Curious things in Polish

from August 10, 2025 — last updated on September 6, 2025 | back to blog home

Here’s a collection of fun facts I found about Polish. Before we start, I have some symbols to show:

• *: indicates an unattested, reconstructed term (used in the context of proto-languages)
• ъ: indicates a very short “u” sound
• ь: indicates a very short “i” sound

The word sto

sto (“hundred”), one of the few numerals with the same number of letters and digits in the decimal system, is not supposed to be like this if we only take into account natural language evolution. To put it simply, the origin of this word is generally agreed to be Proto-Slavic *sъto. Further development is disputed, though.

It is frequently posited it comes from Proto-Balto-Slavic *śímta, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱm̥tóm. But it appears that *im turned into *ъ instead of the expected *ę. Compare Proto-Balto-Slavic *déśimtis → Proto-Slavic *desętь (“ten”).

Some proto-linguists posited that it may be connected to dialectal Lithuanian šumtas, which would explain the back vowel, but Lithuanian was not attested until around the 16th century, so historical development is dubious in this case.

Some say that *sъto was borrowed from another language, such as Thracian (which is poorly attested) or Iranian (despite the development into Proto-Indo-Iranian *ćatám.) Higher numerals are often borrowed; compare Russian тьма t’ma (“thousands, multitude”) ← Proto-Slavic *tьma (“ten thousand”) ← a Turkic language (whence Turkish tümen, Kyrgyz түмөн tümön.)

Gothic loanwords…

Polish has quite a few loanwords from Gothic, a language mostly known for being one Germanic language with early, 4th-century attestation through a translation of the Bible.

• chleb (“bread”) was most likely borrowed from 𐌷𐌻𐌰𐌹𐍆𐍃 hlaifs. The English cognate is loaf.
• pieniądz (“currency, coin, banknote”) was inherited from *pěnędzь, from earlier *pęnęgъ, borrowed either from *𐍀𐌹𐌽𐌽𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍃 *pinniggs or late Proto-West Germanic *penning. It is therefore a doublet of pens (from English pence) and fenig (from German Pfennig).
• szkło (“glass”) was borrowed in Proto-Slavic as *stьklo (compare Old Polish śćkło, Serbo-Croatian ста̀кло stàklo) from 𐍃𐍄𐌹𐌺𐌻𐍃 stikls (“chalice, goblet”). The meaning shifted to the material chalices were made of.
• wielbłąd (“camel”) was borrowed from 𐌿𐌻𐌱𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌿𐍃 ulbandus. The exact derivation is unknown, but it’s most likely Proto-Germanic *ulbanduz, Latin elephantus.

How did “*kъn-” become “ks-”?

It’s weird, but Proto-Slavic’s *kъn- transformed into Old Polish ks-. It’s currently unknown why, but may have to do with phonotactics, even though the topic of Polish, and generally Slavic phonotactics, is complicated. In the cases below, every other Slavic language only reduced the back yer.

This affects several words:

• ksiądz (“priest”), from *kъnędzь, from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz (whence English king). Doublet of later kniaź, borrowed from Russian.
• księga (“tome”), from *kъňiga
• książę (“prince, duke”), from *kъnęžę
• księżyc (“moon”), from *kъnęžiťь (“son of a prince”)

Not every *kъn- was transformed in this way; *kъnorzъ (“barrow, castrated male pig”) → Old Polish kiernoz (“boar, uncastrated male pig”) by metathesis; then Modern Polish knur, which probably existed in Old Polish but was unattested.

Same word, different inflections

The word rząd has different inflections depending on meaning, even though both really come from *rędъ. The difference is in how those words entered Polish. rząd (“row”) was inherited directly from *rędъ, while rząd (“government”) is a deverbal from rządzić, from *ręditi, itself a compound of *rędъ and *-iti.

The “row” sense is inflected with ablaut (rząd → rzędu), while the “government” sense is inflected without (rząd → rządu), because ablaut doesn’t affect the conjugation of rządzić (→ rządzę). Despite this, the word urząd (“bureau, office”) is inflected with ablaut (urząd → urzędu).