(in English)
Spoken natively in Poland. Minorities: Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania,
Latvia, United Kingdom, Germany, United States, Czech Republic, Russia, Brazil,
Argentina, Canada, France, Australia, Ireland, Iceland, Israel.
Native speakers 40 million (2009).
Language family Indo-European, Balto-Slavic,
Slavic, West Slavic, Lechitic, Polish.
Writing system Latin (Polish
alphabet).
Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) is a language of the Lechitic
subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland (being that country's
official language) and by Polish minorities in other countries. Its written
standard is the Polish alphabet, which has several additions to the letters of
the basic Latin script.
Despite the pressure of non-Polish administrations in Poland, who have
often attempted to suppress the Polish language, a rich literature has
developed over the centuries, and the language is currently the largest, in
terms of speakers, of the West Slavic group. It is also the second most widely
spoken Slavic language, after Russian and ahead of Ukrainian.
Geographic distribution
Poland is one of the most linguistically homogeneous European countries;
nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their mother tongue. Elsewhere,
ethnic Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine:
Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuania's Vilnius County
(26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results) and is found
elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania; in Ukraine it is most common in the Lviv
and Lutsk regions, while in Western 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 also 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 (see: Polish language in the
United States) but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. According to the United
States 2000 Census, 667,414 Americans of age 5 years and over reported Polish
as the language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of people who speak
languages other than English or 0.25% of the U.S. 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).
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).
The geographical distribution of the Polish language was greatly affected
by the border changes and population transfers that followed World War II.
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 which 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. Meanwhile the flight and expulsion of
Germans, as well as the expulsion of Ukrainians and resettlement of Ukrainians
within Poland, contributed to the country's linguistic homogeneity.
Dialects
The Polish language became far more homogeneous in the second half of the
20th century, in part due to the mass migration of several million Polish
citizens from the eastern to the western part of the country after the Soviet
annexation of the Kresy in 1939, and the acquisition of former German territory
after World War II. This tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the
vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian People's Republic of Poland.
The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak
"standard" Polish somewhat differently, although the differences
between these broad "dialects" appear slight. First-language speakers
of Polish never experience any difficulty in mutual understanding; however,
non-native speakers have difficulty distinguishing regional variations. The
differences are slight compared to the variety of dialects in English.
Main three dialects of Polish language:
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
Some more characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include:
The distinctive Podhale dialect (Góralski) occurs in the mountainous
area bordering the Czech and Slovak Republics. 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. The language of the coextensive East
Slavic people, the Lemkos, which demonstrates significant lexical and
grammatical commonality with the Góralski dialect and Ukrainian, bears no
significant Vlach or other Romanian influences. Most urban Poles find it
difficult to understand this very distinct dialect.
The Poznanski dialect, spoken in Poznań and to some extent in the whole
region of the former Prussian annexation (excluding upper Silesia), with
characteristic high tone melody and notable influence of the German language.
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 Eastern Borderlands
which resembles Ukrainian or Rusyn— especially in the "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 zaciąganie z ruska, 'speaking with a Russian 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. (Praga remained the
only part of Warsaw where the population survived World War II relatively
intact.) However, these city dialects are now mostly extinct due to
assimilation with standard Polish.
Many Poles living in emigrant communities (for example in the USA), 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, however, to contemporary visitors from Poland.
Previously regarded as dialects, now increasingly recognized as languages:
The Kashubian language, spoken in the Pomorze region west of Gdańsk on the Baltic
Sea, has seemed like a dialect to some observers. However, it exhibits
sufficient significant differences to merit its classification as a separate
language; for instance, it is not readily understandable to Polish speakers
unless it is written. There are about 106,000 speakers native according to the
Polish 2011 census, while it is the third most used language in Poland, after
the Polish language and the Silesian language.
The Silesian language is spoken in the Upper Silesia region, mainly in the Silesian
Voivodeship and Opole Voivodeship in Poland, while also in the Moravian–Silesian
Region in Czech Republic. Only in Poland are there more than 0.5 million native
speakers according to the 2011 census, while it is the second most used
language in Poland, after the Polish language.
