The importance of names in ethnolinguistic reconstruction: The case of zając (‘hare’)

Abstract

The article investigates the role of names in ethnolinguistic reconstruction with the example of the Polish folk image of the hare. More than one hundred names have emerged in Polish dialectal and colloquial material, which shows how important this animal was for the inhabitants of the old Polish countryside. The onomasiological basis of the names includes the appearance of the hare (szarak, długousznik), its similarity to other animals (dziki królik, kot), behaviour (kicaj, skoczek), habits (wacho, śpioch, hazak, hazoń), ability to deceive hunting dogs (ćwik, gracz), voice (kniaź), promiscuity (gach), its feces in the form of droppings (bobkacz), places of residence (podbrózdnik, miedznik, kotlak), origin (sobek), time of birth (marczak, wrześniak), or its age (żak). Most folk names reflect the properties of the hare as those are perceived through the sense of sight and on the basis of the animal’s observable behaviour. The role of names for an ethnolinguist is an extremely important indicator, allowing for inferences to be made about the cognitive structure of an image, whose reconstruction – in the case of animals – must take account of the appearance (the colour of the fur, body structure), similarity to other animals, behavior, habits, voice, nutrition, place of residence, origin, etc. Names also allow the researcher to discover the most strongly stabilized elements of the image.