Polish język polski
Pronunciation:	/pɔlski/
Spoken in:	Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Lithuania, Scotland, England, Australia, Israel, Canada, United States, Belarus, Brazil, Latvia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Republic of Ireland[1]
Total speakers:	42. Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublika is a Country in Eastern often referred to as Northern Europe or in the Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east |utc_offset = -2 to -4 |time_zone_DST = BRST |utc_offset_DST = -2 to -5 |cctld Latvia ( Latvija officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvijas Republika is a Country in Northern Europe in the Baltic region. The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, Slovakia (long form Slovak Republic; Slovak:, long form, is a Landlocked country in Central Europe with a population of over five million Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Ireland ( Irish: Éire, ˈeːrʲə is a country in north-western Europe. 7 million
Ranking:	28
Language family:	Indo-European  Slavic   West Slavic    Lechitic     Polish
Writing system:	Latin (Polish variant)
Official status
Official language in:	European Union  Poland
Regulated by:	Polish Language Council
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	pl
ISO 639-2:	pol
ISO 639-3:	pol
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Sorbian. The Lechitic languages include three languages spoken in Central Europe, mainly in Poland, and historically also in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The Polish alphabet is the script of the Polish language. It is based on the Latin alphabet but uses Diacritics such as the kreska The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language The Polish Language Council ( Rada Języka Polskiego in Polish) is the official language regulating organ of the Polish language. ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) is the official language of Poland. An official language is a Language that is given a special legal status in a particular Country, State, or other territory Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland It is the most spoken West Slavic language ^[2]. The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Sorbian.

Contents 1 Statistics 2 History 3 Geographic distribution 4 Dialects 5 Phonology 6 Orthography 7 Grammar 7.1 Nouns and adjectives 7.2 Verbs 7.3 Word order 7.4 Conjugation 8 Borrowed words 9 Brief vocabulary 9.1 Personal pronouns 9.2 Numerals 9.3 Chronology 9.4 Weather 9.5 Seasons 9.6 Environment 9.6.1 Selected countries 9.6.2 Geometry 9.6.3 Direction 9.6.4 Common phrases 9.7 Locations 10 See also 11 References 12 External links 12.1 Dictionaries

Statistics

Today Polish is the official language of Poland; it is spoken by most of the 38 million inhabitants of Poland (census 2002). An official language is a Language that is given a special legal status in a particular Country, State, or other territory Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland There are also native speakers of Polish in western Belarus and Ukraine (see: Kresy), as well as in eastern Lithuania (in the area of Vilnius), southeastern Latvia (around Daugavpils), northern Romania (see: Polish minority in Romania), and northeastern part of Czech Republic (see: Zaolzie). Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. The term Kresy, meaning Outskirts or Borderlands, was first used to define the Polish eastern frontier Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublika is a Country in Eastern often referred to as Northern Europe or in the Latvia ( Latvija officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvijas Republika is a Country in Northern Europe in the Baltic region. Daugavpils (daugavpils) is the second largest City in Latvia. The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, (Zaolší (Zaolží Zaolzie Śląsk zaolziański literally Trans- Olza River Silesia, Olsa-Gebiet is an area in the present-day Czech Republic, which was Because of emigration from Poland in various periods, millions of Polish-speakers may be found in countries such as Germany, France, Ireland, Australia, Mexico, Israel, Brazil, Iceland, the United Kingdom, United States, etc. "Emigrant" redirects here For the Butterflies, see Catopsilia. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɾlənd/ Éire) is the third largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. |utc_offset = -2 to -4 |time_zone_DST = BRST |utc_offset_DST = -2 to -5 |cctld Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland ( ( Ísland or Lýðveldið Ísland ( The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The estimated number of Poles who live beyond the borders of Poland is 10 million. The Polish people, or Poles, (Polacy) are a Western Slavic Ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. It is not clear, however, how many of them can actually speak Polish - the estimates range from 3. 5 to 10 million^[3]. This puts the number of native speakers of Polish worldwide at between 40 and 48 million. According to Ethnologue, there are about 43 million first language speakers of Polish worldwide^[4]. Ethnologue Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics a Christian

