Wokół wybranych propozycji nazewniczych Dembołęckiego w świetle idei Wywodu jedynowłasnego państwa świata

Abstract

This paper is an attempt of presenting some linguistic games introduced by Dembołęcki in his most known book from 1633. It has been widely criticized for centuries but as it seems – wrongly or perhaps even rightly, nevertheless because of improper reasons. There are a lot of various indications suggesting that Dembołęcki was a hypocrite who praised Polish nation in showy manner and only outwardly for – in fact – he denounced obvious defects of the noblemen society. The Dembołęcki’s concepts place Poles on the top of nations – in many aspects, as i.a. the oldest people of the globe that should mean possibility of regaining apparently lost rights to rule the whole world. Such an exaggeration must arouse suspicions. The doubts may be also confirmed by peculiar neologisms provided with in the treaty. They appear to be infantile and primitive. Their forms and soundings are thought to reveal “Polish” origins of everything and the entire mankind. However, when analyzing them they become just invented words proving a particular, ideological thesis. For show. There is no need to believe in insinuations stating that e.g. the Greek polis, similar to the name of Dembołęcki’s compatriots, indicates Polish cities all over the world. There is no need to believe in sentences glorifying Poles thanks to their mythological ancestor Pollux, the adopted ancestor, the same with biblical Gog and identical with him… Baal, as the writer tried to prove. And finally, there is no need to believe that Sigismund III Vasa, a king of Poland, was a successor of Polish superiority since he was imported from Sweden. Dembołęcki, often confabulating (in this case), created an illusion of truth, supported with lexical “discoveries” revealing alleged sense of well-known and common words. Some of them are ecscerpted, described and discussed in this paper. What is interesting, the author has never identified himself with the opinions printed in Treatise; in a cryptogram contained in the only one poem of the book (ending it) he confessed he did not trust his pen’s ink. Besides he opened the main part of his “studies” with a meaning headline: “historical”, which had been earlier defined as… just a prattle. These naming proposals of Dembołęcki shall have become the author’s most innovative and tendentious offers in his persuasive (propaganda to the highest degree) strategy. And language in general and its features must be considered to be one of more effective instrument of his argumentation. Auxiliary – as M. Kochańska convinced, therefore its actual value should be decreased for the all divagations by Dembołęcki nowadays estimated with the lowest notes.