I've always read that it came from "robotnik" which just means "person who is doing something". And I agree, I'm also Polish and "robota" does not imply forced labour in the slightest, maybe it does in Czech but I doubt it given the close similarity between languages. It's quite common for people to say "Idę do roboty" which just means "I'm going to work"(as in - my place of employment).
I'm Czech and while those two languages are close, "robota" is really forced work in Czech. What you called "robota" in Polish is called "práce" in Czech. In Czech, "Robota" is forced work and has bad connotations. See https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robota . It's interesting that this page doesn't have Polish translation.
A lot of Czech people use this phrase in a very subtle, almost undetectable jest, but it is still fundamentally in jest. Drawing a connection between having to work for a living and likening it to being forced to work. It's similar to saying "Back to the salt mines" meaning back to work.
I don't doubt that, you're probably from somewhere around Ostrava. There are of course regional differences. I'm from Brno and instead of "jít do práce" we usually used "jít do hokny", "jít do háčku", or just "jít makat". Whenever I hear word "robota", I connect it with my grand-grand-...-father who was forced to work ("robota") by "dráb" (overseer) and didn't like it. So he cut overseer's head with his scythe, became a village hero and founded a church there.
It is similar in Polish. “Robota” as a colloquialism is used to denote tedious, unpleasant, and labor-intensive labor (literally manual labor), and it has a coarse connotation, so it is often used in jest (“wracać do roboty” is something like “back to the salt mines”).
The typical and more genteel way to refer to work is “praca”. “Szukam pracę” is how you would typically say “I’m looking for work”, for example [0]; “ciężko pracuję” means “I work hard”. So while “robotnik” is better understood as specifically a manual laborer or someone of the working class, “pracownik” means something like “employee”.
[0] I am aware of the Czech false cognate “šukat” :).
Interesting that in Ukrainian робота and праця are synonymous. Although, some derived words are different in meaning. Like робітник is a worker but працівник is an employee. I see in another comment that the same is true in Polish.
Etymologically Czech is the most conservative here. In other Slavic languages and in Proto-Slavic the original meaning was also forced/compelled labor (hence also why "rab" or "rob" means "slave" and not "worker" in most East and South Slavic languages). It just happened to evolve into a generic term meaning "labor" because the forced/compelled kind was so widespread and normalized.
Slavic languages aren't the only ones with such a trajectory for the term - the German "Arbeit" is directly related and underwent a similar process.
I would say that in Polish “robota” has a similar connotation. And “robol” describes a kind of low-level grunt. It’s definitely pejorative. “Praca” is the typical way to talk about work.
I'd translate "robotnik" as a "worker". A "person who is doing something" sounds a bit too general. Nevertheless, it's easy to guess that the root of the word is the same verb.
No, in Czech the meaning really is more specific and forced labor is not an overly bad translation, it's work done by serfs in medieval times.
It can be used to describe any work as heavy, but that's either in joke, or when used by people geographically close to Poland (typically referring to mining).
I vaguely remember that in English, we have words like “cattle,” French etymology, and “cow” Germanic, and the speculation is that it is because the aristocracy were French for much of England’s history (so, the French word is used to refer to cows as a sort of abstract resource to be considered in bulk).
I believe it's a similar thing.
Semi-educated guess based on historical facts:
Because of various (not least religious) reasons, Czech-speaking intelligentsia pretty much ceased to exist mid-17th century (fact, replaced by German/Latin) and only actual serfs spoke Czech, work and robota became defacto synonym (speculation). And when it became fashionable and cool to speak Czech 100-200 years later for the city-dwellers (fact), they probably felt the need to differentiate whatever they were doing as a job from the definitely uncool farmers of the countryside (speculation).
The evolution is the other way around - the original meaning of that root in proto-Slavic was obligatory work, and that one in turn is a derivative of a PIE word with the same meaning.
"Robotnik" means *manual* worker. E.g. someone fixing roads, or working in a factory.
"Pracownik" is a generic word for "employee". Can be an office worker or an manual worker.
"Robić" basically means "to do". While "pracować" means "to work". As you can notice one is more formal than another.
"Robota" is a less formal word, something closer to a "gig" (however it also means "work" or "job"). You will probably not find it in written texts. In writing "praca" (work) sounds more formal.
As a bonus, if you are a (manual) worker who complains and makes some not subtle digs about your job, you can say that you "have to go to your kołchoz tomorrow" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkhoz ). As the communist slogan said "work is your second home" after all :)
On a side note, do Czechs really like the polish word "pomidorek"? (Little tomato)
