the saying has its origins in central european political traditions. it was the political motto that helped establish—and, loosely translated into latin, provided the name for—poland's 1505 constitutional legislation, "nihil novi", which first transferred governing authority from the monarch to the parliament. it subsequently became a byword for democratic norms. in this use, it is closely analogous to one of the most familiar slogans of the american revolutionary war, 'no taxation without representation'.