# All Slavic languages: Respublika vs. Republika



## Whodunit

Hi, 

do you have a good (etymological) explanation why some languages have chosen the version with an "s" and some haven't? If this is not a Slavic-only issue, we should move it to the Other Languages forum. 

example:
(CZ/SK) Česká republika
(PL) Republika Czeska
(BU/SR) Чешка република (Tsheshka republika)
(CR) Republika Češka
(MA) Чешката Република (Tsheshkata Republika)
(SL) Češka republika
(RU) Чешская Ре*с*публика (Tsheshskaya Re*s*publika)
(UK) Чеську Ре*с*публіку (Tshes'ku Re*s*publiku)

(LI) Čekijos Re*s*publika
(LT) Čehijas republika

Why have several languages added that "s"?

Thanks in advance.


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## Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

Some languages probably received the word from French (République), while others took it from Latin directly (res publica). But that's just IMHO.


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## Aldin

I agree.
ч=č
ш=š
those sound exist in all slavic languages so why use english transcription when we have our own.


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## übermönch

As tekelili said, the original latin word is _res publica_, a _public thing_. By the way, Lithunian and Latvian aren't Slavic languages, but I guess you knew it already since you listed them separately.


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## Whodunit

Good idea. But why should they borrow it from French? French is just a "derival" of Latin. It is interesting, though, that many languages has taken the version with an "s" and others haven't.

Aldin, you are right, but I was not sure if everyone knows that š and č stand for sh and tsh. Not everyone who participates in this forum is familiar with Czech or Slovak letters when he learn Russian. 



			
				übermönch said:
			
		

> As tekelili said, the original latin word is _res publica_, a _public thing_. By the way, Lithunian and Latvian aren't Slavic languages, but I guess you knew it already since you listed them separately.


 
Yes, I know that.


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## Seana

In my opinion tekelili is right it couldn't be others possibility as only this borrowings:
from Latin _- 'res publica'_ or '_respublica'_," 
_res_ a thing, object, matter, affair, circumstance;
_publica _evolving around _publicus,_ _pubes_ means population, or from old Latin _poplicus_ - pertaining to the people, from _populus_ people.
Meaning open to all in the community. 

French use it without an 's' but it comes from Latin as well
_It is quote from Wikipedia for French république : _
"Ce mot provient du latin _res publica_, la « chose publique », et suggère le contrôle de l'État par l'ensemble de la population".

"This word comes from Latin res publica, "public thing", and suggests the control of the State by the whole population ".


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## Whodunit

Seana said:
			
		

> "This word comes from Latin res publica, "public thing", and suggests the control of the State by the whole population ".


 
But how came French to drop that "s"?


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## Seana

Hi,
Look on this page with la cinquieme declinaison
Perhaps it would help you.


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## jazyk

> _publica _evolving around _publicus,_ _pubes_ means population, or from old Latin _poplicus_ - pertaining to the people, from _populus_ people.


Are you sure? Pubes means well pubes (as a noun) or adolescent (as an adjective/noun), and poplicus I've never seen, maybe you mean popularis? But populus does indeed mean people.


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## Seana

Hi jazyk,
I found this explaination of 'poplicus' etymology. It is quote from Wikipedia source
"The word _publica_ is the feminine singular of the 1st- and 2nd-declension adjective _publicus, publica, publicum_, which is itself derived from an earlier form,* poplicus—"relating to the populus [people*]".'_res'_ is the nominative singular of the 5th-declension feminine noun _res_, _rei_ meaning "thing", "matter", "business" or "affair".


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## natasha2000

OK...
Why it has to be French? What is so special about French, if many other languages also use the "without S" version... As a matter of fact, I didn't even know that there are languages who use the word with S.

Why do you think it must be taken from French?

Why it cannot be from German, or from Italian? They are much closer countries to Slavic community than France. Or directly form Latin, eliminating the S by ourselves.


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## Seana

But, Polish dictionary exlplains it as borrowing from French.
Polish language has many of them (borrowing from French of course).

French customs, language or even cuisine were very close to Polish culture for years.


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## natasha2000

OK, Seana, I'm sorry, I didn't know that. I was just asking.
But what about other Slavic languages? All of them took the word from French, too?


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## übermönch

Well, Natasha, the word wasn't really in use before the French revolution and the following French republic. Previously slavic languages had their own words like the Polish _reczpospolita_ or Russian _narodovlastye_ to describe a republic.


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## natasha2000

übermönch said:
			
		

> Well, Natasha, the word wasn't really in use before the French revolution and the following French republic. Previously slavic languages had their own words like the Polish _reczpospolita_ or Russian _narodovlastye_ to describe a republic.


 
  hehehe... How stupid of me! Of course,  French Republic!


