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Origin of city names ending with -ów

Destal
France

Origin of city names ending with -ów

Post by Destal »

Hello,

For a while I thought the city name "Kraków" was plural, because the ending is, for a learner like me, typically a plural dopełniacz ending.

My Polish teacher was surprised that I thought so, and when I told her this ending doesn't look like singular, she looked for other words with this ending in mianownik, and she could not find any, besides other city names and such.

My theory was that it was plural dopełniacz that lost its first meaning and became mianownik, for example an old place named "wzgórze/miasto/zamek Kraków" becoming just "Kraków". So I checked for Kraków and it seems there are several theories, one of them being (source: Wikipedia):

In Polish, Kraków is an archaic possessive form of Krak and essentially means "Krak's (town)".

According to this explanation, I was quite right, except it would be an archaic singular form, not a plural form, otherwise it should be written "Kraks' (town)" I guess.

Do we know where these names come from, especially are they plural dopełniacz?

Thanks

User avatar
Stasia
Poland

Re: Origin of city names ending with -ów

Post by Stasia »

[mention]Destal[/mention], there are as many theories on the origin of the name Kraków as there are researchers studying this issue. :)

The "official" version is that it is derived from the name of Prince Krak who was the mythical founder of the city. Mythical not historical - the first mention of him is centuries after he was supposed to live, and during his lifetime Kraków was plagued by a dragon. :D So take Krak's historicity with a grain of salt. It's quite possible that Krak was invented to create an etymology for the city of Kraków.

Another possibility is that it's not derived from Krak but from kruk (crow). In this case, the plural makes perfect sense:

Mianownik pluralDopełniacz pluralMeaning
krukikrukówcrows
ułaniułanówcavalry
woływołówoxen

Etc. I chose ułani and woły because Ułanów and Wołów are also Polish towns. Ułanów = [the town] of cavalry, Wołów = [the town] of oxen.

However.... the Krak's hypothesis is not completely off the realm of possibilities, as there are other towns which end in -ów and are derived from singular proper name:

Augustów from the name of the king Zygmunt II August. Augustów = [the town] of August.

Native: :poland:; Fluent: :es:, :us:; Getting there: Image; Intermediate: :fr:; Beginner: :ukraine:

Destal
France

Re: Origin of city names ending with -ów

Post by Destal »

[mention]Stasia[/mention] Ah thank you very much for this complete answer! I only have one question: about Augustów, is it dopełniacz plural or an ancient form of singular?

User avatar
Stasia
Poland

Re: Origin of city names ending with -ów

Post by Stasia »

Destal wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:06 pm

@Stasia Ah thank you very much for this complete answer! I only have one question: about Augustów, is it dopełniacz plural or an ancient form of singular?

I don't really know enough about the history of my language to give you a definitive answer, but I'm going to guess it's an archaic form of singular. Poland had more than one king August, but according to the official town history (link in Polish), the town was named specifically after Zygmunt II August.

Native: :poland:; Fluent: :es:, :us:; Getting there: Image; Intermediate: :fr:; Beginner: :ukraine:

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