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Polish language

Polish (Polish: język polski, [ˈjɛ̃zɨk ˈpɔlskʲi] (listen), polszczyzna [pɔlˈʂt͡ʂɨzna] (listen) or simply polski, [ˈpɔlskʲi] (listen)) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script.[9] It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In addition to being the official language of Poland, it is also used by the Polish diaspora. There are over 50 million[10][11] Polish speakers around the world. It ranks as the sixth most-spoken among languages of the European Union.[12] Polish is subdivided into regional dialects and maintains strict T–V distinction pronouns, honorifics, and various forms of formalities when addressing individuals.[13]

Polish
polski
Pronunciation[ˈpɔlskʲi] (listen)
Native toPoland
Ethnicity
Native speakers
Native: 40 million (2012)[1]
L2 speakers: 5.0 million[1]
Total: 45 million[1]
Early forms
Sign Language System
Official status
Official language in
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byPolish Language Council
(of the Polish Academy of Sciences)
Language codes
ISO 639-1pl
ISO 639-2pol
ISO 639-3pol – inclusive code
Individual code:
szl – Silesian
Glottologpoli1260
Linguasphere53-AAA-cc 53-AAA-b..-d
(varieties: 53-AAA-cca to 53-AAA-ccu)
  Majority of Polish speakers
  Polish used together alongside other languages
  Minority of Polish speakers
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

The traditional 32-letter Polish alphabet has nine additions (ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź, ż) to the letters of the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet, while removing three (x, q, v). Those three letters are at times included in an extended 35-letter alphabet, although they are not used in native words.[14] The traditional set comprises 23 consonants and 9 written vowels, including two nasal vowels (ę, ą) defined by a reversed diacritic hook called an ogonek.[15] Polish is a synthetic and fusional language which has seven grammatical cases.[16] It is one of very few languages in the world possessing continuous penultimate stress (with only a few exceptions) and the only in its group having an abundance of palatal consonants.[17] Contemporary Polish developed in the 1700s as the successor to the medieval Old Polish (10th–16th centuries) and Middle Polish (16th–18th centuries).[18]

Among the major languages, it is most closely related to Slovak[19] and Czech[20] but differs in terms of pronunciation and general grammar. In addition, Polish was profoundly influenced by Latin and other Romance languages like Italian and French as well as Germanic languages (most notably German), which contributed to a large number of loanwords and similar grammatical structures.[21][22][23] Extensive usage of nonstandard dialects has also shaped the standard language; considerable colloquialisms and expressions were directly borrowed from German or Yiddish and subsequently adopted into the vernacular of Polish which is in everyday use.[24][25]

Historically, Polish was a lingua franca,[26][27] important both diplomatically and academically in Central and part of Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by approximately 38 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a second language in eastern Germany, northern Czech Republic and Slovakia, western parts of Belarus and Ukraine as well as in southeast Lithuania and Latvia. Because of the emigration from Poland during different time periods, most notably after World War II, millions of Polish speakers can also be found in countries such as Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

History

Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. Mieszko I, ruler of the Polans tribe from the Greater Poland region, united a few culturally and linguistically related tribes from the basins of the Vistula and Oder before eventually accepting baptism in 966. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, which until then had existed only as a spoken language.[28] The closest relatives of Polish are the Elbe and Baltic Sea Lechitic dialects (Polabian and Pomeranian varieties). All of them, except Kashubian, are extinct.[29] The precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish descends from the unattested Proto-Slavic language.

 
The Book of Henryków is the earliest document to include a sentence written entirely in what can be interpreted as Old PolishDay, ut ia pobrusa, a ty poziwai, meaning "let me grind, and you have a rest" highlighted in red.

The Book of Henryków (Polish: Księga henrykowska, Latin: Liber fundationis claustri Sanctae Mariae Virginis in Heinrichau), contains the earliest known sentence written in the Polish language: Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai (in modern orthography: Daj, uć ja pobrusza, a ti pocziwaj; the corresponding sentence in modern Polish: Daj, niech ja pomielę, a ty odpoczywaj or Pozwól, że ja będę mełł, a ty odpocznij; and in English: Come, let me grind, and you take a rest), written around 1270.

The medieval recorder of this phrase, the Cistercian monk Peter of the Henryków monastery, noted that "Hoc est in polonico" ("This is in Polish").[30][31][32]

The earliest treatise on Polish orthography was written by Jakub Parkosz [pl] around 1470.[33] The first book in Polish was printed in either 1508[34] or 1513,[35] while the first Polish newspaper Merkuriusz Polski Ordynaryjny appeared in 1661.[36] Starting in the 1520s, large numbers of books in the Polish language were published, contributing to increased homogeneity of grammar and orthography.[37] The writing system achieved its overall form in the 16th century,[29][38] which is also regarded as the Golden Age of Polish literature.[35] The orthography was modified in the 19th century and in 1936.[29]

Tomasz Kamusella notes that "Polish is the oldest, non-ecclesiastical, written Slavic language with a continuous tradition of literacy and official use, which has lasted unbroken from the 16th century to this day."[39] Polish evolved into the main sociolect of the nobles in Poland–Lithuania in the 15th century.[38] The history of Polish as a language of state governance begins in the 16th century in the Kingdom of Poland. Over the later centuries, Polish served as the official language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Congress Poland, the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, and as the administrative language in the Russian Empire's Western Krai. The growth of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's influence gave Polish the status of lingua franca in Central and Eastern Europe.[40]

Geographic distribution

Poland is one of the most linguistically homogeneous European countries; nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in areas which were once administered or occupied by Poland, notably in neighboring Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. Polish is the most widely-used minority language in Lithuania's Vilnius County, by 26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results, as Vilnius was part of Poland from 1922 until 1939. Polish is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. In Ukraine, it is most common in the western parts of Lviv and Volyn Oblasts, while in West Belarus it is used by the significant Polish minority, especially in the Brest and Grodno regions and in areas along the Lithuanian border. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries.

In the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. According to the 2000 United States Census, 667,414 Americans of age five years and over reported Polish as the language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of people who speak languages other than English, 0.25% of the US population, and 6% of the Polish-American population. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census (over 50%) were found in three states: Illinois (185,749), New York (111,740), and New Jersey (74,663).[41] Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services (which has a large number of branches in all of these areas) offers services available in Polish at all of their cash machines in addition to English and Spanish.[42]

According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England and Wales who consider Polish to be their "main" language. In Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population: There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto (91,810 speakers) and Montreal.[43]

The geographical distribution of the Polish language was greatly affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II and Polish population transfers (1944–46). Poles settled in the "Recovered Territories" in the west and north, which had previously been mostly German-speaking. Some Poles remained in the previously Polish-ruled territories in the east that were annexed by the USSR, resulting in the present-day Polish-speaking minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, although many Poles were expelled or emigrated from those areas to areas within Poland's new borders. To the east of Poland, the most significant Polish minority lives in a long, narrow strip along either side of the Lithuania-Belarus border. Meanwhile, the flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50), as well as the expulsion of Ukrainians and Operation Vistula, the 1947 forced resettlement of Ukrainian minorities to the Recovered Territories in the west of the country, contributed to the country's linguistic homogeneity.

Geographic language distribution maps of Poland from pre-WWII to present
 
The "Recovered Territories" (in pink) were parts of Germany, including the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk), that became part of Poland after World War II. The territory shown in grey was lost to the Soviet Union, which expelled many Poles from the area.
 
Geographical distribution of the Polish language (green) and other Central and Eastern European languages and dialects. A large Polish-speaking diaspora remains in the countries located east of Poland that were once the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939).
 
Knowledge of the Polish language within parts of Europe. Polish is not a majority language anywhere outside of Poland, though Polish minority groups are present in some neighboring countries.

Dialects

 
The oldest printed text in Polish – Statuta synodalia Episcoporum Wratislaviensis printed in 1475 in Wrocław by Kasper Elyan.
 
The Polish alphabet contains 32 letters. Q, V and X are not used in the Polish language.

The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak Polish somewhat differently, although the differences between modern-day vernacular varieties and standard Polish (język ogólnopolski) appear relatively slight. Most of the middle aged and young speak vernaculars close to standard Polish, while the traditional dialects are preserved among older people in rural areas.[44] First-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty recognizing the regional and social differences. The modern standard dialect, often termed as "correct Polish",[44] is spoken or at least understood throughout the entire country.[20]

Polish has traditionally been described as consisting of four or five main regional dialects:

  • Greater Polish, spoken in the west
  • Lesser Polish, spoken in the south and southeast
  • Masovian, spoken throughout the central and eastern parts of the country
  • Silesian, spoken in the southwest (also considered a separate language, see comment below)

Kashubian, spoken in Pomerania west of Gdańsk on the Baltic Sea, is thought of either as a fifth Polish dialect or a distinct language, depending on the criteria used.[45][46] It contains a number of features not found elsewhere in Poland, e.g. nine distinct oral vowels (vs. the five of standard Polish) and (in the northern dialects) phonemic word stress, an archaic feature preserved from Common Slavic times and not found anywhere else among the West Slavic languages. However, it "lacks most of the linguistic and social determinants of language-hood".[47]

Many linguistic sources categorize Silesian as a dialect of Polish.[48][49] However, many Silesians consider themselves a separate ethnicity and have been advocating for the recognition of a Silesian language. According to the last official census in Poland in 2011, over half a million people declared Silesian as their native language. Many sociolinguists (e.g. Tomasz Kamusella,[50] Agnieszka Pianka, Alfred F. Majewicz,[51] Tomasz Wicherkiewicz)[52] assume that extralinguistic criteria decide whether a lect is an independent language or a dialect: speakers of the speech variety or/and political decisions, and this is dynamic (i.e. it changes over time). Also, research organizations such as SIL International[53] and resources for the academic field of linguistics such as Ethnologue,[54] Linguist List[55] and others, for example the Ministry of Administration and Digitization[56] recognized the Silesian language. In July 2007, the Silesian language was recognized by ISO, and was attributed an ISO code of szl.

Some additional characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include:

  1. The distinctive dialect of the Gorals (Góralski) occurs in the mountainous area bordering the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Gorals ("Highlanders") take great pride in their culture and the dialect. It exhibits some cultural influences from the Vlach shepherds who migrated from Wallachia (southern Romania) in the 14th–17th centuries.[57]
  2. The Poznanski dialect, spoken in Poznań and to some extent in the whole region of the former Prussian Partition (excluding Upper Silesia), with noticeable German influences.
  3. In the northern and western (formerly German) regions where Poles from the territories annexed by the Soviet Union resettled after World War II, the older generation speaks a dialect of Polish characteristic of the Kresy that includes a longer pronunciation of vowels.
  4. Poles living in Lithuania (particularly in the Vilnius region), in Belarus (particularly the northwest), and in the northeast of Poland continue to speak the Eastern Borderlands dialect, which sounds "slushed" (in Polish described as zaciąganie z ruska, "speaking with a Ruthenian drawl") and is easily distinguishable.
  5. Some city dwellers, especially the less affluent population, had their own distinctive dialects – for example, the Warsaw dialect, still spoken by some of the population of Praga on the eastern bank of the Vistula. However, these city dialects are now mostly extinct due to assimilation with standard Polish.
  6. Many Poles living in emigrant communities (for example, in the United States), whose families left Poland just after World War II, retain a number of minor features of Polish vocabulary as spoken in the first half of the 20th century that now sound archaic to contemporary visitors from Poland.

