The whole row started with the statement of Prof. Jerzy Bralczyk, which he gave in the "100 questions to" program on TVP Info to the question whether it is appropriate to talk about animals using forms reserved for humans.
Professor Bralczyk strongly spoke against this practice, emphasizing that this was his opinion as an old-school man, attached to tradition.
So what's all the fuss about?
Did the dog die or died?
Problematic for the so-called animal lovers turned out to be concrete. The professor – throwing all the examples into one bag – negated three terms: "adoption" of animals, "dying" of animals and the division into human and animal "persons", justifying it with the following words:
“But what is human is human. I am an old man and these traditional formulas and traditional way of thinking… Even saying that even my favorite dog "died" will be foreign to me. No, the dog unfortunately "died". I really like animals, I really do.”
The internet went crazy. The representatives of the so-called pro-animal groups, accusing the professor of lack of sensitivity. However, in response to the wave of hate, there were, of course, also many supporters of the professor. The topic became hot, and the media eagerly picked it up and started blowing it up.
Unfortunately, most of the arguments – both for and against – were based on emotions, referring to views, beliefs or level of sensitivity. And as we know, there is no discussion about tastes and colors, because this is a simple way to escalate the conflict.
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Villages will be depopulated the fastest
Let's look in the dictionary
Let's try to look at the whole situation from a distance, hanging up our prejudices, emotions, beliefs and worldview. After all, issues of linguistic correctness do not depend on our beliefs. We cannot decide for ourselves that, for example, the word "who" will be written with a "u" or decide on the conjugation of our names and surnames. The spelling and declination are codified, and we can obtain knowledge about correctness from dictionaries (e.g. from the online dictionary sjp.pwn.pl, which is updated on an ongoing basis) and other correctness publications. Changes in spelling or controversial matters are decided and informed by the Polish Language Council.
So let's go to the sources and see what the online dictionary of the Polish language PWN (sjp.pwn.pl) says about controversial phrases.
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A person – is it really human?
According to the dictionary definition, person has three meanings:
1. «human individual»
2. "grammatical category of verbs indicating how the person who performs the action denoted by the verb is involved in transmitting information, or who experiences the state denoted by the verb"
3. "a character appearing in a literary work"
In the above-mentioned discussion, we are only interested in the first meaning, and therefore the point for the professor. A person is a human individual, and all the rest of creation, including man – as the professor rightly notes – are beings. And it's hard to change anything here.
"Human person" is therefore a pleonasm, colloquially called "butterism", i.e. a repetition of meanings – a phrase in which one word contains part of the meaning of another.
Adoption with an extended meaning
The dictionary defines adoption as a human-oriented activity, giving the following meanings:
1. "legal act of recognizing someone else's child as one's own"
2. "adoption of foreign law as applicable domestic law"
However, according to the opinion of Professor Katarzyna Kłosińska (provided to the PWN language clinic in 2020), currently the chairwoman of the Polish Language Council:
Pets are treated by many people as members of the family, so the constructions of adopting a dog and adopting a cat are, in my opinion, justified (although, of course, the verb "adopt" is sufficient). In the meaning of the words adoption, legal elements become less important (i.e. the adoption process is related to a certain legal procedure), and the most important role is played by those elements that relate to recognizing the child as one's own and taking him/her under one's roof. This is why some time ago the words adoption began to be combined with the names of the animals we adopt.