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## Jana337

übermönch said:
			
		

> Well, Natasha, the word wasn't really in use before the French revolution and the following French republic. Previously Slavic languages had their own words like the Polish _reczpospolita_ or Russian _narodovlastye_ to describe a republic.


Absolutely correct.  After the demise of the Roman _respublica _in 27 BC, the world had to wait another 1000 years to see new republics, namely in Italian cities (the Venetian republic persisted until 1797) While they accidentally had some republican features, we would probably call them oligarchies nowadays. Unlike the French republic from 1790s, they did not have a well though-out concept anchored in natural law and philosophy. Poland and Lithuania formed a republic in the 16th century but you will not find famous tomes about it. The French republican experiment was (awe-)inspiring, and that's why French is the logical language to borrow the word from.



Jana


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## Whodunit

Jana337 said:
			
		

> Absolutely correct.  After the demise of the Roman _respublica _in 27 BC, the world had to wait another 1000 years to see new republics, namely in Italian cities (the Venetian republic persisted until 1797) While they accidentally had some republican features, we would probably call them oligarchies nowadays. Unlike the French republic from 1790s, they did not have a well though-out concept anchored in natural law and philosophy. Poland and Lithuania formed a republic in the 16th century but you will not find famous tomes about it. The French republican experiment was (awe-)inspiring, and that's why French is the logical language to borrow the word from.
> 
> 
> 
> Jana


 
Great explanation. 

But it doesn't answer the question why there are still languages that have kept the Latin word (with the "s"). Russian could have taken Република as well, couldn't it.


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## Seana

Whether it isn't convincing to you that some languages took this word literally from Latin but rest of them from French word 'republique' which is derived from Latin without 's' because of la cinquieme declinaison.

chose-thing -res rei


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## Jana337

Actually, I find it surprising that Russian would circumvent French and settle for a Latin word. The penetration of French into Russian educated circles used to be enormous!

Jana


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## Thomas1

Hi,

Thanks for this interesting thread Whodunit. I remember I was wondering over this one once but never managed to get down to it and resolve it. 

Now I tried and this what I got:


I think that most languages borrowed the word from French and adjusted it to its spelling/phonetic standards. As for the ones that use “s” I’m almost sure that they derived the word from Latin the question remains: “Why?” (share Jana’s surprising concerning Russian).


In Russian the word was used since around the times of Peter I the Great and Prince Kantemir, thus we have XVIII century and this is the time of French Revolution.
According to Lomonosov, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian derive from the same language, namely from Russkiy. that would explain why they use “s” in republic (it’s Рэспублiка in Belarusian, btw. ). 
And etymological dictionary of Russian language corroborates that the word comes from Latin word rēs рūbliса. Thus, we have all East-Slavic languages which use “s”.

As for Lithuanian language IMHO the influence of Russian language contributed much to the Lithuanian spelling (and not only). In the middle of XIX century Lithuania had its Russian Governor (Mikhail Muravyov) who prohibited using Latin alphabet and education as well as publication in Lithuanian. This prohibition lasted for almost half a century and could cause many changes. After that Lithuania experienced also two Russian occupations during which Russian language took precedence over Lithuanian.


As for the Latin word the main form (i.e. nominativus) is respublica, reipublica is genitivus (and such nouns composed the fifth declension in Latin), however in ablativus it declines: *republica*. .

I hope I didn’t make it more convoluted. 


Tom


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## Whodunit

Thomas1 said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for this interesting thread Whodunit. I remember I was wondering over this one once but never managed to get down to it and resolve it.




Me too, that's why I started this thread. 

Thanks for all your effort. It has really been worth reading it. Although the question "why?" will always remain, I'm now convinced that the reasons you gave are quite valid.




> As for Lithuanian language IMHO the influence of Russian language contributed much to the Lithuanian spelling (and not only). In the middle of XIX century Lithuania had its Russian Governor (Mikhail Muravyov) who prohibited using Latin alphabet and education as well as publication in Lithuanian. This prohibition lasted for almost half a century and could cause many changes. After that Lithuania experienced also two Russian occupations during which Russian language took precedence over Lithuanian.


 
So, do you want to say that all Cyrillic languages have dropped that "s"? I don't think this is correct. Macedonian and Serbian (I'm not sure if we should consider it a Cyrillic language) don't use the "s" either. Maybe it would be better to include other language families like the Germanic languages. Do they all use the "French" word?




> As for the Latin word the main form (i.e. nominativus) is respublica, reipublicae is genitivus (and such nouns composed the fifth declension in Latin), however in ablativus it declines: *republica*. .


