The word biuwar and kotylion in contemporary Polish

Anna Bochnakowa

Uniwersytet Jagielloński

Abstract

The two words of French origin: biuwar (‘tissue paper’, since the beginning of the 20th century; fr. buvard) and kotylion (‘cotillion’, since the beginning of 19th century; fr. cotillion) have a different meaning in Polish than in the language they were borrowed from. The paper presents the history of the two words in French and in Polish as well as the history of their referents. Semantic evolution of the words biuwar and kotylion allows capturing a change in their use, subject to extralinguistic conditions. Relationships with the use of the words in French and references to French etymons in Polish are also indicated. The history of the two words in Polish is yet another example of a well-known phenomenon of “faux-amis”.

Keywords:

loanword, Polish language, French language