Question about “Polak”: why is “polack” neutral in Swedish…
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Question about “Polak”: why is “polack” neutral in Swedish but offensive in German/English?
I recently learned something that confused me linguistically. In Swedish, *polack* is simply the ordinary, neutral word for a Polish person. It’s the word everyone uses, and I had never thought twice about it since it obviously resembles Polish *Polak*.
Then I learned that *Polack/Polacke* is derogatory in German, and apparently *Polack* is also a slur in English. So now I’m wondering why Swedish is the odd one out.
I initially had a theory that there might be some historical distinction in what *Polak* actually meant. Something vaguely analogous to *Bosniak* vs. *Bosnian/bosanski*: being from or associated with a territory is not necessarily the same thing as belonging to the ethnicity named after it. Could someone historically be “Polish” or from Poland in some sense without being considered a *Polak*, or is *Polak* simply the straightforward Polish ethnonym with no such distinction?
Part of why I wondered about this was hearing German refugees/expellees from Eastern Europe after WWII describe how other Germans sometimes greeted their arrival with comments like *“Jetzt kommen die Polacken” (now the poles are coming).* These people considered themselves German and very much did not want to be called *Polacken,* but possibly polish. That made me wonder whether the word could historically carry a specifically ethnic or social meaning rather than simply “someone from Poland”, and whether it was being used to mark people perceived as Eastern/Polish as outsiders.
But finding out that *Polack* is derogatory in English too makes me think that theory may be completely wrong and that German and English simply turned a word derived from *Polak* into a slur, while Swedish happened to retain it as the neutral ethnonym.
So, from a Polish perspective: does *Polak* have any nuance regarding ethnicity vs. nationality/geographical origin that a foreigner might miss? And does anyone know why derivatives of *Polak* became derogatory in German and English, while Swedish *polack* remained completely neutral?
#local
I recently learned something that confused me linguistically. In Swedish, *polack* is simply the ordinary, neutral word for a Polish person. It’s the word everyone uses, and I had never thought twice about it since it obviously resembles Polish *Polak*.
Then I learned that *Polack/Polacke* is derogatory in German, and apparently *Polack* is also a slur in English. So now I’m wondering why Swedish is the odd one out.
I initially had a theory that there might be some historical distinction in what *Polak* actually meant. Something vaguely analogous to *Bosniak* vs. *Bosnian/bosanski*: being from or associated with a territory is not necessarily the same thing as belonging to the ethnicity named after it. Could someone historically be “Polish” or from Poland in some sense without being considered a *Polak*, or is *Polak* simply the straightforward Polish ethnonym with no such distinction?
Part of why I wondered about this was hearing German refugees/expellees from Eastern Europe after WWII describe how other Germans sometimes greeted their arrival with comments like *“Jetzt kommen die Polacken” (now the poles are coming).* These people considered themselves German and very much did not want to be called *Polacken,* but possibly polish. That made me wonder whether the word could historically carry a specifically ethnic or social meaning rather than simply “someone from Poland”, and whether it was being used to mark people perceived as Eastern/Polish as outsiders.
But finding out that *Polack* is derogatory in English too makes me think that theory may be completely wrong and that German and English simply turned a word derived from *Polak* into a slur, while Swedish happened to retain it as the neutral ethnonym.
So, from a Polish perspective: does *Polak* have any nuance regarding ethnicity vs. nationality/geographical origin that a foreigner might miss? And does anyone know why derivatives of *Polak* became derogatory in German and English, while Swedish *polack* remained completely neutral?
#local
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