In the contemporary English language, the nounPolack (/ˈpoʊlɑːk/ and/-læk/) is aderogatory term, primarily used inNorth America, referring to a person ofPolish origin.[1][2] It is ananglicisation of thePolish masculine nounPolak, which denotes a person of Polish ethnicity and typically male gender.[3][4] However, the Englishloanword is considered anethnic slur.[5][6]
According toOnline Etymology Dictionary by Douglas Harper,Polack meant as "Polish immigrant, person of Polish descent" was used in American English until the late 19th century (1879) to describe a "Polish person" in a non-offensive way (1574).[7]Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) based on theUnabridged Dictionary by Random House claims that the word originated between 1590 and 1600. For example, inShakespeare's tragedyHamlet, the characterHoratio uses the termPolacks to refer to the opponents of Hamlet's father:
Such was the very armour he had on
When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
In an Irish-published edition ofHamlet by theEducational Company, Patrick Murray noted: "Some editors, however, argue thatPolacks should read aspole-axe, and that Horatio is remembering an angryOld Hamlet striking the ice with his battle-axe".[8]
On 26 July 2008,The Times featured a comment piece by restaurant reviewer and columnistGiles Coren entitled "Two waves of immigration, Poles apart", where he usedPolack to describe Polish immigrants who can "clear off", in reference to such immigrants leaving the UK in response to low-paying construction jobs drying up.[9]
The neutralEnglish language noun for a Polish person (male or female) today isPole (see also:Naming Poland in foreign languages). In some other languages such asSwedish,Norwegian orScots,polack orpolakk are inoffensive terms for a person from Poland.[10]
InIberian languages,polaco is a mild slur for people fromCatalonia,[11] though it is a completely neutral way of referring to Polish people in all Ibero-American countries except Brazil, where it became a politically incorrect term, and the noun used for Polish people nowadays ispolonês (such term is absent from Spanish and other Portuguese variants).
InUkrainian, the oldexonymлях (lyakh,lyakhy) is now considered offensive[12] In Russian the same word, formerly often used with negative connotations but not generally offensive, is obsolete. In both languages it was replaced by the neutralполяк (polyak).
Another common Russian ethnic slur for Poles isпшек (pshek), anonomatopoeia derived fromPolish phonology: prepositionsprze- andprzy- are quite common, withrz corresponding to the sound of "zh", and the sibilant-sounding speech (e.g.,przepraszam ("excuse me") transcribed as "pzheprasham") has been a target of mockery in Russian culture.[13]
InPolish, the termpolaczek (sometimes capitalised asPolaczek; plural:polaczki) which is the diminutive of the wordpolak is seen as a disrespectful or offensive term for a Polish person. In Polish-language media, it is usually also used as a direct translation for English termPolack.[14]
