Zagadka języka staropolskiej legendy o Świętej Dorocie
Mystery of Language in Old Polish Legend of Saint Dorothy

Summary/Abstract: The Article aims at revising the existing views on the so-called old-Polish legend about St. Dorothy, a linguistically interesting monument, which so far has not undergone any in-depth linguistic analysis. The authoress has sought to demonstrate that the “Old Polish” text should not be regarded as a translation from Czech, as the Polish language was not necessarily to be the target language, in which the scribe wanted to commit the story to paper; moreover, the text’s “mixed” linguistic nature may arise from its borderline (Silesian) provenance – since the “legend”, in fact, constitutes a song, that is an oral composition. The article also juxtaposes fragments of the old-Polish text with five Czech songs about St. Dorothy, which have survived to the present times, thus making it possible to show that, apart from numerous similarities and fragments, which in isolation can be perceived as translations, the Polish version and its Czech counterparts show in places significant discrepancies. This excludes the possibility of finding a close relationship between the Polish text and either of the Czech versions, and suggests that the Polish version may have existed in oral circulation for a long time, irrespectively of the written model; at the same time, it allows for an assumption that in the Middle Ages, there might have been more versions of this song in the Polish language.

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