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When asking Google - what the etymology of the "robot" word is, the answer is from Czech word "robota" which is they translate as "forced labor". While I don't
by pawelwentpawel 3y ago
When asking Google - what the etymology of the "robot" word is, the answer is from Czech word "robota" which is they translate as "forced labor".
While I don't speak Czech, I speak Polish which is a close cousin. For years it didn't occur to me that "robot" and the shortened "bot" words have slavic etymology. In Polish "robić" means to do (carry out, perform etc.) something. "Robię kawę" means "I'm making a coffee" and "Zrób coś" (imperative mood - do something!) is a call for action to take action. It's a popular multi-use verb.
"Robota" is a job or some work that one has to do, not necessarily forced as Google suggests.
Edit: Also adding another interesting fact. Golem is an inanimate entity from Yiddish folklore, with a story strongly related to a 16th Prague Rabbi. I looked it up on Wikipedia if there was any connection with the "Robot" and indeed there seem to be some - "The play was written in Prague, and while Čapek denied that he modeled the robot after the golem, many similarities are seen in the plot." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem)
- gambiting 3y agoI've always read that it came from "robotnik" which just means "person who is doing something". And I agree, I'm also Polish and "robota" does not imply forced labour in the slightest, maybe it does in Czech but I doubt it given the close similarity between languages. It's quite common for people to say "Idę do roboty" which just means "I'm going to work"(as in - my place of employment).
- pawelwentpawel 3y agoI'd translate "robotnik" as a "worker". A "person who is doing something" sounds a bit too general. Nevertheless, it's easy to guess that the root of the word is the same verb.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoSo “robota” would cover a personal or job-related chore and “robotnik” is a person performing such a chore?
- rvba 3y agoIn Polsh: "Robotnik" means *manual* worker. E.g. someone fixing roads, or working in a factory. "Pracownik" is a generic word for "employee". Can be an office worker or an manual worker. "Robić" basically means "to do". While "pracować" means "to work". As you can notice one is more formal than another. "Robota" is a less formal word, something closer to a "gig" (however it also means "work" or "job"). You will probably not find it in written texts. In writing "praca" (work) sounds more formal. As a bonus, if you are a (manual) worker who complains and makes some not subtle digs about your job, you can say that you "have to go to your kołchoz tomorrow" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkhoz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkhoz ). As the communist slogan said "work is your second home" after all :) On a side note, do Czechs really like the polish word "pomidorek"? (Little tomato)
- pauke 3y agoNo, in Czech the meaning really is more specific and forced labor is not an overly bad translation, it's work done by serfs in medieval times. It can be used to describe any work as heavy, but that's either in joke, or when used by people geographically close to Poland (typically referring to mining).
- bee_rider 3y agoIs there some historical reason for this? I vaguely remember that in English, we have words like “cattle,” French etymology, and “cow” Germanic, and the speculation is that it is because the aristocracy were French for much of England’s history (so, the French word is used to refer to cows as a sort of abstract resource to be considered in bulk).
- pauke 3y agoI believe it's a similar thing. Semi-educated guess based on historical facts: Because of various (not least religious) reasons, Czech-speaking intelligentsia pretty much ceased to exist mid-17th century (fact, replaced by German/Latin) and only actual serfs spoke Czech, work and robota became defacto synonym (speculation). And when it became fashionable and cool to speak Czech 100-200 years later for the city-dwellers (fact), they probably felt the need to differentiate whatever they were doing as a job from the definitely uncool farmers of the countryside (speculation).
- int_19h 3y agoThe evolution is the other way around - the original meaning of that root in proto-Slavic was obligatory work, and that one in turn is a derivative of a PIE word with the same meaning. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/orbota https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/o... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/orb%D1%8A https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/o... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h%E2%82%83%C3%B3rb%CA%B0os https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur...
- rebolek 3y agoI'm Czech and while those two languages are close, "robota" is really forced work in Czech. What you called "robota" in Polish is called "práce" in Czech. In Czech, "Robota" is forced work and has bad connotations. See https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robota https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robota . It's interesting that this page doesn't have Polish translation.
- petr25102018 3y agoIn the region where I was growing up next to Poland, we say "chodit do roboty" when describing normal work.
- tomashubelbauer 3y agoA lot of Czech people use this phrase in a very subtle, almost undetectable jest, but it is still fundamentally in jest. Drawing a connection between having to work for a living and likening it to being forced to work. It's similar to saying "Back to the salt mines" meaning back to work.
- WesolyKubeczek 3y agoIt cannot be helped if your práce feels much like robota. Which, granted, happens a lot.
- rebolek 3y agoI don't doubt that, you're probably from somewhere around Ostrava. There are of course regional differences. I'm from Brno and instead of "jít do práce" we usually used "jít do hokny", "jít do háčku", or just "jít makat". Whenever I hear word "robota", I connect it with my grand-grand-...-father who was forced to work ("robota") by "dráb" (overseer) and didn't like it. So he cut overseer's head with his scythe, became a village hero and founded a church there. So I'm hard-wired to dislike "robota".
- _a_a_a_ 3y ago> So he cut overseer's head with his scythe, became a village hero and founded a church there do go on, sounds like quite a story in there.
