Talk:Saeima

Etymology Latvian

@Voltaigne: Did you make this etymology up on your own or is there also a source for the claim that it is a Polish borrowing? All Latvian sources I can find appear to disagree, the spelling is not particularly Polish, and the word was coined in a time where a borrowing should be more obviously evident than this one. I of course cannot rule out that at least some inspiration was taken from the Polish name, but unless you can provide a source for this, it should most probably not be stated as the truth here. --Vogone (talk) 19:47, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Latvia was, for some time, part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and as far as I know, there is no native Baltic root for this. Here is a source that supports the claim that the Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Russian equivalents are borrowed from Polish: Rolandas Kregždys (2016), Lietuvių kalbos polonizmų žodynas. I don't really see why Latvian would be an exception. We have to apply Occam's razor. Although it's possible the Latvian term was borrowed from another language which got it ultimately from Polish. 98.170.164.88 20:06, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

The Polish historical lineage of the name and institution is discussed at w:Saeima#History_and_etymology, including reasons to doubt the account (given at w:lv:Saeima#Nosaukums) that it was coined by Juris Alunāns from natively Latvian ingredients. We also have Lithuanian seimas as a borrowing from Old Polish sejm. Feel free to edit the etymology here if, for example, an intermediate derivation or calqued coinage can be demonstrated. Voltaigne (talk) 20:15, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. While the Wikipedia article indeed explains the historical background, I cannot see how it sources the claim that „Saeima“ is a Polish borrowing. The article in fact does not even make this claim. Lithuanian „Seimas“ from „Sejm“ is very believable and undisputed, the Polish Sejm is called „Seimas“ in Lithuanian as well, after all. --Vogone (talk) 21:20, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

@Voltaigne, Vogone: I think it would be reasonable to at least mention Alunāns's claims here. 98.170.164.88 00:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

(I made an attempt at explaining it, citing some relevant sources. It could probably benefit from a little bit of copyediting.) 98.170.164.88 08:34, 29 November 2022 (UTC)