“Mężczyzna” meant “several men” or “men as a group”, but it had feminine grammatical gender.
Similar words with the same suffix, meaning “the collective X” still exists in their feminine forms, like: “starszyzna” (the elders). It can also mean “the language of X” or “the land of X”, like in “polszczyzna” (the Polish language) “kozaczyzna” (the land of Cossacks) or “włoszczyzna” (the Italian language but also acquired the meaning of “vegetables for a soup”).
@mrundkvist A brave soul could even try to use “szwedzczyzna” or “szwedczyzna” for the Swedish language, but this is hard to pronounce even for Polish people. No wonder such a word is not in any dictionary. 😄
“Angielszczyna” (the English language) is, though.
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