Polish linguistics has been characterized by a strong strive towards promoting prescriptive ideas of language intervention and usage uniformity,[58] along with normatively-oriented notions of language "correctness"[44] (unusual by Western standards).[58]

Phonology

Spoken Polish in a neutral informative tone
A Polish speaker, recorded in Poland

Vowels

Polish has six oral vowels (seven oral vowels in written form), which are all monophthongs, and two nasal vowels. The oral vowels are /i/ (spelled i), /ɨ/ (spelled y and also transcribed as /ɘ/), /ɛ/ (spelled e), /a/ (spelled a), /ɔ/ (spelled o) and /u/ (spelled u and ó as separate letters). The nasal vowels are /ɛ̃/ (spelled ę) and /ɔ̃/ (spelled ą). Unlike Czech or Slovak, Polish does not retain phonemic vowel length — the letter ó, which formerly represented lengthened /ɔ/ in older forms of the language, is now vestigial and instead corresponds to /u/.

Consonants

The Polish consonant system shows more complexity: its characteristic features include the series of affricate and palatal consonants that resulted from four Proto-Slavic palatalizations and two further palatalizations that took place in Polish. The full set of consonants, together with their most common spellings, can be presented as follows (although other phonological analyses exist):

 
Polish oral vowels depicted on a vowel chart. Main allophones (in black) are in broad transcription, whereas positional allophones (in red and green) are in narrow transcription. Allophones with red dots appear in palatal contexts. The central vowel [ɐ] is an unstressed allophone of /ɛ, ɔ, a/ in certain contexts

Neutralization occurs between voicedvoiceless consonant pairs in certain environments, at the end of words (where devoicing occurs) and in certain consonant clusters (where assimilation occurs). For details, see Voicing and devoicing in the article on Polish phonology.

Most Polish words are paroxytones (that is, the stress falls on the second-to-last syllable of a polysyllabic word), although there are exceptions.

Consonant distribution

Polish permits complex consonant clusters, which historically often arose from the disappearance of yers. Polish can have word-initial and word-medial clusters of up to four consonants, whereas word-final clusters can have up to five consonants.[59] Examples of such clusters can be found in words such as bezwzględny [bɛzˈvzɡlɛndnɨ] ('absolute' or 'heartless', 'ruthless'), źdźbło [ˈʑd͡ʑbwɔ] ('blade of grass'),  wstrząs [ˈfstʂɔw̃s] ('shock'), and krnąbrność [ˈkrnɔmbrnɔɕt͡ɕ] ('disobedience'). A popular Polish tongue-twister (from a verse by Jan Brzechwa) is  W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie [fʂt͡ʂɛbʐɛˈʂɨɲɛ ˈxʂɔw̃ʂt͡ʂ ˈbʐmi fˈtʂt͡ɕiɲɛ] ('In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed').

Unlike languages such as Czech, Polish does not have syllabic consonants – the nucleus of a syllable is always a vowel.[60]

The consonant /j/ is restricted to positions adjacent to a vowel. It also cannot precede the letter y.

Prosody

The predominant stress pattern in Polish is penultimate stress – in a word of more than one syllable, the next-to-last syllable is stressed. Alternating preceding syllables carry secondary stress, e.g. in a four-syllable word, where the primary stress is on the third syllable, there will be secondary stress on the first.[61]

Each vowel represents one syllable, although the letter i normally does not represent a vowel when it precedes another vowel (it represents /j/, palatalization of the preceding consonant, or both depending on analysis). Also the letters u and i sometimes represent only semivowels when they follow another vowel, as in autor /ˈawtɔr/ ('author'), mostly in loanwords (so not in native nauka /naˈu.ka/ 'science, the act of learning', for example, nor in nativized Mateusz /maˈte.uʂ/ 'Matthew').

 
A formal-tone informative sign in Polish, with a composition of vowels and consonants and a mixture of long, medium and short syllables

Some loanwords, particularly from the classical languages, have the stress on the antepenultimate (third-from-last) syllable. For example, fizyka (/ˈfizɨka/) ('physics') is stressed on the first syllable. This may lead to a rare phenomenon of minimal pairs differing only in stress placement, for example muzyka /ˈmuzɨka/ 'music' vs. muzyka /muˈzɨka/ – genitive singular of muzyk 'musician'. When additional syllables are added to such words through inflection or suffixation, the stress normally becomes regular. For example, uniwersytet (/uɲiˈvɛrsɨtɛt/, 'university') has irregular stress on the third (or antepenultimate) syllable, but the genitive uniwersytetu (/uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛtu/) and derived adjective uniwersytecki (/uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛt͡skʲi/) have regular stress on the penultimate syllables. Loanwords generally become nativized to have penultimate stress.[62] In psycholinguistic experiments, speakers of Polish have been demonstrated to be sensitive to the distinction between regular penultimate and exceptional antepenultimate stress.[63]

Another class of exceptions is verbs with the conditional endings -by, -bym, -byśmy, etc. These endings are not counted in determining the position of the stress; for example, zrobiłbym ('I would do') is stressed on the first syllable, and zrobilibyśmy ('we would do') on the second. According to prescriptive authorities, the same applies to the first and second person plural past tense endings -śmy, -ście, although this rule is often ignored in colloquial speech (so zrobiliśmy 'we did' should be prescriptively stressed on the second syllable, although in practice it is commonly stressed on the third as zrobiliśmy).[64] These irregular stress patterns are explained by the fact that these endings are detachable clitics rather than true verbal inflections: for example, instead of kogo zobaczyliście? ('whom did you see?') it is possible to say kogoście zobaczyli? – here kogo retains its usual stress (first syllable) in spite of the attachment of the clitic. Reanalysis of the endings as inflections when attached to verbs causes the different colloquial stress patterns. These stress patterns are considered part of a "usable" norm of standard Polish - in contrast to the "model" ("high") norm.[65]

Some common word combinations are stressed as if they were a single word. This applies in particular to many combinations of preposition plus a personal pronoun, such as do niej ('to her'), na nas ('on us'), przeze mnie ('because of me'), all stressed on the bolded syllable.

Orthography

The Polish alphabet derives from the Latin script but includes certain additional letters formed using diacritics. The Polish alphabet was one of three major forms of Latin-based orthography developed for Western and some South Slavic languages, the others being Czech orthography and Croatian orthography, the last of these being a 19th-century invention trying to make a compromise between the first two. Kashubian uses a Polish-based system, Slovak uses a Czech-based system, and Slovene follows the Croatian one; the Sorbian languages blend the Polish and the Czech ones.

Historically, Poland's once diverse and multi-ethnic population utilized many forms of scripture to write Polish. For instance, Lipka Tatars and Muslims inhabiting the eastern parts of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth wrote Polish in the Arabic alphabet.[66] The Cyrillic script is used to a certain extent by Polish speakers in Western Belarus, especially for religious texts.[67]

The diacritics used in the Polish alphabet are the kreska (graphically similar to the acute accent) over the letters ć, ń, ó, ś, ź and through the letter in ł; the kropka (superior dot) over the letter ż, and the ogonek ("little tail") under the letters ą, ę. The letters q, v, x are used only in foreign words and names.[14]

Polish orthography is largely phonemic—there is a consistent correspondence between letters (or digraphs and trigraphs) and phonemes (for exceptions see below). The letters of the alphabet and their normal phonemic values are listed in the following table.

 
The Jakub Wujek Bible in Polish, 1599 print. The letters á and é were subsequently abolished, but survive in Czech.
Upper
case
Lower
case
Phonemic
value(s)
Upper
case
Lower
case
Phonemic
value(s)
A a /a/ Ń ń /ɲ/
Ą ą /ɔ̃/, [ɔn], [ɔm] O o /ɔ/
B b /b/ (/p/) Ó ó /u/
C c /ts/ P p /p/
Ć ć // Q q Only loanwords
D d /d/ (/t/) R r /r/
E e /ɛ/ S s /s/
Ę ę /ɛ̃/, [ɛn], [ɛm], /ɛ/ Ś ś /ɕ/
F f /f/ T t /t/
G g /ɡ/ (/k/) U u /u/
H h /x/ (/ɣ/) V v Only loanwords
I i /i/, /j/ W w /v/ (/f/)
J j /j/ X x Only loanwords
K k /k/ Y y /ɨ/, /ɘ/
L l /l/ Z z /z/ (/s/)
Ł ł /w/, /ɫ/ Ź ź /ʑ/ (/ɕ/)
M m /m/ Ż ż /ʐ/ (/ʂ/)
N n /n/

The following digraphs and trigraphs are used:

Digraph Phonemic value(s) Digraph/trigraph
(before a vowel)
Phonemic value(s)
ch /x/ ci //
cz // dzi //
dz /dz/ (/ts/) gi /ɡʲ/
// (//) (c)hi //
// (//) ki //
rz /ʐ/ (/ʂ/) ni /ɲ/
sz /ʂ/ si /ɕ/
    zi /ʑ/

Voiced consonant letters frequently come to represent voiceless sounds (as shown in the tables); this occurs at the end of words and in certain clusters, due to the neutralization mentioned in the Phonology section above. Occasionally also voiceless consonant letters can represent voiced sounds in clusters.

The spelling rule for the palatal sounds /ɕ/, /ʑ/, //, // and /ɲ/ is as follows: before the vowel i the plain letters s, z, c, dz, n are used; before other vowels the combinations si, zi, ci, dzi, ni are used; when not followed by a vowel the diacritic forms ś, ź, ć, dź, ń are used. For example, the s in siwy ("grey-haired"), the si in siarka ("sulfur") and the ś in święty ("holy") all represent the sound /ɕ/. The exceptions to the above rule are certain loanwords from Latin, Italian, French, Russian or English—where s before i is pronounced as s, e.g. sinus, sinologia, do re mi fa sol la si do, Saint-Simon i saint-simoniści, Sierioża, Siergiej, Singapur, singiel. In other loanwords the vowel i is changed to y, e.g. Syria, Sybir, synchronizacja, Syrakuzy.

The following table shows the correspondence between the sounds and spelling:

Digraphs and trigraphs are used:

Phonemic value Single letter/Digraph
(in pausa or
before a consonant)
Digraph/Trigraph
(before a vowel)
Single letter/Digraph
(before the vowel i)
// ć ci c
// dzi dz
/ɕ/ ś si s
/ʑ/ ź zi z
/ɲ/ ń ni n

Similar principles apply to //, /ɡʲ/, // and /lʲ/, except that these can only occur before vowels, so the spellings are k, g, (c)h, l before i, and ki, gi, (c)hi, li otherwise. Most Polish speakers, however, do not consider palatalization of k, g, (c)h or l as creating new sounds.

Except in the cases mentioned above, the letter i if followed by another vowel in the same word usually represents /j/, yet a palatalization of the previous consonant is always assumed.

The reverse case, where the consonant remains unpalatalized but is followed by a palatalized consonant, is written by using j instead of i: for example, zjeść, "to eat up".