Polish has the second largest number of speakers among Slavic languages after Russian. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages It is the main representative of the Lechitic branch of the West Slavic languages. The Lechitic languages include three languages spoken in Central Europe, mainly in Poland, and historically also in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Sorbian. The Polish language originated in the areas of present-day Poland from several local Western Slavic dialects, most notably those spoken in Greater Poland and Lesser Poland. Greater Poland or Great Poland, Polish Wielkopolska (Großpolen Latin: Polonia Maior) is a historical region of west-central Poland Lesser Poland (also "Little Poland" Polish: Małopolska, Latin: Polonia Minor) is one of the historical regions of Poland It shares some vocabulary with the languages of the neighboring Slavic nations, most notably with Slovak, Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. The Slovak language ( slovenčina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with Slovenščina) sometimes referred to as "Slovakian" Czech (ˈʧɛk čeština ˈʧɛʃcɪna in Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers it is the majority language in the Ukrainian (in Ukrainian украї́нська мо́ва ukrayins'ka mova,) is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. The Belarusian language, or Belorussian,(беларуская мова BGN/PCGN: byelaruskaya mova, Scientific: belaruskaja mova

History

The precursor to the Polish language is the Old Polish language. Old Polish (Old Polish ięzyk Polſki, modern Polish: język staropolski) is a name used to describe the period in the history of the

Polish was a lingua franca from 1500-1700 in small parts of Central and large portions of Eastern Europe, because of the political, cultural, scientific and military influence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. A lingua franca (from Italian, literally meaning Frankish language, see etymology under Sabir and Italian below is any Language widely Central Europe is the Region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Eastern Europe is a general term that refers to the Geopolitical region encompassing the easternmost part of the European continent. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, officially the Commonwealth of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania also known as the Most Serene Republic The West Slavs suffered different fates; the Lusatians and Veleti were absorbed by German expansion, the Czechs and Moravians merged to form the nucleus of the Czech Kingdom, the Slovaks became part of the Hungarian Kingdom.

Geographic distribution

Polish is mainly spoken in Poland. Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland Poland is one of the most homogeneous European countries with regard to its mother tongue; nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their mother tongue, due to WWII, after which Poland was forced to change its borders, what resulted in various migrations (German expulsions). A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth The expulsion of Germans after World War II was the Forced migration and Ethnic cleansing of German nationals ( Reichsdeutsche) and ethnic After the Second World War the previously Polish territories annexed by the USSR retained a large amount of the Polish population that was unwilling or unable to migrate toward the post-1945 Poland and even today ethnic Poles in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine constitute large minorities. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublika is a Country in Eastern often referred to as Northern Europe or in the Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. It is by far the most widely used minority language in Lithuania's Vilnius County (26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results), but it is also present in other counties. Vilnius County (Vilniaus apskritis Okręg wileński is the largest of the 10 counties of Lithuania, located in the east of the country around the City In Ukraine, Polish is most often used in the Lviv and Lutsk regions. Lviv ( Ukrainian: Львів, L’viv, Lwów Lemberg Львов L'vov; see also other names) is a major city in western Lutsk (Луцьк translit Luts’k, Łuck is a city located by the Styr River in north-western Ukraine. Western Belarus has an important Polish minority, especially in the Brest and Grodno regions. West Belarus is the name sometimes used in a historical context to denote the territory of modern Belarus that belonged to the Second Polish Republic between the

There are also significant numbers of Polish speakers in Argentina, Andorra, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, 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. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra ( Catalan: Principat d'Andorra) is a small Landlocked country in western For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich Azerbaijan ( English; Azərbaycan officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azərbaycan Respublikası is the largest and most populous country in the South Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those |utc_offset = -2 to -4 |time_zone_DST = BRST |utc_offset_DST = -2 to -5 |cctld The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, The Kingdom of Denmark ( ˈd̥ænmɑɡ̊ (archaic ˈd̥anmɑːɡ̊ commonly known as Denmark, is a country in the Scandinavian region of northern Europe Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia ( Eesti or Eesti Vabariik) is a Country in Northern Europe in the Baltic region The Faroe Islands or Faeroe Islands or simply Faroe(s or Faeroes (Føroyar meaning " Sheep Islands" Færøerne Old Norse Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland ( ( Ísland or Lýðveldið Ísland ( Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɾlənd/ Éire) is the third largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Kazakhstan, also Kazakstan ( Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, qɑzɑqˈstɑn Казахстан, Kazakhstán,) officially the Latvia ( Latvija officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvijas Republika is a Country in Northern Europe in the Baltic region. Luxembourg (Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg Grand-Duché de Luxembourg Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small Landlocked country in Western Europe, bordered by The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands New Zealand is an Island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. Peru (Perú Piruw Piruw officially the Republic of Peru ( reˈpuβlika del peˈɾu is a country in western South America. Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Serbia (Србија Srbija) officially the Republic of Serbia (Република Србија Republika Srbija) is a Landlocked Country Slovakia (long form Slovak Republic; Slovak:, long form, is a Landlocked country in Central Europe with a population of over five million Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Uruguay.(official full name in República Oriental del Uruguay;, Oriental Republic of Uruguay) is a country located in the southeastern part of South America The United States of America —commonly referred to as the

In the U. S. the number of people of Polish descent is over 11 million, see: Polish language in the United States, but most of them cannot speak Polish. A Polish American is an American citizen of Polish descent There are an estimated 10 million Americans of Polish descent According to the United States 2000 Census, 667,414 Americans of age 5 years and over reported Polish as language spoken at home, which is about 1. 4% of people who speak languages other than English or 0. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States 25% of the U. S. population.

