From Rej's "Do tego co czytał" ("To What He Read," 1562). Rej, the first Polish author to write exclusively in the Polish language, proposed that Poles break with the tradition, current in the Renaissance, of writing in Latin—a language that reminded him of the gabbling of geese. It has been argued that Rej here uses "gęsi" not as a noun ("geese") but as an adjective ("anserine"); thus, rather than saying, "that Poles are no geese—they have a language of their own," as some have understood Rej's verse, he would be saying, "that Poles speak not Anserine [i.e., Latin] but a tongue of their own."