The letters ą and ę, when followed by plosives and affricates, represent an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant, rather than a nasal vowel. For example, ą in dąb ("oak") is pronounced [ɔm], and ę in tęcza ("rainbow") is pronounced [ɛn] (the nasal assimilates to the following consonant). When followed by l or ł (for example przyjęli, przyjęły), ę is pronounced as just e. When ę is at the end of the word it is often pronounced as just [ɛ].

Note that, depending on the word, the phoneme /x/ can be spelt h or ch, the phoneme /ʐ/ can be spelt ż or rz, and /u/ can be spelt u or ó. In several cases it determines the meaning, for example: może ("maybe") and morze ("sea").

In occasional words, letters that normally form a digraph are pronounced separately. For example, rz represents /rz/, not /ʐ/, in words like zamarzać ("freeze") and in the name Tarzan.

Doubled letters are usually pronounced as a single, lengthened consonant, however, some speakers might pronounce the combination as two separate sounds.

There are certain clusters where a written consonant would not be pronounced. For example, the ł in the word jabłko ("apple") might be omitted in ordinary speech, leading to the pronunciation japko.

Grammar

Polish is a highly fusional language with relatively free word order, although the dominant arrangement is subject–verb–object (SVO). There are no articles, and subject pronouns are often dropped.

Nouns belong to one of three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. The masculine gender is also divided into subgenders : animate vs inanimate in the singular, human vs nonhuman in the plural. There are seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative.

Adjectives agree with nouns in terms of gender, case, and number. Attributive adjectives most commonly precede the noun, although in certain cases, especially in fixed phrases (like język polski, "Polish (language)"), the noun may come first; the rule of thumb is that generic descriptive adjective normally precedes (e.g. piękny kwiat, "beautiful flower") while categorizing adjective often follows the noun (e.g. węgiel kamienny, "black coal"). Most short adjectives and their derived adverbs form comparatives and superlatives by inflection (the superlative is formed by prefixing naj- to the comparative).

Verbs are of imperfective or perfective aspect, often occurring in pairs. Imperfective verbs have a present tense, past tense, compound future tense (except for być "to be", which has a simple future będę etc., this in turn being used to form the compound future of other verbs), subjunctive/conditional (formed with the detachable particle by), imperatives, an infinitive, present participle, present gerund and past participle. Perfective verbs have a simple future tense (formed like the present tense of imperfective verbs), past tense, subjunctive/conditional, imperatives, infinitive, present gerund and past participle. Conjugated verb forms agree with their subject in terms of person, number, and (in the case of past tense and subjunctive/conditional forms) gender.

Passive-type constructions can be made using the auxiliary być or zostać ("become") with the passive participle. There is also an impersonal construction where the active verb is used (in third person singular) with no subject, but with the reflexive pronoun się present to indicate a general, unspecified subject (as in pije się wódkę "vodka is being drunk"—note that wódka appears in the accusative). A similar sentence type in the past tense uses the passive participle with the ending -o, as in widziano ludzi ("people were seen"). As in other Slavic languages, there are also subjectless sentences formed using such words as można ("it is possible") together with an infinitive.

Yes-no questions (both direct and indirect) are formed by placing the word czy at the start. Negation uses the word nie, before the verb or other item being negated; nie is still added before the verb even if the sentence also contains other negatives such as nigdy ("never") or nic ("nothing"), effectively creating a double negative.

Cardinal numbers have a complex system of inflection and agreement. Zero and cardinal numbers higher than five (except for those ending with the digit 2, 3 or 4 but not ending with 12, 13 or 14) govern the genitive case rather than the nominative or accusative. Special forms of numbers (collective numerals) are used with certain classes of noun, which include dziecko ("child") and exclusively plural nouns such as drzwi ("door").

Borrowed words

 
 
 
 
Poland was once a multi-ethnic nation with many minorities that contributed to the Polish language.
  1. Top left: cauliflower (Polish kalafior from Italian cavolfiore).
  2. Top right: rope (sznur from German Schnur).
  3. Bottom left: shark (rekin from French requin).
  4. Bottom right: teacher (belfer (colloquial) from Yiddish בעלפֿער belfer)

Polish has, over the centuries, borrowed a number of words from other languages. When borrowing, pronunciation was adapted to Polish phonemes and spelling was altered to match Polish orthography. In addition, word endings are liberally applied to almost any word to produce verbs, nouns, adjectives, as well as adding the appropriate endings for cases of nouns, adjectives, diminutives, double-diminutives, augmentatives, etc.

Depending on the historical period, borrowing has proceeded from various languages. Notable influences have been Latin (10th–18th centuries),[68] Czech (10th and 14th–15th centuries), Italian (16th–17th centuries),[68] French (17th–19th centuries),[68] German (13–15th and 18th–20th centuries), Hungarian (15th–16th centuries)[68] and Turkish (17th century). Currently, English words are the most common imports to Polish.[69]

The Latin language, for a very long time the only official language of the Polish state, has had a great influence on Polish. Many Polish words were direct borrowings or calques (e.g. rzeczpospolita from res publica) from Latin. Latin was known to a larger or smaller degree by most of the numerous szlachta in the 16th to 18th centuries (and it continued to be extensively taught at secondary schools until World War II). Apart from dozens of loanwords, its influence can also be seen in a number of verbatim Latin phrases in Polish literature (especially from the 19th century and earlier). During the 12th and 13th centuries, Mongolian words were brought to the Polish language during wars with the armies of Genghis Khan and his descendants, e.g. dzida (spear) and szereg (a line or row).[69]

Words from Czech, an important influence during the 10th and 14th–15th centuries include sejm, hańba and brama.[69]

In 1518, the Polish king Sigismund I the Old married Bona Sforza, the niece of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian, who introduced Italian cuisine to Poland, especially vegetables.[70] Hence, words from Italian include pomidor from "pomodoro" (tomato), kalafior from "cavolfiore" (cauliflower), and pomarańcza, a portmanteau from Italian "pomo" (pome) plus "arancio" (orange). A later word of Italian origin is autostrada (from Italian "autostrada", highway).[70]

In the 18th century, with the rising prominence of France in Europe, French supplanted Latin as an important source of words. Some French borrowings also date from the Napoleonic era, when the Poles were enthusiastic supporters of Napoleon. Examples include ekran (from French "écran", screen), abażur ("abat-jour", lamp shade), rekin ("requin", shark), meble ("meuble", furniture), bagaż ("bagage", luggage), walizka ("valise", suitcase), fotel ("fauteuil", armchair), plaża ("plage", beach) and koszmar ("cauchemar", nightmare). Some place names have also been adapted from French, such as the Warsaw borough of Żoliborz ("joli bord" = beautiful riverside), as well as the town of Żyrardów (from the name Girard, with the Polish suffix -ów attached to refer to the founder of the town).[71]

 
Common handbag in Polish is called a torba, a word directly derived from the Turkish language. Turkish loanwords are common as Poland bordered the Ottoman Empire for centuries[failed verification]

Many words were borrowed from the German language from the sizable German population in Polish cities during medieval times. German words found in the Polish language are often connected with trade, the building industry, civic rights and city life. Some words were assimilated verbatim, for example handel (trade) and dach (roof); others are pronounced similarly, but differ in writing Schnursznur (cord). As a result of being neighbors with Germany, Polish has many German expressions which have become literally translated (calques). The regional dialects of Upper Silesia and Masuria (Modern Polish East Prussia) have noticeably more German loanwords than other varieties.

The contacts with Ottoman Turkey in the 17th century brought many new words, some of them still in use, such as: jar ("yar" deep valley), szaszłyk ("şişlik" shish kebab), filiżanka ("fincan" cup), arbuz ("karpuz" watermelon), dywan ("divan" carpet),[72] etc.

From the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in 1025 through the early years of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth created in 1569, Poland was the most tolerant country of Jews in Europe. Known as the "paradise for the Jews",[73][74] it became a shelter for persecuted and expelled European Jewish communities and the home to the world's largest Jewish community of the time. As a result, many Polish words come from Yiddish, spoken by the large Polish Jewish population that existed until the Holocaust. Borrowed Yiddish words include bachor (an unruly boy or child), bajzel (slang for mess), belfer (slang for teacher), ciuchy (slang for clothing), cymes (slang for very tasty food), geszeft (slang for business), kitel (slang for apron), machlojka (slang for scam), mamona (money), manele (slang for oddments), myszygene (slang for lunatic), pinda (slang for girl, pejoratively), plajta (slang for bankruptcy), rejwach (noise), szmal (slang for money), and trefny (dodgy).[75]

The mountain dialects of the Górale in southern Poland, have quite a number of words borrowed from Hungarian (e.g. baca, gazda, juhas, hejnał) and Romanian as a result of historical contacts with Hungarian-dominated Slovakia and Wallachian herders who travelled north along the Carpathians.[76]

Thieves' slang includes such words as kimać (to sleep) or majcher (knife) of Greek origin, considered then unknown to the outside world.[77]

In addition, Turkish and Tatar have exerted influence upon the vocabulary of war, names of oriental costumes etc.[68] Russian borrowings began to make their way into Polish from the second half of the 19th century on.[68]

Polish has also received an intensive number of English loanwords, particularly after World War II.[68] Recent loanwords come primarily from the English language, mainly those that have Latin or Greek roots, for example komputer (computer), korupcja (from 'corruption', but sense restricted to 'bribery') etc. Concatenation of parts of words (e.g. auto-moto), which is not native to Polish but common in English, for example, is also sometimes used. When borrowing English words, Polish often changes their spelling. For example, Latin suffix '-tio' corresponds to -cja. To make the word plural, -cja becomes -cje. Examples of this include inauguracja (inauguration), dewastacja (devastation), recepcja (reception), konurbacja (conurbation) and konotacje (connotations). Also, the digraph qu becomes kw (kwadrant = quadrant; kworum = quorum).

Loanwords from Polish

 
There are numerous words in both Polish and Yiddish (Jewish) languages which are near-identical due to the large Jewish minority that once inhabited Poland. One example is the fishing rod, ווענטקע (ventke), borrowed directly from Polish wędka.

The Polish language has influenced others. Particular influences appear in other Slavic languages and in German — due to their proximity and shared borders.[78] Examples of loanwords include German Grenze (border),[79] Dutch and Afrikaans grens from Polish granica; German Peitzker from Polish piskorz (weatherfish); German Zobel, French zibeline, Swedish sobel, and English sable from Polish soból; and ogonek ("little tail") — the word describing a diacritic hook-sign added below some letters in various alphabets. The common Germanic word quartz comes from the dialectical Old Polish kwardy. "Szmata," a Polish, Slovak and Ruthenian word for "mop" or "rag", became part of Yiddish. The Polish language exerted significant lexical influence upon Ukrainian, particularly in the fields of abstract and technical terminology; for example, the Ukrainian word панство panstvo (country) is derived from Polish państwo.[80] The Polish influence on Ukrainian is particularly marked on western Ukrainian dialects in western Ukraine, which for centuries was under Polish cultural domination.[80][20][68][81]

There is a substantial number of Polish words which officially became part of Yiddish, once the main language of European Jews. These include basic items, objects or terms such as a bread bun (Polish bułka, Yiddish בולקע bulke), a fishing rod (wędka, ווענטקע ventke), an oak (dąb, דעמב demb), a meadow (łąka, לאָנקע lonke), a moustache (wąsy, וואָנצעס vontses) and a bladder (pęcherz, פּענכער penkher).[82]

Quite a few culinary loanwords exist in German and in other languages, some of which describe distinctive features of Polish cuisine. These include German and English Quark from twaróg (a kind of fresh cheese) and German Gurke, English gherkin from ogórek (cucumber). The word pierogi (Polish dumplings) has spread internationally, as well as pączki (Polish donuts)[83] and kiełbasa (sausage, e.g. kolbaso in Esperanto). As far as pierogi concerned, the original Polish word is already in plural (sing. pieróg, plural pierogi; stem pierog-, plural ending -i; NB. o becomes ó in a closed syllable, like here in singular), yet it is commonly used with the English plural ending -s in Canada and United States of America, pierogis, thus making it a "double plural". A similar situation happened with the Polish loanword from English czipsy ("potato chips")—from English chips being already plural in the original (chip + -s), yet it has obtained the Polish plural ending -y.