Dialects

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 east was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939, during World War II. In Polish linguistic tradition there are seven general Dialectal groups of the Polish language, each primarily associated with a certain geographical region The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including

"Standard" Polish is still spoken somewhat differently in different regions of the country, although the differences between these broad "dialects" are slight. There is never any difficulty in mutual understanding, and non-native speakers are generally unable to distinguish among them easily. The differences are slight compared to different dialects of English, for example. The regional differences correspond mainly to old tribal divisions from around a thousand years ago; the most significant of these in terms of numbers of speakers are Great 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, and Silesian spoken in the southwest. Greater Poland or Great Poland, Polish Wielkopolska (Großpolen Latin: Polonia Maior) is a historical region of west-central Poland Lesser Poland (also "Little Poland" Polish: Małopolska, Latin: Polonia Minor) is one of the historical regions of Poland Masurian (Mazurski Masurisch was a dialect of the Polish language, spoken by Masurs in East Prussia, today Poland, which were distant descendants Silesian or Upper Silesian (Silesian Ślůnsko godka, Slezsky jazyk Język śląski is a Slavic language or dialect spoken in the region of Mazovian shares some features with the Kashubian language (see below). Kashubian or Cassubian (Kashubian kaszëbsczi jãzëk, pòmòrsczi jãzëk, kaszëbskò-słowińskô mòwa; język kaszubski is one of

Some more characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include:

1. The distinctive Góralski (highlander) dialect is spoken in the mountainous areas bordering the Czech and Slovak Republics. The Górale (highlanders) take great pride in their culture and the dialect. The Gorale (Górale Gorali Cieszyn Silesian: Gorole; literally "highlanders" are a group of Indigenous people found along southern It has 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 ethnic group, the Lemkos, which demonstrates significant lexical and grammatical commonality with the Góralski dialect, bears no significant Vlach or other Romanian influences. Lemkos (Лeмки Lemko: Лeмкы translit Lemky; sing Лeмкo Lemko) one of several quantitatively and territorially small nationalities Vlachs is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe Romanian or Daco-Romanian ( dated: Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation limba română, ˈlimba roˈmɨnə is a Romance ^[5]
2. In the western and northern regions that were largely resettled by Poles from the territories annexed by the Soviet Union, the older generation speaks a dialect of Polish characteristic of the Eastern Borderlands. The Polish people, or Poles, (Polacy) are a Western Slavic Ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 The term Kresy, meaning Outskirts or Borderlands, was first used to define the Polish eastern frontier
3. The Kashubian language, spoken in the Pomorze region west of Gdańsk on the Baltic sea is closely related to Polish, and was once considered a dialect by some. Gdańsk ( Polish pronunciation; 'Danzig', Gduńsk Gedania Dantiscum is the City at the centre of the fourth-largest Metropolitan area in Poland The Baltic Sea is a Brackish inland sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N Latitude and from 20°E to 26°E Longitude. However, the differences are large enough 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. Poles living in Lithuania (particularly in the Vilnius region), Belarus (particularly the northwest), and in the northeast of Poland continue to speak the Eastern Borderlands dialect which is more "musical" than standard Polish, hence easy to distinguish. Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublika is a Country in Eastern often referred to as Northern Europe or in the Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east The term Kresy, meaning Outskirts or Borderlands, was first used to define the Polish eastern frontier
5. Some city dwellers, especially the less affluent population, had their own distinctive dialects. An example of this is the Warsaw dialect, still spoken by some of the population of Praga, on the eastern bank of the Vistula. The Warsaw dialect (called Gwara warszawska in standard Polish var'ʃafska}} is a regional dialect of the Polish language spoken in Warsaw. Praga Łódź Voivodeship In some languages Praga is used as a name for Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. (Praga was the only part of the city whose population survived World War II somewhat intact. ) However, these city dialects are now mostly extinct due to assimilation with standard Polish.
6. Many Poles living in emigrant communities, e. g. in the USA, whose families left Poland just after World War II, retain a number of minor features of Polish vocabulary as it was spoken in the first half of the 20th century, but which sound archaic to contemporary visitors from Poland.

