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rsowa
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Joined: 09 Nov 2013
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Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 6:40 am Post subject: Lipnica Morowana

While Lipnica Morowana is the modern town name, and it was reported as the birth place for several of my ancestors, it is listed differently in some other documents. I am curious as to why the name seems to be spelled so differently for what (I assume) is the exact same town.

Even more curious, is that the town is reported merely as "Lipnica" on other family member's death certificates.

The attached image is one of those cases...from a Chicago parish register for Michael Polek marriage. Is this nothing more than the priest no knowing how to spell the place name?

1905 Michael Polek a.jpg

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dnowicki
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Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 9:16 am Post subject:

It is the same name. The difference in the endings lies in the nature of Polish as an inflected language. In English the use of a word is determined by position in a sentence but in inflected languages such as Polish word usage does not depend so much on position as on case endings. Polish nouns have seven cases and the endings change depending on the case. Adjectives also have case endings but the endings are not the same as the endings of nouns. In the example you posted the name of the town follows the preposition w (in) which is followed by what grammarians refer to as the Locative Case. The Locative case ending for the noun Lipnica is y so you the form used after the preposition is Lipnicy. The second word in the name of the town, Murowana is an adjective. The Locative Case ending for an adjective in this instance is ej so the word becomes Murowanej.
I realize this is unfamiliar territory for anyone who has not had experience with inflected languages but perhaps an example of one of the few remaining instances of case endings changing in English may help. If we consider the pronoun "he" we automatically use that form when the word is the subject of a sentence which in terms of inflected languages would be the Nominative Case. However, to express possession/ownership with the same pronoun the ending or form of the word changes to "his" which would be the Genitive Case. If we want to use the pronoun as an indirect object the form changes to "him" which follows the preposition "to" and would require the Dative Case in inflected languages. To use the pronoun as a direct object, again the form is "him" but without any preposition which would be the Accusative Case in an inflected language. We automatically would recognize it as an incorrect usage if we were to see a sentence written as "I saw he" or a sentence written as "Him saw me". So too in Polish it would sound no more correct to see "w Lipnica Murowana" than the English examples of incorrect usage sound to us.

Hope this long explanation to a simple question helps.

Dave

rsowa
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Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 10:47 am Post subject:

Actually that was a GREAT explanation. My wife's family is from Hungary....just across the Carpathians from my ancestors. So I suspect your advice would apply to many of her records as well.

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