However, they are also combined with the names of animals that we do not adopt but whose maintenance we contribute to (e.g. in the zoo), and with the names of plants that we do not keep at home (adopting a tree). Therefore, even greater shifts can be seen in the structure of the importance of adoption – the element related to the decision to live together and to be together with the adopted person (being) becomes less important, and the element related to caring for someone, ensuring their life and safety, begins to dominate. Adoption understood in this way becomes synonymous with paying (for someone, something), maintaining (someone, something), taking care of (someone, something), etc. It can be assumed that for people who call caring for a tree adoption, it is important to emphasize the specific treatment of the plant – the same as that of living beings (and for this reason they do not say that they take care of the tree, but that they have adopted it). The semantic changes that occur in the meaning of the word adoption are a consequence of certain cultural and ideological changes. If expressions such as adopting a tree actually appear for the reasons indicated here, they should be considered justified. However, it is also possible that sentences such as "we adopted a plant" are created as a result of thoughtless use of a template, duplicating impressive (because innovative)-sounding constructions heard from the mouths of celebrities (as Dorota Masłowska masterfully showed in the novel "Other People") – then they make us laugh and irritate.
In the professor's statement, we see two fundamental issues: language evolves and words change (here: expand) their meaning, and we cannot escape this. And the second issue is the issue of fashion and mindless copying of linguistic pseudo-trends repeated by incompetent people. And here we should exercise appropriate caution. Professor Bralczyk did not succumb to fashion, taking a conservative stance, faithful to the dictionary, which earned him a lot of hate.
To die or to die – which is better?
On the issue of dying, the dictionary says laconically:
to die – to die
1. "end life"
2. "cease to exist"
We do not have an annotation here that this term applies only to people, "life" is a broad concept, so the door is open… And according to the principle that what is not prohibited is permitted, in theory we can use this term in the case of the end of any life, without no matter who or what it belonged to.
However, there is one "but" – the combination of words, which means that, despite their broad meaning, not every word fits everyone, e.g. the term "kara" is used only for a horse, and if we use it in another context, we suggest associations of a person or thing referred to. with horse.
It is similar in this case: the connection "pies dechł" is more rooted in the Polish language than "pies died". Similarly to other terms dividing people and animals: a human has a head, a horse has a head, a cow has a muzzle, a dog has a muzzle, etc. Animals are covered with hair or bristles, and our bodies with hair… And this is what Professor Bralczyk is talking about.
In the case of animal-human terminology, we have made a lot of mistakes by using animal terms to refer to people in order to insult them. All the slogans: "I hope you die", "he has a face", "he died like a dog", etc. caused the neutral term to take on a pejorative meaning.
In the past, when the word "die" was primarily applied to animals, it had no negative connotations, but when it was used to refer to humans, it was with negative intentions, because animalizing a person, comparing him to an animal, is always contemptuous and hostile. In this way, the negative connotation of this word spread to all its uses – summarizes Professor Bralczyk in a commentary for PAP.
So we don't like the word "die" not because it is animalistic, but because it is a degrading term.
Moreover, Professor Bralczyk himself, as he admitted in an interview for InfoWet.pl, has a certain problem with this term:
I had wonderful cats. When I came home, the gate creaked and the cat jumped on my back and told me what had happened. I was attached to them, especially the cat. Well, they passed away some time ago, they died. As you can see, I am also reluctant to use the term "dead" when referring to them. I will say they are gone, but I certainly won't say they are dead.
So how can we determine the end of an animal's life? There are several possibilities.
First of all, as the professor suggests, a somewhat metaphorical "leave" if we are talking about an animal close to us. In other cases, we say that the animal "died" or has just "died" (although the sjp.pwn dictionary considers this term to be colloquial, and therefore allowed in speech, but not recommended in the official language – I quote from the dictionary: "dechać sweat «about an animal : end life»).
And the point here is not to divide animals into better and worse – those that die and those that leave – but again about connectivity: autumn flies usually die, just like wild boars infected with ASF, but also a rat, a farm rabbit or a barnyard dog. rather they die. There is a slight distinction in meaning here – but without 100% consistency: the death of an animal usually happens suddenly, as a result of some disease or other unexpected and unplanned circumstances.
Ours is the best
The issue of naming becomes problematic in the case of pets with which their owners have a strong emotional bond. And this is not about judging that a pet is better than a farm animal – a chicken, a pig, a cow, etc. Emotions and a sense of belonging come into play here. And there is nothing strange about this either. Let's think for a moment and admit – even only to ourselves – that our children are somehow less annoying, prettier and generally better than the neighbor's children, similarly to dogs, cows, rabbits and even potatoes that are more plump… It's a joke, of course, but it's true such that we tend to glorify everything that is "ours".