Phonology

Main article: Polish phonology

The Polish vowel system is relatively simple with only six oral and two nasal vowels. See also Polish language For assistance in making phonetic transcriptions of Polish for Wikipedia articles see HelpIPA chart for Polish. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract The Polish consonant system is more complicated and its characteristic features are 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. In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Proto-Slavic is the Proto-language from which Slavic languages later emerged Palatalization or palatalisation (ˌpælətəlɨˈzeɪʃən generally refers to two phenomena As a process or the result of a process The Belarusian language, or Belorussian,(беларуская мова BGN/PCGN: byelaruskaya mova, Scientific: belaruskaja mova The stress falls generally on the penultimate (second to last) syllable. In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word

Orthography

Main article: Polish orthography

The Polish alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet but uses diacritics, such as kreska (graphically similar to acute accent), kropka (superior dot) and ogonek. For assistance in making phonetic transcriptions of Polish for Wikipedia articles see HelpIPA chart for Polish. The Polish alphabet is the script of the Polish language. It is based on the Latin alphabet but uses Diacritics such as the kreska A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation History An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels. The ogonek ( Polish for "little tail" the Diminutive of ogon) is a Diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Unlike other Latin-character Slavic languages (apart from Kashubian), Polish did not adopt a version of the Czech orthography, but developed one independently. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages Kashubian or Cassubian (Kashubian kaszëbsczi jãzëk, pòmòrsczi jãzëk, kaszëbskò-słowińskô mòwa; język kaszubski is one of Czech orthography is a system of rules for correct writing ( Orthography) in the Czech language.

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	om	[ɔɰ̃]	[ɔ], [ɔm], [ɔn], [ɔŋ], [ɔɲ], [ɔj̃]
B		b		be	[b]	[p]
C		c		ce	[ʦ]	[ʣ], [ʨ]
Ć	Ć	ć	ć	ci	[ʨ]	[ʥ]
D		d		de	[d]	[t]
E		e		e	[ɛ]	[e] after and between palatalized consonants
Ę	Ę	ę	ę	em	[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]
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	o 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	[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 that Polish [ʂ], [ʐ], [t͡ʂ], [d͡ʐ] are laminal postalveolar and may perhaps be most accurately transcribed using the IPA retracted diacritic as [s̠], [z̠], [t͡s̠], [d͡z̠] respectively. Ą ( minuscule: ą) is a letter in the Polish, Kashubian, Lithuanian, Creek, Navajo, Western Apache The grapheme Ć ( minuscule: ć) formed from C with the addition of an Acute accent, is used in various languages Ę ( minuscule: ę) is a letter in the Polish alphabet and other languages Ł or ł, described in English as L with stroke, is a letter of the Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, Łacinka (Latin Ń ( minuscule: ń) is a letter in the Polish, Kashubian and Sorbian alphabets representing IPA /ɲ/. Ó, ó ( O - acute) is a letter in the Faroese, Hungarian, Icelandic, Kashubian, Polish, Czech Ś is an S with an Acute accent. It is found in the Polish alphabet and it is used in some other countries Slavic usually ( Voiceless alveolo-palatal Ź ( minuscule: ź) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, formed from Z with the addition of an acute. Ż is a letter in the Polish, Kashubian and Maltese alphabets A laminal consonant is a Phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic In descriptions of Phonetics and Phonology, the manner and place of articulation of a speech sound may be specified relative to some point of Also note that Polish ń (transcribed here [ɲ]) is not palatal; it has the same articulation place as [ɕ] or [ʑ]. However, as the IPA does not have a symbol for a nasal alveolo-palatal consonant, it would perhaps be more accurately transcribed as [nʲ]. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic In Phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) Consonants are palatalized postalveolar Fricatives articulated with

The letters Q (ku), V (fau) and X (iks) do not belong to the Polish alphabet but they are used in some commercial names and foreign words. In Polish pronunciation there is no need for them. They are replaced with K, W and KS/GZ respectively.