 
You are right. The ablative case is re publica, which means "by/in the public affair/republic". So, it could be that several languages have taken the nominative, others the ablative case.


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## Thomas1

Whodunit said:
			
		

> [/font]
> 
> [...]
> 
> Thanks for all your effort. It has really been worth reading it. Although the question "why?" will always remain, I'm now convinced that the reasons you gave are quite valid.


 
Thanks, that is very kind of you .

I have new insight on the issue which I’d like to share with you.

As for the question “why?” there can be an explanation of the reason East-Slavic languages and Lithuania use the Latin version word and not the French one as the majority of languages. I think I came across something that could shed some light on that.

For a good clarity of the explication I’ll have to clarify something from my previous post, namely, dates.
I wrote that in Russian the word was in use since “the times of Peter I the Great and Prince Kantemir, thus we have XVIII century and this is the time of French Revolution.” Although, this could be correct in rough estimates, we need to precise them for better understanding of the situation.
Peter the Great ruled Russia since 1682 till his death in 1725 (born in 1672).
The French Revolution took place in the period between 1789 and 1799.
Thus, we have some gap between these dates.

I think the answer to the origin of _respublica_ in East Slavic languages can lie in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and more precisely in the history of its name. It was created in 1569 between Poland and Lithuania and it comprised the areas of modern Poland and Lithuania as well as Belarus, some parts of Ukraine, Latvia and Russia. Apart from official languages which were Polish and Lithuanian there was another one—*Latin*. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or also called the Republic of Both Nations, in Polish Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów, in Lithuanian Abiejų tautų respublika, in Russian Республика Обоих Народов (note that some languages also use Polish word rzeczpospolita (in transliteration of course)). As you can see the official name of Poland (Polska Rzeczpospolita) doesn’t contain the word republic either, however translations into other languages contain the word republic. The word rzeczpospolita comes from Latin and is a translation of “respublica” (it means republic and commonwealth in English). Even though we don’t use rzeczpospolita in reference to any other state (which is a republic) except for our own country. I think the word republika wasn’t used in Polish until the times of French Revolution which coined this word in my mother tongue. Now, IMHO Lithuania, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine must’ve taken the word from Latin making some necessary spelling changes (it’s hard to define which one was the first to do so, though) and that would be the reason for the occurence of _s_. 





> So, do you want to say that all Cyrillic languages have dropped that "s"? I don't think this is correct. Macedonian and Serbian (I'm not sure if we should consider it a Cyrillic language) don't use the "s" either. Maybe it would be better to include other language families like the Germanic languages. Do they all use the "French" word?


No, I think that for the above reasons the rest of Slavic languages picked up French republique and this is the reason why they don’t use _s_ in this word. An etymological confirmation from non-East-Slavic speakers would be very much appreciated. 
As for the other languages, in my opinion they use French-derived word (I checked English and etymological dictionary corroborates this hypothesis). Is it the same with German?



> Thomas1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As for the Latin word the main form (i.e. nominativus) is respublica, reipublicae is genitivus (and such nouns composed the fifth declension in Latin), however in ablativus it declines: *republica*. .
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You are right. The ablative case is re publica, which means "by/in the public affair/republic". So, it could be that several languages have taken the nominative, others the ablative case.
Click to expand...

At least one of them didn't even make any changes.  
BTW: I always thought that it meant from a/the public affair, though I'm not into Latin .

PS: if this is somehow vague, I'm sorry, it's quite late in Poland...


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## Insider

Whodunit said:
			
		

> (UK) Чеську Ре*с*публіку (Tshes'ku Re*s*publiku)
> 
> 
> 
> I don't have any good opinion or knowledge to argue on this topic, but I would like to correct your mistake.
> 
> In Ukrainian the name of Czeck Republic will be written in such way:
> 
> Чеськ*а *Республік*а *(Tshes'ka Respublika)


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## Thomas1

Insider said:
			
		

> Whodunit said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (UK) Чеську Ре*с*публіку (Tshes'ku Re*s*publiku)
> 
> 
> 
> I don't have any good opinion or knowledge to argue on this topic, but I would like to correct your mistake.
> 
> In Ukrainian the name of Czeck Republic will be written in such way:
> 
> Чеськ*а *Республік*а *(Tshes'ka Respublika)
> 
> 
> 
> Hi,
> I hope you don't mind me... In English the following spelling is correct:
> Czech Republic
Click to expand...


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## Insider

Thomas1 said:
			
		

> Insider said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hi,
> I hope you don't mind me... In English the following spelling is correct:
> Czech Republic
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, I fully agree with you, unfortunately, I didn't notice that mistake.
> 
> Thanks.
Click to expand...


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