Polish (język polski, polszczyzna), an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic language and, as for all the Slavic languages, its popularity is second only to Russian.^[4] Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a Latin-based orthography. The language developed indigenously and retains many ancient Slavic features of pronunciation and grammar. Although non-Polish administrations in Poland sometimes attempted, historically, to suppress the Polish language, a rich literature has nonetheless developed over the centuries, and many works by Polish authors are available in translations in English and other languages.

STUFF [hide] 1 Geographic distribution 2 Dialects 3 Phonology 4 Orthography 5 Grammar 5.1 Nouns and adjectives 5.2 Verbs 5.3 Word order 5.4 Conjugation 6 Borrowed words 7 Borrowings from Polish 8 Brief vocabulary 8.1 Personal pronouns 8.2 Numerals 8.3 Chronology 8.4 Weather 8.5 Seasons 8.6 Locations 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 12 External links 12.1 Dictionaries

[edit] Geographic distribution

Ethnographic map of the Slavic peoples prepared by Czech ethnographer Lubor Niederle showing territorial boundaries of Slavic languages in Europe in the mid 1920's, including the Polish.

Nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their mother tongue. As a result of World War II Poland has changed its borders, which did not accurately reflect the autotonic ethnic territories of the Polish people. The new borders initiated a series of migrations (World War II evacuation and expulsion, German expulsions, Operation Wisła). Ethnic cleansing of the Poles as a result of the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia also resulted in significant demographic changes. Polish territories annexed by the Soviet Union after the Second World War retained a significant Polish population unwilling or unable to migrate to post-1945 Poland. Ethnic Poles constitute significant 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 it is also present in other counties. In Ukraine, Polish is most often heard in the Lviv and Lutsk regions. Western Belarus has an significant Polish minority, particularly in the Brest and Grodno regions.

Polish speakers also live in: Argentina, Andorra, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Peru, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Ukraine, UAE, the UK, Uruguay and the United States.

In the United States, it is estimated that citizens of Polish ethnic extraction number more than 11 million, but many no longer 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: 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%) occur in three states: Illinois (185,749), New York (111,740) and New Jersey (74,663).^[5]

Canada has a significant Polish Canadian population. The 2006 census recorded 242,885 speakers of Polish, with a significant concentration in the city of Toronto, Ontario (91,810 speakers).^[6]

Dialect

Main article: Dialects of the Polish language

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 the Kresy in 1939.

The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still^[update] 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.

The regional differences correspond to old tribal divisions^{[citation needed]} from around a thousand years ago; the most significant of these in terms of numbers of speakers relate to:

• Greater Polish (spoken in the west)
• Lesser Polish (spoken in the south and southeast)
• Mazovian (Mazur) spoken throughout the central and eastern parts of the country. Mazovian shares some features with the Kashubian language (see below).
• Silesian, spoken in the southwest (controversial)

Some more characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include:

1. The distinctive Podhale dialect (Góralski) occurs in the mountainous areas bordering the Czech and Slovak Republics. The Górale (highlanders) take great pride in their culture and the dialect. It exhibits some cultural influences from the Vlach shepherds^{[citation needed]} who migrated from Wallachia (southern Romania) in the 14th-17th centuries^{[citation needed]}. The language of the coextensive East Slavic ethnic group, 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.^[7]
2. In the western and northern regions where Poles from the territories annexed by the Soviet Union resettled, 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.
3. The Kashubian language, spoken in the Pomorze region west of Gdańsk on the Baltic Sea, a language closely related to Polish, 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 written. There are about 53,000 speakers according to the 2002 census.
4. The Silesian language, spoken in the Silesia region west of Katowice, a language related to Polish, 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. There are about 60,000 speakers according to the 2002 census.
5. 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", and is easily distinguishable.
6. 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^[update] mostly extinct due to assimilation with standard Polish.
7. 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, but which now sound archaic to contemporary visitors from Poland.

Phonology

Main article: Polish phonology

Polish has six oral and two nasal vowels. 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 which took place in Polish and Belarusian. The stress falls generally on the penultimate (second to last) syllable.

Orthography

Main article: Polish orthography

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

The Polish alphabet derives from the Latin alphabet but uses diacritics, such as kreska (graphically similar to the acute accent), kropka (superior dot) and ogonek ("little tail"). Unlike other Latin-character Slavic languages (apart from Kashubian), Polish did not adopt a version of the Czech orthography, but developed one independently.