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		[ʣ]	[ʦ], [ʥ], [d-z]
Dź	DŹ	dź	dź	[ʥ]	[ʨ], [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 is mostly phonetic-morphological, some sounds may be written in more than one way:

• [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. A digraph, bigraph, or digram is a pair of characters used to write one Phoneme (distinct sound or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond 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. )

Two consonants rz are very rarely read as "r z", not [ʐ], as in words "zamarzać" (to get frozen), "marznąć" (to feel cold) or in the name "Tarzan". Tarzan is a Fictional character, an archetypal Feral child raised in the African jungle by Apes who later returns to civilization only to

The pronunciation of geminates (doubled consonants) in Polish is clearly prolonged, as in Finnish and Italian. Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. For example, the word panna (young lady) is not pronounced the same as pana (man's). When pronouncing a word slowly and carefully, Polish speakers articulate and release each of the two consonants separately. The prolongation is therefore rather a repetition of the consonant. Thus, panna 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).

Grammar

Nouns and adjectives

Polish is highly inflected and retains the Old Slavic case system with seven cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative. In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another The dative case is a Grammatical case generally used to indicate the Noun to whom something is given The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive The instrumental case (also called the eighth case) is a Grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the Locative (also called the seventh case) is a Grammatical case which indicates a location The vocative case is the case used for a Noun identifying the person (animal object etc There are two number classes, singular and plural. In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one"

It is also to be noted that, as in many Slavic languages, including Russian, there are no definite or indefinite articles in Polish.

The Polish gender system, like Russian and almost all the other Balto-Slavic languages, is complex, due to its combination of three categories: gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), personhood (personal versus non-personal) and animacy (animate versus inanimate). In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong Personhood and animacy are relevant within the masculine gender but do not affect the feminine or neuter genders. The resulting system can be presented as comprising five gender classes: personal masculine, animate (non-personal) masculine, inanimate masculine, feminine, and neuter. These classes can be identified based on declension patterns, adjective-noun agreement, and pronoun-antecedent agreement. In Grammar, an antecedent is generally the Noun or Noun phrase to which an anaphor refers in a Coreference.

Gender	Nominative singular		Accusative singular		Nominative plural		Meaning
	Adjective	Noun	Adjective	Noun	Adjective	Noun
Personal masculine	nowy	student	nowego	studenta	nowi	studenci	"new student(s)"
Animate masculine	nowy	pies	nowego	psa	nowe	psy	"new dog(s)"
Inanimate masculine	nowy	stół	nowy	stół	nowe	stoły	"new table(s)"
Feminine	nowa	szafa	nową	szafę	nowe	szafy	"new wardrobe(s)"
Neuter	nowe	krzesło	nowe	krzesło	nowe	krzesła	"new chair(s)"

The gender classes are characterized by the following inflectional properties (with rare exceptions):

1. Personal masculine: accusative = genitive (both singular and plural), distinctive nominative plural ending
2. Animate (non-personal) masculine: nominative singular ending in a consonant (nouns), accusative singular = genitive singular, accusative plural = nominative plural
3. Inanimate masculine: nominative singular ending in a consonant (nouns), accusative = nominative (singular and plural)
4. Neuter: nominative singular in "-o" or "-e", genitive singular in "-a" (nouns), accusative = nominative (singular and plural)
5. Feminine: dative singular = locative singular, accusative plural = nominative plural.

To determine correct adjective-noun agreement, only four genders need to be distinguished in the singular (classes 1 and 2 can be combined), and only two genders are needed in the plural (class 1 contrasting with 2-3-4-5 combined). For correct pronoun selection, the gender system can be further simplified to three classes in the singular, and two in the plural. The following table shows which 3rd person nominative pronoun corresponds to nouns of each gender class:

Gender of antecedent	Singular	Plural
Personal masculine	on	oni
Animate masculine		one
Inanimate masculine
Feminine	ona
Neuter	ono

Verbs

Polish verbs are inflected according to gender as well as person and number, but the tense forms have been simplified through elimination of three old tenses (the aorist, imperfect, and past perfect). For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" Grammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at during or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs The imperfect tense, in the classical grammar of several Indo-European languages, denotes a Past tense with an Imperfective aspect. The pluperfect tense (from Latin plus quam perfectum more than perfect also called past perfect in English, is a Perfective The so-called Slavic perfect is the only past tense form used in common speech. In Polish, one distinguishes between

• three tenses (present, past and future)
• three moods (indicative, imperative and conditional)
• three voices (active, passive and reflexive). Present Tense is the first Sagittarius album released in 1968 by Columbia Records. The past tense is a Verb tense expressing action activity state or being in the past of the current moment (in an Absolute tense system or prior In Grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet but expected to happen in the future (in an Absolute tense Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive Verb forms that are used to signal modality. In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified

Aspect is a grammatical category of the verb, and almost all Polish verbs have two aspects, in each tense. In Linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a Verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof in the described event or state One imperfective (often translated as a progressive tense in English with -ing, for example 'was going', 'is going', "will be going") and one perfective (often translated as a simple tense in English, for example 'went', 'go' 'will go').