It is believed that the English word spruce was derived from Prusy, the Polish name for the region of Prussia. It became spruce because in Polish, z Prus, sounded like "spruce" in English (transl. "from Prussia") and was a generic term for commodities brought to England by Hanseatic merchants and because the tree was believed to have come from Polish Ducal Prussia.[84] However, it can be argued that the word is actually derived from the Old French term Pruce, meaning literally Prussia.[85]

Literature

 
The manuscript of Pan Tadeusz held at Ossolineum in Wrocław. Adam Mickiewicz's signature is visible.

The Polish language started to be used in literature in the Late Middle Ages. Notable works include the Holy Cross Sermons (13th/14th century), Bogurodzica (15th century) and Master Polikarp's Dialog with Death (15th century). The most influential Renaissance-era literary figures in Poland were poet Jan Kochanowski (Laments), Mikołaj Rej and Piotr Skarga (The Lives of the Saints) who established poetic patterns that would become integral to the Polish literary language and laid foundations for the modern Polish grammar. During the Age of Enlightenment in Poland, Ignacy Krasicki, known as "the Prince of Poets", wrote the first Polish novel called The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom as well as Fables and Parables. Another significant work form this period is The Manuscript Found in Saragossa written by Jan Potocki, a Polish nobleman, Egyptologist, linguist, and adventurer.

In the Romantic Era, the most celebrated national poets, referred to as the Three Bards, were Adam Mickiewicz (Pan Tadeusz and Dziady), Juliusz Słowacki (Balladyna) and Zygmunt Krasiński (The Undivine Comedy). Poet and dramatist Cyprian Norwid is regarded by some scholars as the "Fourth Bard". Important positivist writers include Bolesław Prus (The Doll, Pharaoh), Henryk Sienkiewicz (author of numerous historical novels the most internationally acclaimed of which is Quo Vadis), Maria Konopnicka (Rota), Eliza Orzeszkowa (Nad Niemnem), Adam Asnyk and Gabriela Zapolska (The Morality of Mrs. Dulska). The period known as Young Poland produced such renowned literary figures as Stanisław Wyspiański (The Wedding), Stefan Żeromski (Homeless People, The Spring to Come), Władysław Reymont (The Peasants) and Leopold Staff. The prominent interbellum period authors include Maria Dąbrowska (Nights and Days), Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (Insatiability), Julian Tuwim, Bruno Schulz, Bolesław Leśmian, Witold Gombrowicz and Zuzanna Ginczanka.

Other notable writers and poets from Poland active during World War II and after are Zbigniew Herbert, Stanisław Lem, Zofia Nałkowska, Tadeusz Borowski, Sławomir Mrożek, Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, Julia Hartwig, Marek Krajewski, Joanna Bator, Andrzej Sapkowski, Adam Zagajewski, Dorota Masłowska, Jerzy Pilch, Ryszard Kapuściński and Andrzej Stasiuk.

Five people writing in the Polish language have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature: Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905), Władysław Reymont (1924), Czesław Miłosz (1980), Wisława Szymborska (1996) and Olga Tokarczuk (2018).

Sample text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Polish:[86]

Wszyscy ludzie rodzą się wolni i równi pod względem swej godności i swych praw. Są oni obdarzeni rozumem i sumieniem i powinni postępować wobec innych w duchu braterstwa.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:[87]

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

See also

Notes

References

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Further reading

External links

  • The Polish Language: A Cheatsheet for Beginners from Culture.pl
  • Podręczniki języka polskiego dla obcokrajowców 2021-10-23 at the Wayback Machine
  • Basic Polish Phrases
  • King's College London: Polish Language Resources 2014-12-05 at the Wayback Machine
  • University of Pittsburgh: Polish Language Website
  • "A Touch of Polish", BBC
  • A Concise Polish Grammar, by Ronald F. Feldstein (110-page 600-KB pdf)
  • Basic English-Polish Dictionary
  • Big English-Polish Dictionary with example sentences from translation memories
  • Polish Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix
  • Learn Polish 2021-02-25 at the Wayback Machine—List of Online Polish Courses
  • Polish English wordlist, 600 terms
  • A taste of the linguistic diversity of contemporary Poland from Culture.pl
  • KELLY Project word list 9000 most useful words for learners of Polish
  • Dictionaries24.com Online dictionary with English-Polish and Polish-English translations
  • ‘Polszczyzna’ & the Revolutionary Feminine Suffix from Culture.pl
  • Głagolicy, a way to write Polish with the Glagolitic script