Upper case	HTML code	Lower case	HTML code	Name of the letter	Usual phonetic value	Other phonetic values
A		a		a	[a]
Ą	Ą	ą	ą	ą	[ɔɰ̃]	[ɔ], [ɔm], [ɔn], [ɔŋ], [ɔɲ], [ɔj̃]
B		b		be	[b]	[p]
C		c		ce	[t͡s]	[d͡z], [t͡ɕ]
Ć	Ć	ć	ć	ci	[t͡ɕ]	[d͡ʑ]
D		d		de	[d]	[t]
E		e		e	[ɛ]	[e] after and between palatalized consonants
Ę	Ę	ę	ę	ę	[ɛɰ̃]	[ɛ], [ɛm], [ɛn], [ɛŋ], [ɛɲ], [ɛj̃]
F		f		ef	[f]	[v]
G		g		gie	[g]	[k]
H		h		ha	[x]	[ɣ], [ɦ] (Eastern Bordelands, Silesia)
I		i		i	[i]	[i̯], mute (softens preceding consonant)
J		j		jot	[j]	[i]
K		k		ka	[k]	[g]
L		l		el	[l]
Ł	Ł	ł	ł	eł	[w]	[ɫ] in older pronunciation and eastern dialects
M		m		em	[m]
N		n		en	[n]	[ŋ], [ɲ]
Ń	Ń	ń	ń	eń	[ɲ]
O		o		o	[ɔ]
Ó	Ó	ó	ó	ó kreskowane	[u]
P		p		pe	[p]	[b]
R		r		er	[r]
S		s		es	[s]	[z], [ɕ]
Ś	Ś	ś	ś	eś	[ɕ]	[ʑ]
T		t		te	[t]	[d]
U		u		u or u otwarte	[u]	[u̯]
W		w		wu	[v]	[f]
Y		y		igrek	[ɨ]
Z		z		zet	[z]	[s], [ʑ]
Ź	Ź	ź	ź	ziet	[ʑ]	[ɕ]
Ż	Ż	ż	ż	żet	[ʐ]	[ʂ]

Note the laminal postalveolars [ʂ], [ʐ], [t͡ʂ], [d͡ʐ], perhaps most accurately transcribed using the IPA retracted diacritic as [s̠], [z̠], [t͡ʂ̠], [d͡ʐ̠] respectively. Also note that Polish ń (transcribed here as [ɲ]) is not palatal, having the same place of articulation as [ɕ] and [ʑ]. However, as the IPA does not have a symbol for a nasal alveolo-palatal consonant, a more accurate representation would be [nʲ] or the obsolete [ȵ].

The letters Q (ku), V (fau) and X (iks) do not belong to the Polish alphabet, but they occur in some commercial names and in some foreign words. Some letters, such as those listed are used but not that often. In Polish pronunciation there is no need for them. They are replaced with K, W and KS/GZ respectively. Some letters, like Y and W are pronounced differently.

Polish orthography also includes seven digraphs:

Capitalized	HTML code	Lower case	HTML code	Usual phonetic value	Other phonetic values
Ch		ch		[x]	[ɣ]
Cz		cz		[t͡ʂ]	[d͡ʐ]
Dz		dz		[d͡z]	[t͡s], [d͡ʑ], [d-z]
Dź	DŹ	dź	dź	[d͡ʑ]	[t͡ɕ], [d-ʑ]
Dż	DŻ	dż	dż	[d͡ʐ]	[t͡ʂ], [d-ʐ]
Rz		rz		[ʐ]	[ʂ], [r-z]
Sz		sz		[ʂ]	[ʐ]

Note that although the Polish orthography mostly follows phonetic-morphological lines, some sounds may appear in more than one written form:

• [x] as either h or ch
• [ʐ] as either ż or rz (though rż denotes a [r-ʐ] cluster)
• [u] as either u or ó
• soft consonants are spelt either ć, dź, ń, ś, ź, or ci, dzi, ni, si, zi (ć, ń etc. are spelt before a consonant or at the end of a word, whereas ci, ni etc. are used before vowels a, ą, e, ę, o, u; c, dz, n, s, z alone are used before i.)

The two consonants rz very occasionally reflect the sounds "r z", not [ʐ], as in words "zamarzać" (to get frozen), "marznąć" (to feel cold) or in the name "Tarzan".

The pronunciation of geminates (doubled consonants) in Polish always sounds distinct from single consonants. Note that they should not be pronounced in a prolonged manner, as in Finnish and Italian, but it happens often in informal conversations. In correct pronunciation, speakers should articulate and release each of the two consonants separately. The prolongation is therefore rather a repetition of the consonant. For example, the word panna (young lady/maiden) is not read the same way as pana (mr.'s/master's), but should be pronounced pan-na, with two n. This includes not only native Polish words (like panna or oddech), but also loan-words (lasso, attyka). In Polish, geminates may appear in the beginning of a word, as in czczenie (worshipping), dżdżownica (earth-worm), ssak (mammal), wwóz (importation), zstąpić (to descend; to step down), and zza (from behind; from beyond) but never appear at the end of a word of Slavic origin.