For other uses, see Atlantis (disambiguation). Athanasius Kircher's map of Atlantis, placing it in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. From Mundus Subterraneus 1669, published in Amsterdam. The map is oriented with south at the top.
Common Polish family names include Nowak, Kowalski, Wisniewski, Kaminski and Zielinski. As with other cultures, many Polish surnames are based on a profession or place of origin.
The word Polszczyzna is both the name of Polish in Polish and a case-in-point of its inscrutability. Polish has several incompatible alphabets and writing systems, all in current use in order to keep the Polish people mindful of the history of their nation, and mindless of the point they were trying to get across.