# dewastacja



## Lorenc

These days listening to Polish news I often hear the word *dewastacja* and *dewastować* with reference to, e.g., graffiti sprayed on walls or on cars.
To my Italian hears, and also looking at dictionary definitions (eg, Słownik języka polskiego PWN: dewastować: niszczyć, pustoszyć, rujnować ; Okupant dewastował kraj.), this usage appears exaggerated (in English or Italian 'devastate' mean 'to destroy a place or thing completely or cause great damage', eg Warsaw after WWII was devastated).
I would like to know if this usage of dewastacja is somewhat exaggerated or is normal. Translating from Italian, I would call things like graffiti, broken windows etc *akty wandalizmu* / *wandalizm*. Would that work too?


----------



## jasio

It's a false friend. The closest Polish equivalent to the English "devastated" - whether referring to a city or personal health - is probably "zrujnowany" - albeit the latter also has another meaning of being bancrupt.

"zdewastowany" can cover a broad range of damages, including both intentional damages and lack of proper maintenance over a long period of time. For example if you rent a house for vacation and you see that some tiles in the bathroom are missing, the shower does not work, the sink is dirty - you would probably use this word quite legitimally to express your disappointment rather than to precisely refer to the actual damages.

On the other hand, when referring to important objects, such as historical monuments, the sensitivity grows. It's not necessary to paint all the statute with a red paint, it's quite enough to make a splash or paint inscriptions to deserve the name. Not a droplet, of course, but still...

In terms of the church, I would probably reserve the word to broken benches, ruined the Altair and a poo here and there (touch the wood), but people's sensitivity varies. Only few remember the post war damages (not strictly a false friend, but it in turn has so broad scope that requires several polish equivalents to cover), so this kind of words inflate like hell on the one side, but on the other - I can't recall anyone doing something like that, so it's plain shocking.

Some leftist MoPs called the situation "a war", albeit no one lost their lives as far as I'm aware, so some people take it as another inflated word, some - as a hyperbole, but some - as a call for more violence.

To make a long story short, I would agree that for the damages i saw it's exaggerated, albeit less than in case of the English cognate. Partially probably to express a shock, as i cannot recall a similar, so broadly coordinated action of symbolic violence against regular people.


----------



## zaffy

Lorenc said:


> I would like to know if this usage of dewastacja is somewhat exaggerated or is normal. Translating from Italian, I would call things like graffiti, broken windows etc *akty wandalizmu* / *wandalizm*. Would that work too?



It would, but you have no verb to use. You could say 'dokonano aktu wanadalizmu' but that sounds formal. "Wczoraj w nocy dokonano aktu wandalizmu na pomniku Jana Pawła II".
I guess most people would say "Wczoraj w nocy zdewastowano pomnik Jana Pawła II" or "Jacyś wandale zniszczyli wczoraj w nocy pomnik Jana Pawła II"


----------



## Lorenc

zaffy said:


> It would, but you have no verb to use.



I see, that's a good point. English/Italian/French would probably use vandalise/vandalizzare/vandaliser as a verb in such cases; I found few occurrences of *wandalizować* used online but this word seems to be a calque from a foreign language (probably English)
Słowotwórstwo, pochodzenie wyrazów | Wydział Filologiczny


----------



## Poland91pl

I don't think it's a flase friend.  It depends... sometimes it means destroyed almost completely and sometimes it means zniszczony so destroyed  i think on the news the word is used too often maybe because it sounds smarter than zniszczony.


----------



## Ben Jamin

zaffy said:


> It would, but you have no verb to use. You could say 'dokonano aktu wanadalizmu' but that sounds formal. "Wczoraj w nocy dokonano aktu wandalizmu na pomniku Jana Pawła II".
> I guess most people would say "Wczoraj w nocy zdewastowano pomnik Jana Pawła II" or "Jacyś wandale zniszczyli wczoraj w nocy pomnik Jana Pawła II"


In this case "zniszczyli" is much stronger than "zdewastowali". I think that painting a statue does not qualify to use the word "zniszczyli", it is even not damaged (uszkodzony), but for a religious person it is desecrated.


----------



## Chrzaszcz Saproksyliczny

Exaggeration like this is quite frequent in Polish press or in some political speeches. E.g.: if a team loses a match, a headline may say the team got "zmasakrowani" ("massacred"); with a little tag spraypainted on its base, Kosciuszko's monument got "zniszczony" ("destroyed"); a peaceful protest can be presented as a "pucz" (putch, coup) or "zamieszki" (riots).
Or, quite recently:

 "Wszystkie demonstracje, które popieraliście kosztowały życie wielu osób. Macie krew na rękach, dopuściliście się zbrodni. " (J. Kaczyński to the opposition) - literally: "All demonstrations you supported, cost the lives of numerous people. You have blood on your hands. You have committed a crime." (= "You supported public gatherings which may be a risk factor in Covid-19")

The word "dewastować" is often used where English "deface" would be employed, but indeed it can also be applied to a ransacked war zone.


----------



## Włoskipolak 72

*dewastacja *«niszczenie czegoś celowe lub następujące wskutek zaniedbania»
• dewastacyjny • dewastator • dewastatorski • dewastować

Other synonyms :  unicestwienie, zagłada, zatracenie, zniszczenie , spustoszenie , degradacja , zrujnowanie

*dewastować* : 


burzyć,
demolować,
druzgotać,
gruchotać,
kruszyć,
niszczyć,
rujnować,
pustoszyć


----------



## Chrzaszcz Saproksyliczny

Yes, but I think the question was about the practical use, not how dictionaries/thesauruses see it.


----------