Phonology
Polish has six oral vowels (all monophthongs) and two nasal vowels. The
oral vowels are /i/ (spelt i), /ɨ/
(spelt y), /ɛ/ (spelt e), /a/
(spelt a), /ɔ/ (spelt o) and /u/ (spelt u or ó). The nasal vowels are /ɛ̃/ (spelt ę) and /ɔ̃/ (spelt ą).
The Polish consonant system shows more complexity: its characteristic
features include the series of affricates and palatal consonants that resulted
from four Proto-Slavic palatalizations and two further palatalizations that
took place in Polish and Belarusian. The full set of consonants, together with
their most common spellings, can be presented as follows (although other
phonological analyses exist):
plosives /p/ (p), /b/ (b),
/t/ (t), /d/ (d), /k/ (k), /ɡ/ (g), and the
palatized forms /kʲ/ (ki) and /gʲ/ (gi)
fricatives /f/ (f), /v/
(w), /s/ (s), /z/ (z),
/ʂ/ (sz), /ʐ/ (ż, rz),
the alveolo-palatals /ɕ/ (ś, si) and /ʑ/ (ź, zi), and /x/ (ch, h)
and /xʲ/ (chi, hi)
affricates /ts/ (c), /dz/ (dz), /tʂ/ (cz), /dʐ/ (dż),
/tɕ/ (ć, ci), /dʑ/ (dź, dzi) (these are written here without ties,
for browser display compatibility, although Polish does distinguish between
affricates as in czy, and stop+fricative clusters as in trzy)
nasals /m/ (m), /n/ (n),
/ɲ/ (ń, ni)
approximants /l/ (l), /j/
(j), /w/ (ł)
trill /r/ (r)
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.
The stress falls generally on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable of
a polysyllabic word, although there are exceptions.
Orthography
The Polish alphabet derives from the Latin script, but includes certain
additional letters formed using diacritics. The Polish alphabet was one of two
major forms of Latin-based orthography developed for Slavic languages, the
other being Czech orthography. Slovak uses the Czech-based system, as do Slovene
and Croatian; Kashubian uses a Polish-based system, while Sorbian blends the
two.
The diacritics used in the Polish alphabet are the kreska
(graphically similar to the acute accent) in the letters ć, ń, ó, ś, ź
and through the letter in ł; the kropka (superior dot) in the
letter ż, and the ogonek ("little tail") in the letters
ą, ę. The letters q, v, x are often not considered part of the
Polish alphabet; they are used only in foreign words and names.
Polish orthography is largely phonemic – there is a consistent correspondence
between letters (or digraphs and trigraphs) and phonemes (for exceptions see
below).
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. 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 ś, ź, ć, dź, ń are used. For example, the s
in siwy (pronounced /śiwy/ - "grey-haired"), the si in siarka
(pronounced /śarka/ - "sulphur") and the ś in święty
(pronounced /święty/ - "holy") all represent the sound /ɕ/. Similar principles apply to /kʲ/, /gʲ/ and /xʲ/, except
that these can only occur before vowels, so the spellings are k, g, (c)h
before i, and ki, gi, (c)hi otherwise.
Except in the cases mentioned in the previous paragraph, the letter i
if followed by another vowel in the same word usually represents /j/.
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
with 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.
Notice that doubled letters represent separate occurrences of the sound in
question; for example Anna is pronounced /anna/
in Polish (the double n is often pronounced as a lengthened single n).
There are certain clusters where a written consonant would not be
pronounced. For example, the ł in the words mógł
("could") and jabłko ("apple") might be omitted in
ordinary speech, leading to the pronunciations muk and japko or jabko.
Grammar
Polish is not taught in many Western universities. However, Polish grammar
is similar in most respects to that of Russian, and those who have studied
Russian will find its grammar much easier to grasp. Polish is a highly inflected
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 may belong to three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. A
distinction is also made between animate and inanimate masculine nouns in the singular,
and between masculine personal and non-personal nouns 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. 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, past 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 past 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
drunk" – note that wódka appears in the accusative). A similar
sentence type in the past tense uses the past 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").