- int_19h 3y agoEtymologically Czech is the most conservative here. In other Slavic languages and in Proto-Slavic the original meaning was also forced/compelled labor (hence also why "rab" or "rob" means "slave" and not "worker" in most East and South Slavic languages). It just happened to evolve into a generic term meaning "labor" because the forced/compelled kind was so widespread and normalized. Slavic languages aren't the only ones with such a trajectory for the term - the German "Arbeit" is directly related and underwent a similar process.
- lo_zamoyski 3y agoI would say that in Polish “robota” has a similar connotation. And “robol” describes a kind of low-level grunt. It’s definitely pejorative. “Praca” is the typical way to talk about work.
- siftrics 3y agoIn Russian, работа simply means "work" or "job" without any negative connotation.
- hippich 3y agoYet "раб" is translated as "slave"..
- WesolyKubeczek 3y agoIn Bulgarian, a slave is „роб”.
- tomashubelbauer 3y agoSame with Polish, but in Czech where the word originates from, there is a difference and normal work is called "práce" not "robota" which is reserved for forced labor or as an in-jest name for work.
- andrewshadura 3y agoIn Slovak, robota is apparently more like in Polish, it's commonly used to mean a job, sometimes as manual work, only historically for forced labour.
- meepmorp 3y agoRussian isn't Czech and there are a lot of false cognates between the two.
- pvg 3y agoThese aren't false cognates though, they're actual cognates. Cognates can have different meanings. You might be thinking of 'false friends'.
- torstenvl 3y agoMy absolute favorite false cognate is 'arraigned' (English) vs. 'araignée' (French). Arraignments would be far more nervewracking if they significantly involved spiders.
- dvdkon 3y ago> "Robota" is a job or some work that one has to do, not necessarily forced as Google suggests. This is a popular misconception among speakers of other slavic languages, but the Czech word "robota" really does refer to forced work performed by feudal serfs: https://prirucka.ujc.cas.cz/?slovo=robota https://prirucka.ujc.cas.cz/?slovo=robota
- neuromanser 3y agoYes, robota has a different meaning in Czech (mandatory work performed by serfs for the benefit of their landlord) than in eg. Slovak or Russian where it means simply "work". Cf. Slovak phrase "Idem do roboty". Btw Rossum in “Rossum’s Universal Robots” means "Reason".
- BossingAround 3y agoIn Czech, "robotnik" meant "serfs" and "robota" was the work that the serf was forced to do. Of course, nowadays, "robota" took the meaning of "a job" but that is not relevant to the etymology of the words.
- wastewastewaste 3y agoWe don't know when the word took on a new meaning though, serfdom in Austria Hungary was abolished 70 years before "robot" was first used
- lupire 3y agoSpeaking of Slavic etymology and robota, "slave" is derived from "Slav".
- thinkertraveler 3y ago[flagged]
- jefftk 3y agoslave (n.) c. 1300, sclave, esclave, "person who is the chattel or property of another," from Old French esclave (13c.) and directly from Medieval Latin Sclavus "slave" (source also of Italian schiavo, French esclave, Spanish esclavo), originally "Slav" (see Slav); so used in this secondary sense because of the many Slavs sold into slavery by conquering peoples. https://www.etymonline.com/word/slave https://www.etymonline.com/word/slave
- thinkertraveler 3y ago[flagged]
- droopyEyelids 3y agoI wonder if the use of 'ottoman' as 'footrest' in English has a similar origin story. Showing the soles of your feet to someone is extremely disrespectful in many middle eastern cultures including the Ottoman culture.
- saalweachter 3y agoNot really; it was more along the lines of "Ottoman-style seating" being referred to as "an ottoman", in the same way people refer to "a long chair" (chaise longue) as a "chaise".
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- thriftwy 3y ago
- bee_rider 3y agoIt is sort of funny that when shortening it in English, we ended up with “bot,” dropping the “ro,” which looks like the more important part of the word.
- Loughla 3y agoI'm betting it's because Rob as a shortened version doesn't work.
- tsunamifury 3y agoI’ve heard this shortening by Russians also American English “robo” was common
- int_19h 3y agoWouldn't be the first time. The English word "bus" is derived from a neologism "omnibus", "for all" (as in, "carriage for all") invented to describe the first attempts at mass transportation using horse carriages. In that word, "omni-" corresponds to "all", and "-bus" is just a suffix indicating dative declension of a plural noun.
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- notbeuller 3y agoIn various Discworld books, Pratchett sort of unified Golumns with Asimov’s three laws robots.
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- beebeepka 3y agoIn Bulgaria, we use "работа" (rabota) but eventually adopted "robotya" as a slang for working hard as a robot. Man, I really should travel more around Europe. COVID ruined my last planned vacation and I've stayed at home since then.
- paganel 3y agoAs your neighbor from the North (Romania) I highly recommend visiting the general Central and Eastern European area. In the last few years we’ve been to Prague, short stay in Vienna, Bratislava, Ohrid (spent a night in Pernik on the way there, which I count as part of the experience) and I’d also put Athens and Southern Greece/the Peloponnese on the list (even though it’s not Eastern nor Central European). All very interesting and beautiful places in their own way (yes, even Athens), I highly recommend them.
- beebeepka 3y agoall good recommendations. I needed some encouragement. Thank you. It's blowing my mind you willingly went to Pernik, though.