Polish achievements in the humanities are often associated with scholars such as Ludwik Zamenhof and Bronis³aw Malinowski. Ludwik Zamenhof, in a desire to facilitate communication between peoples of different races and nationalities around the world without the added difficulty of complexes and ethnic prejudices, took up the challenge of creating a completely new language. He based it on the structure of the Indo-European  (Romance and, to a lesser extent, Germanic) languages. He reduced inflectional endings to a minimum and instead introduced combinations of word stems and grammatical morphemes. Esperanto, as this language is called, is governed by sixteen rules which have no exceptions, and its vocabulary contains 100,000 words. In 1887 Zamenhof published his work, Mezhdunarodnyi iazyk: predislovie i polnyi uchebnik (An International Language: Introduction and Complete Manual, in Russian), which he signed "Dr. Esperanto". The Universal Esperanto Association was founded in 1908 and still exists today. In 1954 was formally recognised by UNESCO as a movement which shares its aims and ideals.

Bronis³aw Malinowski is undoubtedly the most famous Polish ethnologist and social anthropologist. In 1913 he published The Family among the Australian Aborigines. His research in New Guinea and the Trobriand Islands during the years 1914-1918 secured his position as a leading proponent of functionalism in anthropology. His books The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929) and Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) attracted interest far beyond academic circles.

In the 1930s, Polish archaeology achieved some of its most spectacular successes. Kazimierz Micha³owski (1901-1981), an Egyptologist, archaeologist and art historian, founded the Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw. During the years 1936-1939, he directed Polish-French expeditions to Edfu (Egypt). After the Second World War, Polish archaeologists quickly returned to their work: Professor Micha³owski renewed his earlier contacts, and in 1956 left for Mirmeki in the Crimea on the first Polish post-war archaeological expedition. A year later, a Polish expedition led a dig at Tell Atrib in Egypt, and there were also Polish excavayions in Palmyra (Syria), and Paphos (Cyprus) beginning in 1959. That same year, on the initiative of Professor Micha³owski, the Polish Mediterranean Archaeology Station of the University of Warsaw opened in Cairo. Among Professor Micha³owski's most important achievements are his efforts to reconstruct the Hatshepsut temple in Deir el-Bahari, his discovery of the temple of Tuthmosis III, and his leadership of an international committee of experts who were working to save a complex of temples in Abu Simbel, which was in danger of being inundated as a esult of the construction of the Aswan Dam. His discovery of the frescos at Faras was also particularly important. Since the 1970s, the Station, which is today known as the Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw, has organised excavation projects in Sudan, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Cyprus. Polish specialists have also participated in restoration work in many other countries.