polish, language, polish, polish, język, polski, ˈjɛ, zɨk, ˈpɔlskʲi, listen, polszczyzna, pɔlˈʂt, ʂɨzna, listen, simply, polski, ˈpɔlskʲi, listen, west, slavic, language, lechitic, group, written, latin, script, spoken, primarily, poland, serves, native, langu. Polish Polish jezyk polski ˈjɛ zɨk ˈpɔlskʲi listen polszczyzna pɔlˈʂt ʂɨzna listen or simply polski ˈpɔlskʲi listen is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script 9 It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles In addition to being the official language of Poland it is also used by the Polish diaspora There are over 50 million 10 11 Polish speakers around the world It ranks as the sixth most spoken among languages of the European Union 12 Polish is subdivided into regional dialects and maintains strict T V distinction pronouns honorifics and various forms of formalities when addressing individuals 13 PolishpolskiPronunciation ˈpɔlskʲi listen Native toPolandEthnicityPolesKashubsSilesiansGoralsNative speakersNative 40 million 2012 1 L2 speakers 5 0 million 1 Total 45 million 1 Language familyIndo European Balto SlavicSlavicWest SlavicLechiticPolishEarly formsOld Polish Middle PolishWriting systemLatin Polish alphabet Polish BrailleSigned formsSign Language SystemOfficial statusOfficial language inPolandEuropean UnionRecognised minoritylanguage inUnited States 2 United Kingdom 2 Czech Republic 2 Hungary 3 Lithuania 4 5 Romania 6 Slovakia 2 Ukraine 2 7 Brazil 8 Regulated byPolish Language Council of the Polish Academy of Sciences Language codesISO 639 1 span class plainlinks pl span ISO 639 2 span class plainlinks pol span ISO 639 3 a href https iso639 3 sil org code pol class extiw title iso639 3 pol pol a inclusive codeIndividual code a href https iso639 3 sil org code szl class extiw title iso639 3 szl szl a SilesianGlottologpoli1260Linguasphere53 AAA cc a href West Slavic languages html title West Slavic languages 53 AAA b d a br varieties 53 AAA cca to 53 AAA ccu Majority of Polish speakers Polish used together alongside other languages Minority of Polish speakersThis article contains IPA phonetic symbols Without proper rendering support you may see question marks boxes or other symbols instead of Unicode characters For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA The traditional 32 letter Polish alphabet has nine additions a c e l n o s z z to the letters of the basic 26 letter Latin alphabet while removing three x q v Those three letters are at times included in an extended 35 letter alphabet although they are not used in native words 14 The traditional set comprises 23 consonants and 9 written vowels including two nasal vowels e a defined by a reversed diacritic hook called an ogonek 15 Polish is a synthetic and fusional language which has seven grammatical cases 16 It is one of very few languages in the world possessing continuous penultimate stress with only a few exceptions and the only in its group having an abundance of palatal consonants 17 Contemporary Polish developed in the 1700s as the successor to the medieval Old Polish 10th 16th centuries and Middle Polish 16th 18th centuries 18 Among the major languages it is most closely related to Slovak 19 and Czech 20 but differs in terms of pronunciation and general grammar In addition Polish was profoundly influenced by Latin and other Romance languages like Italian and French as well as Germanic languages most notably German which contributed to a large number of loanwords and similar grammatical structures 21 22 23 Extensive usage of nonstandard dialects has also shaped the standard language considerable colloquialisms and expressions were directly borrowed from German or Yiddish and subsequently adopted into the vernacular of Polish which is in everyday use 24 25 Historically Polish was a lingua franca 26 27 important both diplomatically and academically in Central and part of Eastern Europe Today Polish is spoken by approximately 38 million people as their first language in Poland It is also spoken as a second language in eastern Germany northern Czech Republic and Slovakia western parts of Belarus and Ukraine as well as in southeast Lithuania and Latvia Because of the emigration from Poland during different time periods most notably after World War II millions of Polish speakers can also be found in countries such as Canada Argentina Brazil Israel Australia the United Kingdom and the United States Contents 1 History 2 Geographic distribution 3 Dialects 4 Phonology 4 1 Vowels 4 2 Consonants 4 3 Consonant distribution 4 4 Prosody 5 Orthography 6 Grammar 7 Borrowed words 8 Loanwords from Polish 9 Literature 10 Sample text 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 14 Further reading 15 External linksHistory EditMain article History of Polish Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state Mieszko I ruler of the Polans tribe from the Greater Poland region united a few culturally and linguistically related tribes from the basins of the Vistula and Oder before eventually accepting baptism in 966 With Christianity Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet which made it possible to write down Polish which until then had existed only as a spoken language 28 The closest relatives of Polish are the Elbe and Baltic Sea Lechitic dialects Polabian and Pomeranian varieties All of them except Kashubian are extinct 29 The precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language Ultimately Polish descends from the unattested Proto Slavic language The Book of Henrykow is the earliest document to include a sentence written entirely in what can be interpreted as Old Polish Day ut ia pobrusa a ty poziwai meaning let me grind and you have a rest highlighted in red The Book of Henrykow Polish Ksiega henrykowska Latin Liber fundationis claustri Sanctae Mariae Virginis in Heinrichau contains the earliest known sentence written in the Polish language Day ut ia pobrusa a ti poziwai in modern orthography Daj uc ja pobrusza a ti pocziwaj the corresponding sentence in modern Polish Daj niech ja pomiele a ty odpoczywaj or Pozwol ze ja bede mell a ty odpocznij and in English Come let me grind and you take a rest written around 1270 The medieval recorder of this phrase the Cistercian monk Peter of the Henrykow monastery noted that Hoc est in polonico This is in Polish 30 31 32 The earliest treatise on Polish orthography was written by Jakub Parkosz pl around 1470 33 The first book in Polish was printed in either 1508 34 or 1513 35 while the first Polish newspaper Merkuriusz Polski Ordynaryjny appeared in 1661 36 Starting in the 1520s large numbers of books in the Polish language were published contributing to increased homogeneity of grammar and orthography 37 The writing system achieved its overall form in the 16th century 29 38 which is also regarded as the Golden Age of Polish literature 35 The orthography was modified in the 19th century and in 1936 29 Tomasz Kamusella notes that Polish is the oldest non ecclesiastical written Slavic language with a continuous tradition of literacy and official use which has lasted unbroken from the 16th century to this day 39 Polish evolved into the main sociolect of the nobles in Poland Lithuania in the 15th century 38 The history of Polish as a language of state governance begins in the 16th century in the Kingdom of Poland Over the later centuries Polish served as the official language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Congress Poland the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and as the administrative language in the Russian Empire s Western Krai The growth of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth s influence gave Polish the status of lingua franca in Central and Eastern Europe 40 Geographic distribution EditSee also Geographical distribution of Polish speakers Poland is one of the most linguistically homogeneous European countries nearly 97 of Poland s citizens declare Polish as their first language Elsewhere Poles constitute large minorities in areas which were once administered or occupied by Poland notably in neighboring Lithuania Belarus and Ukraine Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuania s Vilnius County by 26 of the population according to the 2001 census results as Vilnius was part of Poland from 1922 until 1939 Polish is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania In Ukraine it is most common in the western parts of Lviv and Volyn Oblasts while in West Belarus it is used by the significant Polish minority especially in the Brest and Grodno regions and in areas along the Lithuanian border There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries In the United States Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently According to the 2000 United States Census 667 414 Americans of age five years and over reported Polish as the language spoken at home which is about 1 4 of people who speak languages other than English 0 25 of the US population and 6 of the Polish American population The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census over 50 were found in three states Illinois 185 749 New York 111 740 and New Jersey 74 663 41 Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services which has a large number of branches in all of these areas offers services available in Polish at all of their cash machines in addition to English and Spanish 42 According to the 2011 census there are now over 500 000 people in England and Wales who consider Polish to be their main language In Canada there is a significant Polish Canadian population There are 242 885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census with a particular concentration in Toronto 91 810 speakers and Montreal 43 The geographical distribution of the Polish language was greatly affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II and Polish population transfers 1944 46 Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north which had previously been mostly German speaking Some Poles remained in the previously Polish ruled territories in the east that were annexed by the USSR resulting in the present day Polish speaking minorities in Lithuania Belarus and Ukraine although many Poles were expelled or emigrated from those areas to areas within Poland s new borders To the east of Poland the most significant Polish minority lives in a long narrow strip along either side of the Lithuania Belarus border Meanwhile the flight and expulsion of Germans 1944 50 as well as the expulsion of Ukrainians and Operation Vistula the 1947 forced resettlement of Ukrainian minorities to the Recovered Territories in the west of the country contributed to the country s linguistic homogeneity Geographic language distribution maps of Poland from pre WWII to present The Recovered Territories in pink were parts of Germany including the Free City of Danzig Gdansk that became part of Poland after World War II The territory shown in grey was lost to the Soviet Union which expelled many Poles from the area Geographical distribution of the Polish language green and other Central and Eastern European languages and dialects A large Polish speaking diaspora remains in the countries located east of Poland that were once the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic 1918 1939 Knowledge of the Polish language within parts of Europe Polish is not a majority language anywhere outside of Poland though Polish minority groups are present in some neighboring countries Dialects EditMain article Dialects of Polish The oldest printed text in Polish Statuta synodalia Episcoporum Wratislaviensis printed in 1475 in Wroclaw by Kasper Elyan The Polish alphabet contains 32 letters Q V and X are not used in the Polish language The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still update speak Polish somewhat differently although the differences between modern day vernacular varieties and standard Polish jezyk ogolnopolski appear relatively slight Most of the middle aged and young speak vernaculars close to standard Polish while the traditional dialects are preserved among older people in rural areas 44 First language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other and non native speakers may have difficulty recognizing the regional and social differences The modern standard dialect often termed as correct Polish 44 is spoken or at least understood throughout the entire country 20 Polish has traditionally been described as consisting of four or five main regional dialects Greater Polish spoken in the west Lesser Polish spoken in the south and southeast Masovian spoken throughout the central and eastern parts of the country Silesian spoken in the southwest also considered a separate language see comment below Kashubian spoken in Pomerania west of Gdansk on the Baltic Sea is thought of either as a fifth Polish dialect or a distinct language depending on the criteria used 45 46 It contains a number of features not found elsewhere in Poland e g nine distinct oral vowels vs the five of standard Polish and in the northern dialects phonemic word stress an archaic feature preserved from Common Slavic times and not found anywhere else among the West Slavic languages However it lacks most of the linguistic and social determinants of language hood 47 Many linguistic sources categorize Silesian as a dialect of Polish 48 49 However many Silesians consider themselves a separate ethnicity and have been advocating for the recognition of a Silesian language According to the last official census in Poland in 2011 over half a million people declared Silesian as their native language Many sociolinguists e g Tomasz Kamusella 50 Agnieszka Pianka Alfred F Majewicz 51 Tomasz Wicherkiewicz 52 assume that extralinguistic criteria decide whether a lect is an independent language or a dialect speakers of the speech variety or and political decisions and this is dynamic i e it changes over time Also research organizations such as SIL International 53 and resources for the academic field of linguistics such as Ethnologue 54 Linguist List 55 and others for example the Ministry of Administration and Digitization 56 recognized the Silesian language In July 2007 the Silesian language was recognized by ISO and was attributed an ISO code of szl Some additional characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include The distinctive dialect of the Gorals Goralski occurs in the mountainous area bordering the Czech Republic and Slovakia The