Kashub

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A member of the Slavic ethnic group living mainly in the Pomerania region of northern Poland, near the Baltic coast
2. A person belonging to the Slavic community of Pomerania in northern Poland, whose traditional homeland lies by the Baltic Sea
3. Someone from the Slavic people who have long inhabited the Pomeranian area of northern Poland and speak a related regional tongue

Etymology: Kashub is an English name for a member of the Kashubians, a Slavic people of northern Poland who live around the Baltic coast and the Kashubian Lake District west of Gdańsk. The word arrived in English from the Kashubian "Kaszëb" or the Polish "Kaszub", the two forms the people and their language use for themselves. Because the Kashubs' language is closely related to Polish but still distinct from it, the name marks a community that has kept its own identity inside a larger nation. The word is a plain borrowing, so there is no older English meaning to unpick. Its interest lies in the way it names a people by their own term rather than an outside label, which is why English speakers usually meet the name in its Polish or Kashubian shape rather than a translated one.

Synonyms: Kashubian