The English language has dealt with this differentiation well, in which we use the pronoun "it" to describe an animal, but we say "she" or "he" to describe pets that we are associated with (pet). he). This doesn't surprise or outrage anyone, but it doesn't mean superiority – this particular animal differs from others not because of its species, but because it is ours. How human…
However, in English we have it easier when it comes to ultimate matters – both humans and animals "die" (the dictionary shows that this verb means both "to die" and "to die", there is simply no distinction).
Professor Bralczyk has his opinion and that's it
This whole dispute is best summarized by the statement of prof. Katarzyna Kłosińska, chairwoman of the Polish Language Council (of which Professor Bralczyk is also a member), for the rp.pl portal:
The position expressed by Professor Bralczyk is his personal view, and not the opinion of the Polish Language Council. The Council is not always unanimous on various language issues. In order for an opinion to become the official position of the Polish Language Council, it is necessary to carry out certain procedures – first of all, a discussion, and finally a vote. When it comes to vocabulary describing animals, we haven't dealt with it so far. Professor Bralczyk, like everyone else, has the right to have and express his own opinion, and if someone disagrees with him, it does not entitle him to hate. Personally, I say that the dog, especially the beloved one, died, not dead. However, people have different sensitivities, so they do not always use the same words – said prof. Kłosińska.
The fundamental errors in this entire dispute are arguments referring only to emotions and lumping all three terms ("person", "adopt" and "die/die") – both by the professor and his opponents – into one bag.
And the second issue is the fact that Professor Bralczyk, when expressing his opinions, should take into account – whether he likes it or not – that his voice on linguistic issues is treated by many as an oracle. The professor is a renowned linguist, so even his private opinion on linguistic issues will be treated by many as an exponent of the norm. Being aware of this burden of authority, one could have been a bit more careful… And even though the professor clearly stated that it was his opinion, few wanted to believe him.
The dispute over language has a deeper meaning
However, this whole dispute and the emotions associated with it drew attention to a completely different problem – much more serious than linguistic speculations – which is the excessive humanization of animals. There is nothing wrong with the fact that a person likes his "pet" and takes proper care of him, but any trends that motivate owners (or guardians – as it is fashionable to say these days) to call, for example, their dog "dog" ” and myself as his parent are, in my opinion, very dangerous. Language shapes reality, and such a formulation carries the message – both for us and for generations just learning the language – that we are equal to animals. And here we are only one step away from "species equality" or animal sovereignty.
And this is also what Professor Bralczyk points out in his statement for PAP:
I consider replacing a child with a dog as a socially dangerous phenomenon due to the reduced birth rate. If it continues like this, the family will consist of two people and a dog. To sum up: I like animals very, very much and it's sad that they die, but I certainly won't say that they die. Despite everything.
Let's not go crazy and deny the achievements of science – we are the highest on the evolutionary ladder, whether we want it or not. It is probably not by accident that man drives the development (and sometimes, unfortunately, destruction) of the world, is responsible for all kinds of inventions and, above all, uses (or should, because he can) reason. A human being, not a dog, cat or ant… Herds and the so-called Animal societies are guided by instinct, not reason, which distinguishes us from other species. It is up to us to manage this world with full use of the capabilities of our mind and empathy. And this is both a gift and a burden of responsibility for everything we manage, including the animal world.
This dispute was best summed up by the professor himself, although it seems that it was not properly understood: "However, what is human is human." And let us add: and what is animal is animal.
And even though language is changing and the range of words is expanding, we should not fuss with reality – an animal will never become a human, and if a human is an animal, it is only metaphorically and not very positively, because genes cannot be fooled…
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Animals die, they don't die. Prof. Bralczyk responds to criticism