Gorals Highlanders take great pride in their culture and the dialect It exhibits some cultural influences from the Vlach shepherds who migrated from Wallachia southern Romania in the 14th 17th centuries 57 The Poznanski dialect spoken in Poznan and to some extent in the whole region of the former Prussian Partition excluding Upper Silesia with noticeable German influences In the northern and western formerly German regions where Poles from the territories annexed by the Soviet Union resettled after World War II the older generation speaks a dialect of Polish characteristic of the Kresy that includes a longer pronunciation of vowels Poles living in Lithuania particularly in the Vilnius region in Belarus particularly the northwest and in the northeast of Poland continue to speak the Eastern Borderlands dialect which sounds slushed in Polish described as zaciaganie z ruska speaking with a Ruthenian drawl and is easily distinguishable Some city dwellers especially the less affluent population had their own distinctive dialects for example the Warsaw dialect still spoken by some of the population of Praga on the eastern bank of the Vistula However these city dialects are now update mostly extinct due to assimilation with standard Polish Many Poles living in emigrant communities for example in the United States whose families left Poland just after World War II retain a number of minor features of Polish vocabulary as spoken in the first half of the 20th century that now sound archaic to contemporary visitors from Poland Polish linguistics has been characterized by a strong strive towards promoting prescriptive ideas of language intervention and usage uniformity 58 along with normatively oriented notions of language correctness 44 unusual by Western standards 58 Phonology EditMain article Polish phonology source source Spoken Polish in a neutral informative tone source source source source source source source source source source A Polish speaker recorded in Poland Vowels Edit Polish has six oral vowels seven oral vowels in written form which are all monophthongs and two nasal vowels The oral vowels are i spelled i ɨ spelled y and also transcribed as ɘ ɛ spelled e a spelled a ɔ spelled o and u spelled u and o as separate letters The nasal vowels are ɛ spelled e and ɔ spelled a Unlike Czech or Slovak Polish does not retain phonemic vowel length the letter o which formerly represented lengthened ɔ in older forms of the language is now vestigial and instead corresponds to u Front Central BackClose i ɨ uMid ɛ ɔOpen aConsonants Edit The Polish consonant system shows more complexity its characteristic features include the series of affricate and palatal consonants that resulted from four Proto Slavic palatalizations and two further palatalizations that took place in Polish The full set of consonants together with their most common spellings can be presented as follows although other phonological analyses exist Labial Dental alveolar Retroflex Alveolo palatal Velarplain palatalizedNasal m n ɲPlosive voiceless p t k kʲvoiced b d ɡ ɡʲAffricate voiceless t s t ʂ t ɕvoiced d z d ʐ d ʑFricative voiceless f s ʂ ɕ x xʲvoiced v z ʐ ʑTap trill rApproximant l j w Polish oral vowels depicted on a vowel chart Main allophones in black are in broad transcription whereas positional allophones in red and green are in narrow transcription Allophones with red dots appear in palatal contexts The central vowel ɐ is an unstressed allophone of ɛ ɔ a in certain contexts Neutralization occurs between voiced voiceless consonant pairs in certain environments at the end of words where devoicing occurs and in certain consonant clusters where assimilation occurs For details see Voicing and devoicing in the article on Polish phonology Most Polish words are paroxytones that is the stress falls on the second to last syllable of a polysyllabic word although there are exceptions Consonant distribution Edit Polish permits complex consonant clusters which historically often arose from the disappearance of yers Polish can have word initial and word medial clusters of up to four consonants whereas word final clusters can have up to five consonants 59 Examples of such clusters can be found in words such as bezwzgledny bɛzˈvzɡlɛndnɨ absolute or heartless ruthless zdzblo ˈʑd ʑbwɔ blade of grass wstrzas ˈfstʂɔw s shock and krnabrnosc ˈkrnɔmbrnɔɕt ɕ disobedience A popular Polish tongue twister from a verse by Jan Brzechwa is W Szczebrzeszynie chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie fʂt ʂɛbʐɛˈʂɨɲɛ ˈxʂɔw ʂt ʂ ˈbʐmi fˈtʂt ɕiɲɛ In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed Unlike languages such as Czech Polish does not have syllabic consonants the nucleus of a syllable is always a vowel 60 The consonant j is restricted to positions adjacent to a vowel It also cannot precede the letter y Prosody Edit The predominant stress pattern in Polish is penultimate stress in a word of more than one syllable the next to last syllable is stressed Alternating preceding syllables carry secondary stress e g in a four syllable word where the primary stress is on the third syllable there will be secondary stress on the first 61 Each vowel represents one syllable although the letter i normally does not represent a vowel when it precedes another vowel it represents j palatalization of the preceding consonant or both depending on analysis Also the letters u and i sometimes represent only semivowels when they follow another vowel as in autor ˈawtɔr author mostly in loanwords so not in native nauka naˈu ka science the act of learning for example nor in nativized Mateusz maˈte uʂ Matthew A formal tone informative sign in Polish with a composition of vowels and consonants and a mixture of long medium and short syllables Some loanwords particularly from the classical languages have the stress on the antepenultimate third from last syllable For example fizyka ˈfizɨka physics is stressed on the first syllable This may lead to a rare phenomenon of minimal pairs differing only in stress placement for example muzyka ˈmuzɨka music vs muzyka muˈzɨka genitive singular of muzyk musician When additional syllables are added to such words through inflection or suffixation the stress normally becomes regular For example uniwersytet uɲiˈvɛrsɨtɛt university has irregular stress on the third or antepenultimate syllable but the genitive uniwersytetu uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛtu and derived adjective uniwersytecki uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛt skʲi have regular stress on the penultimate syllables Loanwords generally become nativized to have penultimate stress 62 In psycholinguistic experiments speakers of Polish have been demonstrated to be sensitive to the distinction between regular penultimate and exceptional antepenultimate stress 63 Another class of exceptions is verbs with the conditional endings by bym bysmy etc These endings are not counted in determining the position of the stress for example zrobilbym I would do is stressed on the first syllable and zrobilibysmy we would do on the second According to prescriptive authorities the same applies to the first and second person plural past tense endings smy scie although this rule is often ignored in colloquial speech so zrobilismy we did should be prescriptively stressed on the second syllable although in practice it is commonly stressed on the third as zrobilismy 64 These irregular stress patterns are explained by the fact that these endings are detachable clitics rather than true verbal inflections for example instead of kogo zobaczyliscie whom did you see it is possible to say kogoscie zobaczyli here kogo retains its usual stress first syllable in spite of the attachment of the clitic Reanalysis of the endings as inflections when attached to verbs causes the different colloquial stress patterns These stress patterns are considered part of a usable norm of standard Polish in contrast to the model high norm 65 Some common word combinations are stressed as if they were a single word This applies in particular to many combinations of preposition plus a personal pronoun such as do niej to her na nas on us przeze mnie because of me all stressed on the bolded syllable Orthography EditMain articles Polish orthography and Polish Braille The Polish alphabet derives from the Latin script but includes certain additional letters formed using diacritics The Polish alphabet was one of three major forms of Latin based orthography developed for Western and some South Slavic languages the others being Czech orthography and Croatian orthography the last of these being a 19th century invention trying to make a compromise between the first two Kashubian uses a Polish based system Slovak uses a Czech based system and Slovene follows the Croatian one the Sorbian languages blend the Polish and the Czech ones Historically Poland s once diverse and multi ethnic population utilized many forms of scripture to write Polish For instance Lipka Tatars and Muslims inhabiting the eastern parts of the former Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth wrote Polish in the Arabic alphabet 66 The Cyrillic script is used to a certain extent by Polish speakers in Western Belarus especially for religious texts 67 The diacritics used in the Polish alphabet are the kreska graphically similar to the acute accent over the letters c n o s z and through the letter in l the kropka superior dot over the letter z and the ogonek little tail under the letters a e The letters q v x are used only in foreign words and names 14 Polish orthography is largely phonemic there is a consistent correspondence between letters or digraphs and trigraphs and phonemes for exceptions see below The letters of the alphabet and their normal phonemic values are listed in the following table The Jakub Wujek Bible in Polish 1599 print The letters a and e were subsequently abolished but survive in Czech Uppercase Lowercase Phonemicvalue s Uppercase Lowercase Phonemicvalue s A a a N n ɲ A a ɔ ɔn ɔm O o ɔ B b b p o o u C c ts P p p C c tɕ Q q Only loanwordsD d d t R r r E e ɛ S s s e e ɛ ɛn ɛm ɛ S s ɕ F f f T t t G g ɡ k U u u H h x ɣ V v Only loanwordsI i i j W w v f J j j X x Only loanwordsK k k Y y ɨ ɘ L l l Z z z s L l w ɫ Z z ʑ ɕ M m m Z z ʐ ʂ N n n The following digraphs and trigraphs are used Digraph Phonemic value s Digraph trigraph before a vowel Phonemic value s ch x ci tɕ cz tʂ dzi dʑ dz dz ts gi ɡʲ dz dʑ tɕ c hi xʲ dz dʐ tʂ ki kʲ rz ʐ ʂ ni ɲ sz ʂ si ɕ zi ʑ Voiced consonant letters frequently come to represent voiceless sounds as shown in the tables this occurs at the end of words and in certain clusters due to the neutralization mentioned in the Phonology section above Occasionally also voiceless consonant letters can represent voiced sounds in clusters The spelling rule for the palatal sounds ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ and ɲ is as follows before the vowel i the plain letters s z c dz n are used before other vowels the combinations si zi ci dzi ni are used when not followed by a vowel the diacritic forms s z c dz n are used For example the s in siwy grey haired the si in siarka sulfur and the s in swiety holy all represent the sound ɕ The exceptions to the above rule are certain loanwords from Latin Italian French Russian or English where s before i is pronounced as s e g sinus sinologia do re mi fa sol la si do Saint Simon i saint simonisci Sierioza Siergiej Singapur singiel In other loanwords the vowel i is changed to y e g Syria Sybir synchronizacja Syrakuzy The following table shows the correspondence between the sounds and spelling Digraphs and trigraphs are used Phonemic value Single letter Digraph in pausa or before a consonant Digraph Trigraph before a vowel Single letter Digraph before the vowel i tɕ c ci c dʑ dz dzi dz ɕ s si s ʑ z zi z ɲ n ni nSimilar principles apply to kʲ ɡʲ xʲ and lʲ except that these can only occur before vowels so the spellings are k g c h l before i and ki gi c hi li otherwise Most Polish speakers however do not consider palatalization of k g c h or l as creating new sounds Except in the cases mentioned above the letter i if followed by another vowel in the same word usually represents j yet a palatalization of the previous consonant is always assumed The reverse case where the consonant remains unpalatalized but is followed by a palatalized consonant is written by using j instead of i for example zjesc to eat up The letters a and e when followed by plosives and affricates represent an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant rather than a nasal vowel For example a in dab oak is pronounced ɔm and e in tecza rainbow is pronounced ɛn the nasal assimilates to the following consonant When followed by l or l for example przyjeli przyjely e is pronounced as just e When e is at the end of the word it is often pronounced as just ɛ Note that depending on the word the phoneme x can be spelt h or ch the phoneme ʐ can be spelt z or rz and u can be spelt u or o In several cases it determines the meaning for example moze maybe and morze sea In occasional words letters that normally form a digraph are pronounced separately For example rz represents rz not ʐ in words like zamarzac freeze and in the name Tarzan Doubled letters are usually pronounced as a single lengthened consonant however some speakers might pronounce the combination as two separate sounds There are certain clusters where a written consonant would not be pronounced For example the l in the word jablko apple might be omitted in ordinary speech leading to the pronunciation japko Grammar EditMain article Polish grammar Polish is a highly fusional language with relatively free word order although the dominant arrangement is subject verb object SVO There are no articles and subject pronouns are often dropped Nouns belong to one of three genders masculine feminine and neuter The masculine gender is also divided into subgenders animate vs inanimate in the singular human vs nonhuman in the plural There are seven cases nominative genitive dative accusative instrumental locative and vocative Adjectives agree with nouns in terms of gender case and number Attributive adjectives most commonly precede the noun although in certain cases especially in fixed phrases like jezyk polski Polish language the noun may come first the rule of thumb is that generic descriptive adjective normally precedes e g piekny kwiat beautiful flower while categorizing adjective often follows the