Old and new Latinate terms in Polish metaliturgical discourse on the Internet

Abstract

The paper discusses a recent phenomenon of reactivated Latin-Polish language contact in the domain of metaliturgical vocabulary. It presents the extralinguistic context of the phenomenon that seems to have been triggered by an apparently insignificant papal document (Summorum Pontificum, 2007) and the opportunities created by the digital revolution in communication. The empirical part of the study focuses on the current Latin influence on Polish metaliturgical terminology found in largely informal online discussion of liturgical matters by mostly young non-expert speakers/writers, most of whom do not have formal expertise in liturgy. The influence involves ‘reactivated’ Latin loans that were borrowed much earlier as well as a small number of new borrowings and Latin-inspired lexical innovations.