Cardinal numbers have a complex system of inflection and agreement. Numbers
higher than five (except for those ending with the digit 2, 3 or 4) 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
Polish has, over the centuries, borrowed a number of words from other
languages. Usually, borrowed words have been adapted rapidly in the following
ways:
Spelling was altered to approximate the pronunciation, but written
according to Polish phonetics.
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, diminutives, augmentatives, etc.
Depending on the historical period, borrowing has proceeded from various
languages. Recent borrowing is primarily of "international" words
from the English language, mainly those that have Latin or Greek roots, for
example komputer (computer), korupcja (corruption) etc. Slang
sometimes borrows and alters common English words, e.g. luknąć (to
look). 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 international 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), konurbacja
(conurbation) and konotacje (connotations). Also, the digraph qu
becomes kw (kwadrant = quadrant; kworum = quorum).
Other notable influences in the past have been Latin (9th-18th century), Czech
(10th and 14th-15th century), Italian (15th-16th century), French (18th-19th
century), German (13-15th and 18th-20th century), Hungarian (14th-16th century)
and Turkish (17th century).
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 (rzeczpospolita
from res publica, zdanie for both "opinion" and
"sentence", from sententia) were direct calques from Latin.
Many words have been borrowed from the German language, as a result of
being neighbours for a millennium, and also as the result of a 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 the same, but differ in
writing schnur - sznur (cord). The Polish language has many German
expressions which have become literally translated.
The regional dialects of Upper Silesia and Masuria
(Modern Polish East Prussia) have noticeably more German loanwords than other
dialects. 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 somewhat greater number of
verbatim Latin phrases in Polish literature (especially from the 19th century
and earlier), than, say, in English.
In the 18th century, with the rising prominence of France in Europe, French
supplanted Latin in this respect. 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
owner/founder of a town).
Other words are borrowed from other Slavic languages, for example, sejm,
hańba and brama from Czech.
Some words like 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), menele (slang for oddments and also for homeless people), myszygine
(slang for lunatic), pinda (slang for girl, pejorativelly), plajta
(slang for bankruptcy), rejwach (noise), szmal (slang for money),
and trefny (dodgy) were borrowed from Yiddish, spoken by the large Polish
Jewish population, before the Jewish population in Poland disappeared, most of
the Jews having been murdered during the Holocaust.
Typical loanwords from Italian include pomidor from pomodoro
(tomato), kalafior from cavolfiore (cauliflower), pomarańcza from
pomo (pome) and arancio (orange), etc. Those were introduced in the times of
Queen Bona Sforza (the wife of Polish King Sigismund the Old), who was famous
for introducing Italian cuisine to Poland, especially vegetables. Another
interesting word of Italian origin is autostrada (from Italian
"autostrada", highway).
The contacts with Ottoman Turkey in the 17th century brought many new
words, some of them still in use, such as: jar (deep valley), szaszłyk
(shish kebab), filiżanka (cup), arbuz (watermelon), dywan
(carpet), kiełbasa (sausage), etc.
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.
Thieves' slang includes such words as kimać (to sleep) or majcher
(knife) of Greek origin, considered then unknown to the outside world.
Direct borrowings from Russian are extremely rare, in spite of long periods
of dependence on Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, and are limited to a few internationalisms,
such as sputnik and pierestrojka. Russian personal names are
transcribed into Polish likewise; thus Tchaikovsky's name is spelled Piotr
Iljicz Czajkowski.
There are also a few words borrowed from the Mongolian language, e.g. dzida
(spear) or szereg (a line or row). Those words were brought to the
Polish language during wars with the armies of Genghis Khan and his
descendants.
Loanwords from Polish
The Polish language has influenced others. Particular influences appear in
other Slavic languages and in German — due to their proximity and shared
borders. Examples of loanwords include German Grenze (border), 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. Also "spruce" ("z
Prus" = "from Prussia") in English. "Szmata," a Polish
word for "mop" or "rag" became part of Yiddish.
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 cheese; see: quark
(cheese)) and German Gurke, English gherkin from ogórek
(cucumber). The word pierogi (Polish dumplings) has spread
internationally, as well as pączki (Polish donuts).
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