noun e g wegiel kamienny black coal Most short adjectives and their derived adverbs form comparatives and superlatives by inflection the superlative is formed by prefixing naj to the comparative Verbs are of imperfective or perfective aspect often occurring in pairs Imperfective verbs have a present tense past tense compound future tense except for byc to be which has a simple future bede etc this in turn being used to form the compound future of other verbs subjunctive conditional formed with the detachable particle by imperatives an infinitive present participle present gerund and past participle Perfective verbs have a simple future tense formed like the present tense of imperfective verbs past tense subjunctive conditional imperatives infinitive present gerund and past participle Conjugated verb forms agree with their subject in terms of person number and in the case of past tense and subjunctive conditional forms gender Passive type constructions can be made using the auxiliary byc or zostac become with the passive participle There is also an impersonal construction where the active verb is used in third person singular with no subject but with the reflexive pronoun sie present to indicate a general unspecified subject as in pije sie wodke vodka is being drunk note that wodka appears in the accusative A similar sentence type in the past tense uses the passive participle with the ending o as in widziano ludzi people were seen As in other Slavic languages there are also subjectless sentences formed using such words as mozna it is possible together with an infinitive Yes no questions both direct and indirect are formed by placing the word czy at the start Negation uses the word nie before the verb or other item being negated nie is still added before the verb even if the sentence also contains other negatives such as nigdy never or nic nothing effectively creating a double negative Cardinal numbers have a complex system of inflection and agreement Zero and cardinal numbers higher than five except for those ending with the digit 2 3 or 4 but not ending with 12 13 or 14 govern the genitive case rather than the nominative or accusative Special forms of numbers collective numerals are used with certain classes of noun which include dziecko child and exclusively plural nouns such as drzwi door Borrowed words Edit Poland was once a multi ethnic nation with many minorities that contributed to the Polish language Top left cauliflower Polish kalafior from Italian cavolfiore Top right rope sznur from German Schnur Bottom left shark rekin from French requin Bottom right teacher belfer colloquial from Yiddish בעלפ ער belfer Polish has over the centuries borrowed a number of words from other languages When borrowing pronunciation was adapted to Polish phonemes and spelling was altered to match Polish orthography In addition word endings are liberally applied to almost any word to produce verbs nouns adjectives as well as adding the appropriate endings for cases of nouns adjectives diminutives double diminutives augmentatives etc Depending on the historical period borrowing has proceeded from various languages Notable influences have been Latin 10th 18th centuries 68 Czech 10th and 14th 15th centuries Italian 16th 17th centuries 68 French 17th 19th centuries 68 German 13 15th and 18th 20th centuries Hungarian 15th 16th centuries 68 and Turkish 17th century Currently English words are the most common imports to Polish 69 The Latin language for a very long time the only official language of the Polish state has had a great influence on Polish Many Polish words were direct borrowings or calques e g rzeczpospolita from res publica from Latin Latin was known to a larger or smaller degree by most of the numerous szlachta in the 16th to 18th centuries and it continued to be extensively taught at secondary schools until World War II Apart from dozens of loanwords its influence can also be seen in a number of verbatim Latin phrases in Polish literature especially from the 19th century and earlier During the 12th and 13th centuries Mongolian words were brought to the Polish language during wars with the armies of Genghis Khan and his descendants e g dzida spear and szereg a line or row 69 Words from Czech an important influence during the 10th and 14th 15th centuries include sejm hanba and brama 69 In 1518 the Polish king Sigismund I the Old married Bona Sforza the niece of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian who introduced Italian cuisine to Poland especially vegetables 70 Hence words from Italian include pomidor from pomodoro tomato kalafior from cavolfiore cauliflower and pomarancza a portmanteau from Italian pomo pome plus arancio orange A later word of Italian origin is autostrada from Italian autostrada highway 70 In the 18th century with the rising prominence of France in Europe French supplanted Latin as an important source of words Some French borrowings also date from the Napoleonic era when the Poles were enthusiastic supporters of Napoleon Examples include ekran from French ecran screen abazur abat jour lamp shade rekin requin shark meble meuble furniture bagaz bagage luggage walizka valise suitcase fotel fauteuil armchair plaza plage beach and koszmar cauchemar nightmare Some place names have also been adapted from French such as the Warsaw borough of Zoliborz joli bord beautiful riverside as well as the town of Zyrardow from the name Girard with the Polish suffix ow attached to refer to the founder of the town 71 Common handbag in Polish is called a torba a word directly derived from the Turkish language Turkish loanwords are common as Poland bordered the Ottoman Empire for centuries failed verification Many words were borrowed from the German language from the sizable German population in Polish cities during medieval times German words found in the Polish language are often connected with trade the building industry civic rights and city life Some words were assimilated verbatim for example handel trade and dach roof others are pronounced similarly but differ in writing Schnur sznur cord As a result of being neighbors with Germany Polish has many German expressions which have become literally translated calques The regional dialects of Upper Silesia and Masuria Modern Polish East Prussia have noticeably more German loanwords than other varieties The contacts with Ottoman Turkey in the 17th century brought many new words some of them still in use such as jar yar deep valley szaszlyk sislik shish kebab filizanka fincan cup arbuz karpuz watermelon dywan divan carpet 72 etc From the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in 1025 through the early years of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth created in 1569 Poland was the most tolerant country of Jews in Europe Known as the paradise for the Jews 73 74 it became a shelter for persecuted and expelled European Jewish communities and the home to the world s largest Jewish community of the time As a result many Polish words come from Yiddish spoken by the large Polish Jewish population that existed until the Holocaust Borrowed Yiddish words include bachor an unruly boy or child bajzel slang for mess belfer slang for teacher ciuchy slang for clothing cymes slang for very tasty food geszeft slang for business kitel slang for apron machlojka slang for scam mamona money manele slang for oddments myszygene slang for lunatic pinda slang for girl pejoratively plajta slang for bankruptcy rejwach noise szmal slang for money and trefny dodgy 75 The mountain dialects of the Gorale in southern Poland have quite a number of words borrowed from Hungarian e g baca gazda juhas hejnal and Romanian as a result of historical contacts with Hungarian dominated Slovakia and Wallachian herders who travelled north along the Carpathians 76 Thieves slang includes such words as kimac to sleep or majcher knife of Greek origin considered then unknown to the outside world 77 In addition Turkish and Tatar have exerted influence upon the vocabulary of war names of oriental costumes etc 68 Russian borrowings began to make their way into Polish from the second half of the 19th century on 68 Polish has also received an intensive number of English loanwords particularly after World War II 68 Recent loanwords come primarily from the English language mainly those that have Latin or Greek roots for example komputer computer korupcja from corruption but sense restricted to bribery etc Concatenation of parts of words e g auto moto which is not native to Polish but common in English for example is also sometimes used When borrowing English words Polish often changes their spelling For example Latin suffix tio corresponds to cja To make the word plural cja becomes cje Examples of this include inauguracja inauguration dewastacja devastation recepcja reception konurbacja conurbation and konotacje connotations Also the digraph qu becomes kw kwadrant quadrant kworum quorum Loanwords from Polish EditMain article List of English words of Polish origin There are numerous words in both Polish and Yiddish Jewish languages which are near identical due to the large Jewish minority that once inhabited Poland One example is the fishing rod ווענטקע ventke borrowed directly from Polish wedka The Polish language has influenced others Particular influences appear in other Slavic languages and in German due to their proximity and shared borders 78 Examples of loanwords include German Grenze border 79 Dutch and Afrikaans grens from Polish granica German Peitzker from Polish piskorz weatherfish German Zobel French zibeline Swedish sobel and English sable from Polish sobol and ogonek little tail the word describing a diacritic hook sign added below some letters in various alphabets The common Germanic word quartz comes from the dialectical Old Polish kwardy Szmata a Polish Slovak and Ruthenian word for mop or rag became part of Yiddish The Polish language exerted significant lexical influence upon Ukrainian particularly in the fields of abstract and technical terminology for example the Ukrainian word panstvo panstvo country is derived from Polish panstwo 80 The Polish influence on Ukrainian is particularly marked on western Ukrainian dialects in western Ukraine which for centuries was under Polish cultural domination 80 20 68 81 There is a substantial number of Polish words which officially became part of Yiddish once the main language of European Jews These include basic items objects or terms such as a bread bun Polish bulka Yiddish בולקע bulke a fishing rod wedka ווענטקע ventke an oak dab דעמב demb a meadow laka לא נקע lonke a moustache wasy ווא נצעס vontses and a bladder pecherz פ ענכער penkher 82 Quite a few culinary loanwords exist in German and in other languages some of which describe distinctive features of Polish cuisine These include German and English Quark from twarog a kind of fresh cheese and German Gurke English gherkin from ogorek cucumber The word pierogi Polish dumplings has spread internationally as well as paczki Polish donuts 83 and kielbasa sausage e g kolbaso in Esperanto As far as pierogi concerned the original Polish word is already in plural sing pierog plural pierogi stem pierog plural ending i NB o becomes o in a closed syllable like here in singular yet it is commonly used with the English plural ending s in Canada and United States of America pierogis thus making it a double plural A similar situation happened with the Polish loanword from English czipsy potato chips from English chips being already plural in the original chip s yet it has obtained the Polish plural ending y It is believed that the English word spruce was derived from Prusy the Polish name for the region of Prussia It became spruce because in Polish z Prus sounded like spruce in English transl from Prussia and was a generic term for commodities brought to England by Hanseatic merchants and because the tree was believed to have come from Polish Ducal Prussia 84 However it can be argued that the word is actually derived from the Old French term Pruce meaning literally Prussia 85 Literature EditMain article Polish literature The manuscript of Pan Tadeusz held at Ossolineum in Wroclaw Adam Mickiewicz s signature is visible The Polish language started to be used in literature in the Late Middle Ages Notable works include the Holy Cross Sermons 13th 14th century Bogurodzica 15th century and Master Polikarp s Dialog with Death 15th century The most influential Renaissance era literary figures in Poland were poet Jan Kochanowski Laments Mikolaj Rej and Piotr Skarga The Lives of the Saints who established poetic patterns that would become integral to the Polish literary language and laid foundations for the modern Polish grammar During the Age of Enlightenment in Poland Ignacy Krasicki known as the Prince of Poets wrote the first Polish novel called The Adventures of Mr Nicholas Wisdom as well as Fables and Parables Another significant work form this period is The Manuscript Found in Saragossa written by Jan Potocki a Polish nobleman Egyptologist linguist and adventurer In the Romantic Era the most celebrated national poets referred to as the Three Bards were Adam Mickiewicz Pan Tadeusz and Dziady Juliusz Slowacki Balladyna and Zygmunt Krasinski The Undivine Comedy Poet and dramatist Cyprian Norwid is regarded by some scholars as the Fourth Bard Important positivist writers include Boleslaw Prus The Doll Pharaoh Henryk Sienkiewicz author of numerous historical novels the most internationally acclaimed of which is Quo Vadis Maria Konopnicka Rota Eliza Orzeszkowa Nad Niemnem Adam Asnyk and Gabriela Zapolska The Morality of Mrs Dulska The period known as Young Poland produced such renowned literary figures as Stanislaw Wyspianski The Wedding Stefan Zeromski Homeless People The Spring to Come Wladyslaw Reymont The Peasants and Leopold Staff The prominent interbellum period authors include Maria Dabrowska Nights and Days Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz Insatiability Julian Tuwim Bruno Schulz Boleslaw Lesmian Witold Gombrowicz and Zuzanna Ginczanka Other notable writers and poets from Poland active during World War II and after are Zbigniew Herbert Stanislaw Lem Zofia Nalkowska Tadeusz Borowski Slawomir Mrozek Krzysztof Kamil Baczynski Julia Hartwig Marek Krajewski Joanna Bator Andrzej Sapkowski Adam Zagajewski Dorota Maslowska Jerzy Pilch Ryszard Kapuscinski and Andrzej Stasiuk Five people writing in the Polish language