The tenses include:

construction	(for perfective verbs)	(for imperfective verbs)	example imperfective	example perfective
verb+ć	infinitive	infinitive	robić	zrobić
verb+suffix	future simple tense	present tense	robicie	zrobicie
past participle+suffix	past perfective tense	past imperfective tense	robiliście	zrobiliście
(this suffix can be moved)			coście robili / co robiliście	coście zrobili / co zrobiliście

Movable suffixes (those of the past tenses) are usually attached to the verb or to the most accented word of a sentence, like question preposition.

The fifth Polish tense, the future imperfective, is an analytic form, and consists of the simple future form of the auxiliary verb być ‘to be’ (będę, będziesz. . . ), and either infinitive or past participle (imperfective). The choice between będziecie robić and będziecie robili is free, and both forms have the same meaning.

Sometimes the sentence may be emphasised with a particle -że- (-ż).

So what have you done? can be:

• Co zrobiliście?
• Coście zrobili?
• Cóżeście zrobili? (a form that could be derived from Cóż zrobiliście?, which actually sounds archaic and is not often used, except for eg. biblical usage)
• Co żeście zrobili? (though almost identical, this form is incorrect. Many Poles nowadays make the mistake of putting unnecessary "że" with the past tense suffix, e. g. Wczoraj żem to kupił. instead of Kupiłem to wczoraj. (I bought it yesterday. ) Better educated Poles consider such sentences to be coarse. Sometimes it may seem they contain the -ż(e) particle, but in most cases the unnecessary -że does not bring any emphasis. )

(It is also well worth noticing that the two latter forms - "coście zrobili?" and "co żeście zrobili?" often carry a negative emotional load, a possible translation of these examples being "what (the hell) have you done!?" The third form, using "żeście", would be even stronger - fitting for situations involving desperation, etc. (and indeed being a little archaic))

All the above examples show inflected forms of the verb "zrobić" for the subject "you" informal plural ("wy"). However, it is worthy of notice that none of the above examples includes the subject itself. The inclusion of the subject is not necessary here because Polish is a pro-drop language. A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping" is a Language in which certain classes of Pronouns may be omitted when they are in some sense pragmatically This means that with an inflected verb the subject does not need to be mentioned. Instead, the reader or listener can tell, by the ending on the verb, which is different for each person, singular and plural, what is the implied subject. Because the subject can be dropped, using it with an inflected verb signals emphasis. Of the above three examples, a native speaker would not include the subject in the middle sentence and would be unlikely to include the subject in the last one. The examples below show how the subject could be included in such sentences, where possible:

• Co wy zrobiliście?
• Coście zrobili? (a native speaker would not use a subject here)
• Co wyście zrobili? (this example emphasizes the pronoun -- "wy"+ście)
• Co żeście zrobili? (this example emphasizes the że- particle, but it is not correct in a written form) (The mentioned correctness could be subject to an argument. It is clearly not an "official language" form, no apparent reason I can see for deeming its written form as incorrect, though. )

The past participle depends on number and gender, so the third person, past perfect tense, can be:

• - singular
• zrobił (he made/did)
• zrobiła (she made/did)
• zrobiło (it made/did)
• - plural
• zrobili (they made/did {men, people of both sexes})
• zrobiły (they made/did {women, children})

Word order

Basic word order in Polish is SVO, however, as it is a synthetic language, it is possible to move words around in the sentence, and to drop the subject, object or even sometimes verb, if they are obvious from context. In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite In Linguistic typology, subject-verb-object ( SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first the Verb second and the object A synthetic language, in Linguistic typology, is a Language with a high Morpheme -per- word ratio

These sentences mean more or less the same ("Alice has a cat"), but different shades of meaning are emphasized by selecting different word orders. In increasing order of markedness:

• Ala ma kota - Alicia has a cat
• Ala kota ma - Alicia does have (own) a cat (and has not borrowed it)
• Kota ma Ala - The/a cat is owned by Alicia
• Ma Ala kota - Alicia really does have a cat
• Kota Ala ma - It is just the cat that Alicia really has
• Ma kota Ala - The relationship of Alicia to the cat is one of ownership (and not temporary possession)

However, only the first three examples sound natural in Polish, and others should be used for special emphasis only, if at all.

If a question mark is added to the end of those sentences they will all mean "does Alicia have a cat?"; an optional 'czy' could be added to the beginning (but native speakers do not always use it).

