that the fourth one has already begun. Besides, it's still the Third Rzeczpospolita officially (see the preamble to the, still valid, 1997 constitution). As to the declension, I never thought of addressing a newspaper ("Rzeczpospolito" perhaps? I would probably write "Szanowna Redakcjo" though). Anyway, I would says that both declensions are correct when talking about the state, although I also personally prefer the each-part-of-the-word-declined-separately one. Kpalion 21:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, using vocative for some phenomena is absurd. As to the numbers in the names of Rzeczpospolitas, these are by no means official so far. The term "third Rzeczpospolita" is used in Polish official documents (laws and such) exactly once - in the preamble, where it is clearly used for styllistic purposes, to avoid word repetition. Other than that, the term is a press keyword rather than official naming. That's why I don't like the current authorities' promotion of the term as if it was a legal name of the state, some sort of a synonym to "Republic of Poland". The numbering is handy and all, but it's not official - and I must say I like it.

As to declensions - both are correct from purely gramatical point of view. However, from styllistical point of view they are not interchangeable as the usage of both forms is clearly limited (I asked prof. Bralczyk of it once). Halibutt 01:31, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I have copied the declension over to wikt:rzeczpospolita which seems to be a more logical place to collect lexical details, and a place where such matters are not trivia. The declensions actually are pretty useful for learners and for searches. Also wikt:Polska, wikt:polski, wikt:Stany Zjednoczone, and wikt:Niemcy. There is also a account of declension of b:Polish, which is pretty helpful. Seemingly useless cases do occasionally pop up and are worth keeping. rmo13 04:16, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This article claims that the word Rzeczpospolita has been used since the 16th century and that it originally referred to any "democratic state". The term state is shaky at best in the 16th century, and there is absolutely no trace of democracy in the 16th century..... in fact, no modern "state" which remotely resembled democracy arose until the late 18th century.... France, America, etc. So, there needs to be a major overhaul of that statement, and a new discussion of what the term originally meant.

Well, there was at least one state (or country, if you will) remotely resembling democracy in the 16th cent. and it was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. And the term Rzeczpospolita was also used for historical republics, such as the ancient Roman Republic. Kpalion 17:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation

I think that a disambiguation page is in order here. Articles about Poland frequently refer to both the paper and the state, and it would be clearer and simpler for readers. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Crestodina (talk • contribs) 09:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC).

I didn't find any articles with links to Rzeczpospolita where they should be to Rzeczpospolita (newspaper). So I don't think making a disambiguation page is necessary. Kpalion 18:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Ukraine and Belarus

In these languages, the term is not a borrowing in the sense that they have it as a loanword, rather the idea was borrowed - and the two standard languages have such translated the concept (a calque) and come up with something similar. After all, Rzeczpospolita is simply the Polish Republic but in loanword approximation. Ukranian and Belarussian, Eastern Slavic though they may be, both border Poland and as everyone is familiar, there is no defining linguistic or ethnic boundry where West Slavs/Slavic ends and east begins; they are contiguous. As such, it is only to be expected that their names are similar to Polish. By contrast, Lithuanian - a non-Slavic tongue - has the term Žečpospolita. They simply use /ž/ for Polish /rz/ or /ż/ etc. so here we have a proper loanword. Would anyone object if I were to switch the term for Ukranian and Belarussian to "calques in loanword approximation to Polish"? Or is there an obsure non-Slavic root even to the Polish word? Evlekis 13:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC) Blocked sock:Evlekis.

The reason why the article says that Рэч Паспалітая or Річ Посполита are loanwords from Polish is that they are used solely in reference to the Polish-Lith. Commonwealth. The standard word for a republic in the East Slavic languages is республіка (respublika). — Kpalion^(talk) 20:33, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah I see what you mean; yeah I know that it is generally /res/ in countries which were formerly a part of the Soviet Union, I just don't know if there is some kind of link. Of course, res is original Latin. Be that as it may, although Ukranian uses it to describe the Pol/Lith commonwealth, they seem to have naturalised it in a way that Lithuanian hasn't done. Does rzeczpospolita have a Slavic root? Sounds Slavic but the letter combinations on the last three syllabes don't seem Slavic. Evlekis 20:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC) Blocked sock:Evlekis.

I don't have an etymological dictionary at hand to back it up, but I'm pretty sure pospolity is of Slavic origin. A Google search shows it's used in other West Slavic languages (Czech, Slovak). In East Slavic languages, on the other hand, the word посполитый seems to be used almost only in the Речь Посполита (Rech Pospolita) compound. — Kpalion^(talk) 09:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Made a little change. So in case it pops up again - pospolity in RP and later Hetmanate were called free peasants, especially Ruthenian ones after Khmelnytsky Uprising. Korwinski (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 21:37, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Commonwealth

It is clear that the usage "Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" is typical in the publications on the history of the region. Nevertheless, the present meaning of "commonwealth" as in "British Commonwealth" or "Commonwealth of Independent Nations" does not describe the political organization that was Rzeczpospolita. Rather than using the nuances of the linguistic similarities between translations of "res publica," "rzecz pospolita," and "common wealth" would it not be better to translate "Rzeczpospolita" as "Republic?"

You are making sense, though I'm not sure wikipedia is the place to change a term that's already in usage outside of it?[citation needed?] Anyway, seems like "Rzeczpospolita" is translated as "commonwealth" when it comes to the Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth, and as "republic" when it comes to, say, People's_Republic_of_Poland. Seems to me though, that unless you get the historians to change the term "from the inside" it's stuck here. Then again, somebody actually versed in the ways of the wiki should answer that. 178.183.232.121 (talk) 00:51, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

NPOV, propaganda changes

I tried to make some NPOV changes, but I expect them to be instantly reverted. You can't fight lobbies.

-G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.44.121.216 (talk) 19:03, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Maps

The three maps used here are all in different scales which creates the impression (at the first glance) that the 2nd Rzeczpospolita was much bigger than the first, misleadingly. Gestumblindi (talk) 21:25, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Meritorical base

Good day, I AM Crown Monarch of Rzeczpospolita Syste. I would like to inform you than many informations are wrong about Monarchy State. I AM glad and disapointed than again something was created on base od my work what is not payed. 89.200.44.176 (talk) 13:37, 17 October 2022 (UTC)