have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature Henryk Sienkiewicz 1905 Wladyslaw Reymont 1924 Czeslaw Milosz 1980 Wislawa Szymborska 1996 and Olga Tokarczuk 2018 Notable Polish language authors MikolajRej 1505 1569 JanKochanowski 1530 1584 AdamMickiewicz 1798 1855 HenrykSienkiewicz 1846 1916 WladyslawReymont 1867 1925 CzeslawMilosz 1911 2004 StanislawLem 1921 2006 WislawaSzymborska 1923 2012 AndrzejSapkowski born 1948 OlgaTokarczuk born 1962 Sample text EditArticle 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Polish 86 Wszyscy ludzie rodza sie wolni i rowni pod wzgledem swej godnosci i swych praw Sa oni obdarzeni rozumem i sumieniem i powinni postepowac wobec innych w duchu braterstwa Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English 87 All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood See also EditPolonism words of Polish origin Adam Mickiewicz Institute A Translation Guide to 19th Century Polish Language Civil Registration Documents BABEL Speech Corpus Holy Cross Sermons Lechitic languages University of Lodz School of Polish for Foreigners West Slavic languages West SlavsNotes EditReferences Edit a b c Polish at Ethnologue 25th ed 2022 Silesian at Ethnologue 25th ed 2022 a b c d e European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages Nyelvi sokszinuseg az EU ban hivatalos regionalis es kisebbsegi nyelvek a tagallamokban in Hungarian 16 March 2016 Retrieved 28 November 2018 Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities Treaty No 157 of 1 February 1995 Council of Europe Retrieved 28 November 2018 MINELRES Minority related national legislation Lithuania www minelres lv Retrieved 28 November 2018 Reservations and Declarations for Treaty No 148 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages Council of Europe Council of Europe Archived from the original on 8 December 2015 Retrieved 3 December 2015 Law of Ukraine On Principles of State Language Policy Current version Revision from 01 02 2014 Document 5029 17 Article 7 Regional or minority languages Ukraine Paragraph 2 Zakon2 rada gov ua 1 February 2014 Retrieved 30 April 2014 Polish made official language in Brazilian town founded by Poles Lekhitic languages Encyclopaedia Britannica 2015 01 08 Retrieved 2015 03 31 World Almanac and Book of Facts World Almanac Books Mahwah 1999 ISBN 0 88687 832 2 Encyklopedia jezyka polskiego pod red S Urbanczyka i M Kucaly Ossolineum wyd 3 Warszawa 1999 ISBN 83 04 02994 4 s 156 Keating Dave Despite Brexit English Remains The EU s Most Spoken Language By Far Forbes Retrieved 2020 02 07 Wierzbicka Anna Winter Werner 2020 Cross Cultural Pragmatics De Gruyter p 57 ISBN 9783112329764 a b Q V X Poradnia jezykowa PWN sjp pwn pl Kappenberg Bernard Schlobinski Peter 2015 Setting Signs for Europe Why Diacritics Matter for European Integration Columbia University Press p 44 ISBN 9783838267036 Retrieved 18 January 2021 Foland Kugler Magdalena 2006 W gaju slow czyli Polszczyzna znana i nieznana in Polish Ex Libris p 29 ISBN 9788389913876 Retrieved 18 January 2021 WALS Online Chapter Fixed Stress Locations wals info Archived from the original on December 7 2015 Dlugosz Kurczabowa Krystyna Dubisz Stanislaw 2006 Gramatyka historyczna jezyka polskiego in Polish Warszawa Warsaw wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego pp 56 57 ISBN 83 235 0118 1 Stroinska Magda Andrews Ernest 2018 The Polish Language Act Legislating a Complicated Linguistic Political Landscape In Andrews Ernest ed Language planning in the post communist era the struggles for language control in the new order in Eastern Europe Eurasia and China Cham Palgrave Macmillan p 243 ISBN 978 3 319 70926 0 OCLC 1022080518 a b c Swan Oscar E 2002 A grammar of contemporary Polish Bloomington Ind Slavica p 5 ISBN 0 89357 296 9 OCLC 50064627 Jezyk polski Towarzystwo Milosnikow Jezyka Polskiego July 27 2000 via Google Books Manczak Wohlfeld Elzbieta July 27 1995 Tendencje rozwojowe wspolczesnych zapozyczen angielskich w jezyku polskim Universitas ISBN 978 83 7052 347 3 via Google Books Rok pod wzgledem oswiaty przemyslu i wypadkow czasowych Nakl N Kamienskiego i Spolki July 27 1844 via Google Books Brzezina Maria 1986 Polszczyzna Zydow in Polish Warszawa Warsaw Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe pp 31 46 ISBN 83 01 06611 3 Prokop Janiec Eugenia 2013 Pogranicze Polsko zydowskie PDF in Polish Krakow Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego p 20 ISBN 978 83 233 3507 8 Retrieved 18 January 2021 Maracz Laszlo Rosello Mireille eds 1 January 2012 Multilingual Europe Multilingual Europeans BRILL p 25 ISBN 978 94 012 0803 1 Retrieved 28 November 2018 via Google Books Koyama Satoshi 2007 Chapter 8 The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth as a Political Space Its Unity and Complexity PDF In Hayashi Tadayuki Fukuda Hiroshi eds Regions in Central and Eastern Europe Past and Present Slavic Research Center Hokkaido University pp 137 153 ISBN 978 4 938637 43 9 Polish Language History and Facts Today Translations 2014 06 20 Retrieved 2015 03 31 a b c Dziubalska Kolaczyk Katarzyna Walczak Bogdan Polish PDF repozytorium amu edu pl Adam Mickiewicz University pp 1 5 Archived from the original PDF on 2 February 2022 Retrieved 12 February 2023 FIDES Digital Library Liber fundationis claustri Sancte Marie Virginis in Henrichow Ksiega henrykowska via digital fides org pl Barbara i Adam Podgorscy Slownik gwar slaskich Katowice Wydawnictwo KOS 2008 ISBN 978 83 60528 54 9 Bogdan Walczak Zarys dziejow jezyka polskiego Wroclaw Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wroclawskiego 1999 ISBN 83 229 1867 4 Stankiewicz Edward 1984 Grammars and Dictionaries of the Slavic Languages from the Middle Ages up to 1850 An Annotated Bibliography Mouton Publishers p 33 ISBN 3110097788 The history of literature in Krakow krakowcityofliterature com Archived from the original on 16 June 2019 Retrieved 2023 02 08 a b Stone Gerald 2009 Polish In Comrie Bernard ed The World s Major Languages 2nd ed Routledge p 290 ISBN 978 0 415 35339 7 Aumente Jerome 1999 Eastern European Journalism Before During and After Communism Hampton Press p 7 ISBN 1 57273 177 X Bideleux Robert Jeffries Ian 1998 A History of Eastern Europe Crisis and Change Routledge p 129 ISBN 0 415 16111 8 a b Kamusella 2009 p 111 Kamusella Tomasz 2009 The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe Palgrave Macmillan p 138 ISBN 978 0 230 55070 4 Kamusella 2009 p 137 Table 8 Detailed List of Languages Spoken at Home for the Population 5 Years and Over By State PDF Census gov Retrieved 2015 03 31 PNC ATM Banking PNC Retrieved 2017 11 02 Various Languages Spoken 147 Age Groups 17A and Sex 3 for the Population of Canada Provinces Territories Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations 2006 Census 20 Sample Data Statistics Canada Archived from the original on May 27 2008 Retrieved September 21 2008 a b c Witold Tulasiewicz Anthony Adams ed 2005 Teaching the Mother Tongue in a Multilingual Europe A amp C Black p 166 ISBN 978 0 8264 7027 0 Polish Western Affairs Instytut Zachodni 1989 p 26 George L Campbell Gareth King 2012 Compendium of the World s Languages Routledge ISBN 978 1 136 25846 6 The Slavic Languages Cambridge University Press 1958 Roland Sussex and Paul Cubberley 2006 The Slavic Languages Cambridge University Press P 530 Robert A Rothstein 1994 Polish The Slavonic Languages edited by Bernard Comrie and Greville G Corbett Routledge Pp 754 756 Silesia and Central European Nationalisms 2007 West Lafayette IN Purdue University Press ISBN 978 1 55753 371 5 Jezyki swiata i ich klasyfikowanie en Languages of the world and their classification Polish Scientific Publishers Warszawa 1989 Ekspertyza naukowa dr Tomasza Wicherkiewicza Language Policy and the Laboratory for Research on Minority Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan 2008 ISO documentation of Silesian language SIL International Archived from the original on October 3 2012 Retrieved 2015 03 31 Silesian at Ethnologue 25th ed 2022 Silesian MultiTree A Digital Library of Language Relationships Archived from the original on June 2 2013 Dz U 2012 poz 309 Rozporzadzenie Ministra Administracji i Cyfryzacji z dnia 14 lutego 2012 r w sprawie panstwowego rejestru nazw geograficznych Internetowy System Aktow Prawnych in Polish 14 February 2012 Archived from the original on 2015 04 29 Retrieved 2015 03 31 Magosic Paul Robert 2005 The Rusyn Question Retrieved 2008 01 30 a b Miklos Kontra ed 2000 Special issue book reviews Multilingua Mouton Publishers 19 1 2 Language contact in East Central Europe 193 ISSN 1613 3684 Polish UCLA Phonetics Lab data UCLA Phonetics Laboratory University of California Los Angeles Archived from the original on 20 September 2017 Retrieved 26 April 2018 Rubach Jerzy 28 November 1996 Nonsyllabic Analysis of Voice Assimilation in Polish Linguistic Inquiry 27 1 69 110 JSTOR 4178926 Gussmann 2007 8 deferring to Rubach amp Booij 1985 harvcoltxt error no target CITEREFRubachBooij1985 help for further discussion Gussmann 2007 p 9 Domahs Ulrike Knaus Johannes Orzechowska Paula Wiese Richard 2012 Stress deafness in a language with fixed word stress an ERP study on Polish Frontiers in Psychology 3 439 doi 10 3389 fpsyg 2012 00439 PMC 3485581 PMID 23125839 Phonetics and Phonology of lexical stress in Polish verbs permanent dead link Dominika Oliver Martine Grice Institute of Phonetics Saarland University Germany Andrzej Markowski Norma wzorcowa Konferencje i dyskusje naukowe Rada Jezyka Polskiego Retrieved 2019 01 30 Towarzystwo Milosnikow Jezyka Polskiego 2006 Jezyk polski in Polish Vol 86 p 228 Retrieved 20 April 2021 Kamusella T 2019 The new Polish Cyrillic in independent Belarus Colloquia Humanistica vol 8 pp 79 112 https doi org 10 11649 ch 2019 006 a b c d e f g h Istvan Fodor Claude Hagege 1983 Language Reform History and Future Vol 1 Buske p 324 ISBN 978 3 87118 572 4 a b c Knara Izabela 6 October 2017 Zapozyczenia w jezyku polskim e polish eu in Polish Retrieved 28 November 2018 a b Janicki Kamil 7 October 2014 Czy Bona Sforza naprawde sprowadzila do Polski kapuste i kalafior CiekawostkiHistoryczne pl in Polish Retrieved 28 November 2018 Historia Zyrardowa www visit zyrardow pl Archived from the original on 28 November 2018 Retrieved 28 November 2018 kielbasa The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language fourth ed Houghton Mifflin Company 2000 Archived from the original on 2008 06 30 Retrieved 2009 05 06 Haumann Heiko 2002 01 01 A History of East European Jews Central European University Press ISBN 978 963 9241 26 8 A Virtual Visit to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews Culture pl Retrieved 2018 09 26 Martinovic Katarzyna Wplyw jezykow zydowskich na jezyk polski Retrieved 28 November 2018 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help Historia zapozyczen polskiwdwunastce edu pl Retrieved 28 November 2018 Rak Maciej Kilka uwag o socjolekcie przestepczym polszczyzny przedwojennego Lwowa Socjolingwistyka XXX 2016 Socjolingwistyka 30 133 doi 10 17651 SOCJOLING 30 11 Retrieved 28 November 2018 Dziubalska Kolaczyk Katarzyna Walczak Bogdan 28 November 2018 Polish Revue belge de philologie et d histoire 88 3 817 840 doi 10 3406 rbph 2010 7805 S2CID 240815177 Polish Language RealPoland Archived from the original on 2019 04 24 Retrieved 2018 11 28 a b Timothy Shopen 1987 Languages and Their Status University of Pennsylvania Press p 132 ISBN 978 0 8122 1249 5 Brian D Joseph 1999 Historical Linguistics Ohio State University Department of Linguistics p 165 Glinski Mikolaj 7 December 2015 How Much Polish Is There in Yiddish and How Much Yiddish Is There in Polish Culture pl Retrieved 28 November 2018 Peterson Lucas 27 February 2017 What Are Paczki and Why Is Everyone Freaking Out About Them Eater Retrieved 28 November 2018 Online Etymology Dictionary Etymonline com Retrieved 2015 03 31 spruce Origin and meaning of spruce by Online Etymology Dictionary www etymonline com Retrieved 28 November 2018 Universal Declaration of Human Rights ohchr org Universal Declaration of Human Rights un org Further reading EditBisko Waclaw 1966 Mowimy po polsku A beginner s course of Polish DTBook translated and adapted by Stanislaw Krynski Warsaw Wiedza Powszechna pl Gussmann Edmund 2007 The Phonology of Polish Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 926747 7 OCLC 320907619 Sadowska Iwona 2012 Polish A Comprehensive Grammar Oxford New York Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 47541 9 Swan Oscar E 2002 A Grammar of Contemporary Polish Bloomington IN Slavica ISBN 0 89357 296 9 External links EditThis article s use of external links may not follow Wikipedia s policies or guidelines Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references March 2015 Learn how and when to remove this template message Polish language at Wikipedia s sister projects Definitions from Wiktionary Media from Commons Texts from Wikisource Textbooks from Wikibooks Resources from Wikiversity Phrasebook from Wikivoyage Polish Edition from Wikipedia The Polish Language A Cheatsheet for Beginners from Culture pl Podreczniki jezyka polskiego dla obcokrajowcow Archived 2021 10 23 at the Wayback Machine Basic Polish Phrases Basic Polish Phrases Audio Course Polish Pronunciation Audio and Grammar Charts King s College London Polish Language Resources Archived 2014 12 05 at the Wayback Machine University of Pittsburgh Polish Language Website A Touch of Polish BBC A Concise Polish Grammar by Ronald F Feldstein 110 page 600 KB pdf Oscar Swan s Electronic Polish English English Polish dictionary English Polish Online Dictionary Basic English Polish Dictionary Big English Polish Dictionary with example sentences from translation memories Polish Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words from Wiktionary s Swadesh list appendix Learn Polish Archived 2021 02 25 at the Wayback Machine List of Online Polish Courses Polish English wordlist 600 terms A taste of the linguistic diversity of contemporary Poland from Culture pl KELLY Project word list 9000 most useful words for learners of Polish Dictionaries24 com Online dictionary with English Polish and Polish English translations Polszczyzna amp the Revolutionary Feminine Suffix from Culture pl Glagolicy a way to write Polish with the Glagolitic script Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Polish language amp oldid 1144674234, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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