Historycznie o czasowniku zdechnąć – zdychać (na marginesie wypowiedzi medialnej J. Bralczyka)

The public discussion on how to refer to animal death has been going on for quite some time now. However, it has been revived following a media comment made by Jerzy Bralczyk, a renowned linguist. In a television programme, he expressed his preference for traditional linguistic forms that refer to animals, e.g., przygarnąć ‘to take in’ (not adoptować ‘to adopt’), zdechnąć – zdychać ‘to die – of an animal’ (not umrzeć – umierać ‘to die – of a human’). The article aims to draw attention to the historical evolution of the verb in question in the Polish language against philosophical approaches to animals and the contemporary cultural changes in how they are treated.