Z PROBLEMATYKI POLSKIEJ NORMY JĘZYKOWEJ: DEMA CZY DEMU?
On the problem of the Polish language standard: dema or demu?

Summary/Abstract: This paper presents diffi culties in adapting Ancient Greek borrowings in Polish and the problem with declension of some Hellenic loanwords in Polish. The Attic-Ionic lexeme δῆμος (Mycenaean da-mo [da:mos], Doric and Aeolic δᾶμος) m. ‘a country-district, country, land; the people of a country, the commons’, pl. ‘townships’, was adopted in the 19th or the 20th century into the Polish language in two forms: demos and dem. The former appellative is usually treated as an indeclinable noun and sometimes as a declinable noun (e.g. nom. sing. demos, gen. sing. demosu). The most popular form used in Polish is dem. Unfortunately, the declension of dem is not firmly established in the Polish dictionaries. Some of them recommend the declensional forms: dem, gen. sing. dema. However, a different declension (gen. sing. demu) can be found in numerous scientific and popular works devoted to Ancient Greece, as well as in Polish translations of the Hellenic literature. The author suggests the preservation of the traditional declensional paradigm: nom. sing. dem, gen. sing. demu.

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