Władysław Kopaliński (real name Władysław Jan Stefczyk; November 14, 1907 – October 5, 2007) was a Polish lexicographer,

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

and

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

. He was a prolific author and winner of numerous awards for his work.

Life

He was born in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

as Jan Sterling, a son of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

parents Stanisław Sterling and Regina Willer. Kopaliński was a renowned lexicographer and contributed much to modern knowledge of the origins of the

Polish language Polish (Polish: ''język polski'', , ''polszczyzna'' or simply ''polski'', ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script. It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In a ...

. He was considered an authority on the origins of Polish words, leading to a common expression, "Look it up in Kopaliński." His Polish

dictionaries A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, p ...

include ''Dictionary of Myths and Cultural Traditions'' and the ''Dictionary of Symbols''. His most famous work was the ''Dictionary of Words and Phrases of Foreign Origin''. An unabridged version of the latter dictionary has been published on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. Kopaliński also authored several books which are not dictionaries, including ''125 Fairy Stories To Tell the Children'', ''Lexicon of Love Themes'', and the ''Book of Quotations from Polish Belles-Lettres''. Kopaliński was a member of the Polish Writers' Society. He also wrote a regular

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

in '' Życie Warszawy'', ran a Polish

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

station, and translated

English-language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

books into Polish. Kopaliński died in

on October 5, 2007 at the age of 99.

Notes

External links

Władysław Kopaliński obituary
1907 births 2007 deaths Writers from Warsaw People from Warsaw Governorate Polish lexicographers 20th-century Polish Jews Polish male writers Polish United Workers' Party members 20th-century lexicographers {{Poland-bio-stub

Life

See also

Notes

External links