The word history does not relate to the possessive pronoun to be. It comes from the Greek istoria meaning investigation or knowledge gained through inquiry, with no pronoun involved.
Tracing exactly when confusion began is hard. In Poland it surfaced in various circles, especially on the left, and some public figures started self censoring. The confusion centers on replacing history with herstory a term that pairs his with her. The idea paints the male as patriarchal and paternalistic while presenting the female as a corrective force. The intended meaning will be clarified later in this discussion.
An event helped spread the confusion on December 12 2020 the Wroclaw based Gazeta Wyborcza reported a competition titled Writers Poets Artists Nobel laureates aiming to enrich Wikipedia sources with stories from writers artists and Nobel laureates and to expand topics connected to the work of Olga Tokarczuk.
The report suggested there was no error in announcing the contest and noted that feminists had already used the term herstory since the 1970s as a way to view history from a woman perspective. Herstoria would emphasize the role of women in history especially those not fully recognized or appreciated.
A deliberate word play then used the English possessive pronoun his replaced by her making her story a striking neologism. This method was intended to offer a fresh label for a familiar concept yet some view it as a misinterpretation of noble aims and even a form of ideological training in disguise.
The creators of herstory were aware that the word history does not derive from the English possessive pronoun and that in Greek the root istoria carries the meaning of research or the pursuit of knowledge. The purpose was to capture the idea of knowledge gained through inquiry rather than to imply possession in any language.
In daily practice the situation appears less than ideal. For years the interpretation of history as his story has been used by some as a quick shorthand in several languages including Polish English and many others. In standard languages such as Latin French histoire Swedish Geschichte Danish historie Albanian historia and many more the root does not convey possession in the sense implied by the English phrase.
Across languages the term idiocy or being for some may be less easy to translate. In Georgian istoria in Russian istoriya in Ukrainian istorii in Maltese l-istorja in Italian storia in Romanian istoris appears while German Geschichte Dutch historie Czech dejiny and Hungarian tortenelem use clearly different roots and forms.
On a daily basis there is no noble purpose behind the word play attributed to herstory by many commentators and critics, and the more pointed use of feminatives and transgender terms adds to the perception of ideological rhetoric. As cited in Gazeta Wyborcza on March 25 2023 a caption read Kasiek Gajda parent of 18 year old Eden underscoring the ongoing attention to family and identity themes.
The content above is presented as a matter of linguistic observation rather than endorsement, inviting readers to consider how language evolves and how historical terms can be reinterpreted in public discourse.