Poland's map is younger than its language

Poland lies on the plain between the Baltic and the Carpathians, and today's border is not as old as the language that is official in this state. The map was laid down again after the war. Polish remained.

The capital, Warsaw, lies on the Vistula. The official language is Polish, the currency the zloty. 36,435,861 people live on 312,679 square kilometres. The land neighbours are Belarus, Czechia, Germany, Lithuania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine. The edges are younger than the name of the country.

A plain with many edges

Most of the country is plain. In the south the Carpathians and the Sudetes rise, without Poland ceasing to be, in the middle, a country of passage. To the west lies Germany, the border following the Oder and the Neisse. To the south lie Czechia and Slovakia. To the north-east, Lithuania. To the east and south-east, Ukraine and Belarus. The border with Russia is not a long front through the mainland. It is the border with the Kaliningrad exclave. Each of these edges is a different political relationship.

The eastern border with Ukraine, Belarus and Kaliningrad is at the same time an external border of the European Union. Poland is a member of that union and of NATO and still pays in zloty. The map has joined a western alliance space. The currency has stayed national, and the language more so. That is not a contradiction to be resolved. It is the form of a state whose alliances are younger than its language.

After the war the border lay elsewhere

After the Second World War Poland lay farther west than the republic before it. Territories in the east passed to the Soviet republics of the time, today Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. In the west the border was drawn on the Oder and the Neisse. People were moved, cities changed their state language, and the name Poland remained standing on a different piece of earth. Today's map is a postwar settlement. It is not a line the Middle Ages had already drawn that way.

It is therefore wrong to take today's outline for an eternal Poland, and equally wrong to take the language for an invention of that outline. Polish was spoken in territories that no longer belong to Poland, and it became the state language in territories previously administered in German. The language passed through the shift. The border is the result of the shift. Learn only the current line and you learn the settlement. You do not learn why that settlement found a language already there.

The border is the result of a shift. The language passed through that shift.

— TerraTally · Countries desk

Warsaw is new, the language is not

Warsaw was destroyed in the war and rebuilt as the capital. The city on the Vistula is, in large part, younger than the republic it governs, and that republic is younger than the language of its laws. The old town does not show this at first glance, because the rebuilding quotes an older city. Politically the capital is an address of the postwar settlement. The Vistula is older than that address. It crosses a country whose middle remained while the edges moved.

Polish is the official language throughout the state. Beside it, Kashubian is recognised in the north as a regional language, not a second state language, but a sign that this country too does not consist of a single speech. The sign does not change the thesis. It limits it. The language older than the map is the state language. It is not the only voice spoken on this ground. The zloty and Polish carry the republic. The neighbours carry the unrest of the edges.

Poland can be drawn as an outline between Germany and the eastern neighbours. That outline is a settlement from after the war. The language in which the country names itself came through the shift. The map is the younger part.