If apparent from context, the subject, object or even the verb, can be dropped:

• Ma kota - can be used if it is obvious who is the person talked about
• Ma - short answer for "Czy Ala ma kota?" (as in "Yes, she does")
• Ala - answer for "Kto ma kota?" (as in "Alicia does")
• Kota - answer for "Co ma Ala?" (as in "The cat")
• Ala ma - (as in "Alicia does [have one]") answer for "Kto z naszych znajomych ma kota?" ("Who among our acquaintances has a cat?")

Note the interrogative particle "czy", which is used to start a yes/no question, much like the French "est-ce que". The particle is not obligatory, and sometimes rising intonation is the only signal of the interrogative character of the sentence: "Ala ma kota?".

There is a tendency in Polish to drop the subject rather than the object as it is uncommon to know the object but not the subject. If the question were "Kto ma kota?" (Who has a/the cat?), the answer should be "Ala" alone, without a verb.

In particular, "ja" (I) and "ty" (you, singular), and their plural equivalents "my" (we) and "wy" (you, plural), are almost always dropped, much like the respective Spanish pronouns.

Conjugation

Conjugation of "być" (to be) in the present tense:

• Ja jestem - I am
• Ty jesteś - You are (familiar singular)
• On/ona/ono jest - He/she/it is
• My jesteśmy - We are
• Wy jesteście - You are (plural)
• Oni/one są - They are (masculine/feminine)

• Pan/Pani jest - You are (masculine/feminine, singular, polite)
• Państwo są - You are (plural, both sexes together, polite)
• Panowie są - You are (plural, masculine, polite)
• Panie są - You are (plural, feminine, polite)

Conjugation of "być" (to be) in the past tense:

• Ja byłem/byłam - I (masculine/femine) was
• Ty byłeś/byłaś - You (masculine/feminine) were
• On był/ona była/ono było - He/she/it was
• My byliśmy/byłyśmy - We (masculine/feminine) were
• Wy byliście/byłyście - You (masculine/feminine) were (plural)
• Oni byli/one były - They (masculine/femenine) were
• Pan/Pani był/była - You were (masculine/feminine, singular, polite)
• Państwo byli - You were (plural, both sexes together, polite)
• Panowie byli - You were (plural, masculine, polite)
• Panie były - You were (plural, feminine, polite)

Past tense for verbs is usually made this way, by replacing the infinitive final "-ć" with "-ł(+V)". An organism's sex is defined by the gametes it produces males produce male gametes (spermatozoa or Sperm) while females produce female gametes (ova or Egg cells; individual

Conjugation of "iść" ("to go, walk" in the present tense):

• Ja idę – I am going
• Ty idziesz – You are going (singular)
• On/ona/ono idzie – He/she/it is going
• My idziemy – We are going
• Wy idziecie – You are going (plural)
• Oni/one idą – They are going ("oni" masculine personal, "one" feminine, neuter, masculine animate or masculine inanimate)
• Pan/Pani idzie - You are going (masculine/feminine, singular, polite)
• Państwo idą - You are going (plural, both sexes together, polite)
• Panowie idą - You are going (plural, masculine, polite)
• Panie idą - You are going (plural, feminine, polite)

Conjugation of "iść" ("to go, walk" in the past imperfect tense):

• Ja szedłem - (masculine) - Ja szłam (feminine) - I was going
• Ty szedłeś - (masculine) - Ty szłaś (feminine) - you were going
• On szedł - (masculine) - Ona szła (feminine) - Ono wszło (neutral) - He/she/it was going
• Pan szedł - (masculine) - Pani szła (feminine) - You were going (polite)
• My szliśmy (inf myśmy szli) - (masculine, masculine + feminine, masculine + neutral)- We were going
• My szłyśmy (inf, myśmy szły) - (feminine + feminine) - We were going
• Wy szliście (inf. wyście szli) - (masculine, masculine + feminine, masculine + neutral)- You were going
• Wy szłyście (inf. wyście szły) - (feminine + feminine) - We were going
• Oni szli - (masculine, masculine + feminine, masculine + neutral)- They were going
• One szły - (feminine + feminine) - They were going
• Państwo szli - (masculine, masculine + feminine, masculine + neutral)- You were going (polite)
• Panie szły - (feminine + feminine) - You were going (polite)

In Polish, the use of personal pronouns to mark the subject is not necessary because flexed word contains such information. Therefore, one may omit the personal pronouns as follows, while retaining the same meaning:

