Hipotezy etymologiczne nazwy jęczmień a językowo-kulturowy obraz tego zboża w polszczyźnie ludowej

Etymological hypotheses for jęczmień ‘barley’ and the linguistic-cultural image of this cereal in Polish dialects The author cites five different etymological hypotheses for the general Slavic word jęczmień ‘barley’. Three refer to the features of the ear: its boniness, its shape during the time when the seeds ripen, and its adhesiveness; the other two adduce the sound that this cereal makes during the time of ripening, and its alleged taste. The paper aims to verify the cited hypotheses using the linguistic-cultural image of barley in Polish folk culture, as has been reconstructed from rich linguistic material. The author adduces linguistic contexts from various genres in an attempt to demonstrate that the reconstruction of the linguistic image of an object can help choose between etymological hypotheses. The underlying assumption is that those features which are most strongly preserved in the linguistic world view, indicate the most probable hypothesis.