• Idę (= I am going)
• Idziesz (= You are going)
• Idzie (= She/He/It is going)
• Idziemy (= We are going)
• Idziecie (= You are going)
• Idą (= They are going)

Borrowed words

Polish has, over the centuries, borrowed a large number of words from other languages. Borrowed words have been usually rapidly adapted in the following ways:

1. Their spelling was usually altered to approximately keep the pronunciation, but have them written according to Polish phonetics.
2. 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. A diminutive is a formation of a Word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning smallness of the object or quality named encapsulation intimacy or endearment An augmentative is a suffix or prefix added to a Noun in order to convey the sense of greater intensity often though not primarily indicating a larger

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), produkcja (production), korupcja (corruption) etc. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Slang sometimes borrows and alters common English words, e. g. luknąć (to look), but these borrowings are usually short lived, going out of fashion after several years. Concatenation of parts of words (e. g. auto-moto), which is not native to Polish but common in e. g. English, 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), Turkish (17th century), Old Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Russian. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Czech (ˈʧɛk čeština ˈʧɛʃcɪna in Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers it is the majority language in the Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. Turkish ( tr Türkçe IPA) is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Ruthenian (also Ukrainian (in Ukrainian украї́нська мо́ва ukrayins'ka mova,) is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages

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 due to a sizable German population in Polish cities since the medieval times. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages.

The regional dialects of Upper Silesia and Masuria (Modern Polish East Prussia) have noticeably more German loanwords than other dialects. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of Upper Silesia (Horní Slezsko Oberschlesien Latin: Silesia Superior; Górny Śląsk Silesian: Gůrny Ślůnsk) is the southeastern part East Prussia (Ostpreußen; Rytų Prūsija or Rytprūsiai; Prusy Wschodnie Восточная Пруссия or Vostochnaya Prussiya) refers to the main part 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). Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Szlachta ( refers to the noble class in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (since 1569 semi-federal semi-confederal World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including 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. Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. The majority of Polish literature was written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland

In the 18th century, with rising prominence of France in Europe, French supplanted Latin in this respect. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Some French borrowings also date from the Napoleonic era, when the Poles were enthusiastic supporters of Napoleon. Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the History of Europe. 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 two Warsaw boroughs of Żoliborz (joli bord=beautiful riverside) and Mokotów (mon coteau=my hill), as well as the town of Żyrardów (from the name Girard, with the Polish suffix -ów attached to point at owner/founder of a town). Warsaw (Warszawa; also known by other names) is the Capital and Largest city of Poland. Żoliborz is one of the northern boroughs of the city of Warsaw. Mokotów is a Dzielnica ( Borough, District) of Warsaw, the Capital Żyrardów is a town in central Poland with 51400 inhabitants (2006 Philippe Henri de Girard (February 1 1775&ndash1845 was a French engineer and inventor of the first flax spinning frame in 1810 as well as the name-sake for the town of Żyrardów

Other words are borrowed from other Slavic languages, for example, sejm, hańba and brama from Czech. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages Czech (ˈʧɛk čeština ˈʧɛʃcɪna in Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers it is the majority language in the

Some words like bachor (an unruly boy or child) and ciuchy (slang for clothing) were borrowed from Yiddish, spoken by the large Polish Jewish population before their numbers were severely depleted during the Holocaust. Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a Millennium. The Holocaust (from the Greek el ''ὁλόκαυστον'' (el-Latn holókauston holos, "completely" and kaustos, "burnt" also known as

Typical loanwords from Italian include pomidor from pomodoro (tomato), kalafior from cavolfiore (cauliflower), pomarańcza from l'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 Poland to Italian cuisine, especially vegetables. Biography Bona was born in Vigevano, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Sforza of Milan and Isabella of Naples. Sigismund I the Old (Zygmunt I Stary Žygimantas II Senasis 1 January 1467 – 1 April 1548) of the Jagiellon dynasty reigned as 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, e. g. jar (deep valley), szaszłyk (shish kebab), filiżanka (cup), arbuz (water melon), dywan (carpet), kiełbasa (sausage) ^[6] , etc.

The mountain dialects of the Górale in southern Poland, have quite a number of words borrowed from Hungarian (e. The Gorale (Górale Gorali Cieszyn Silesian: Gorole; literally "highlanders" are a group of Indigenous people found along southern Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. g. baca, gazda, juhas, hejnał) and Romanian from historical contacts with Hungarian-dominated Slovakia and Wallachian herders who travelled north along the Carpathians. Romanian or Daco-Romanian ( dated: Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation limba română, ˈlimba roˈmɨnə is a Romance Slovakia (long form Slovak Republic; Slovak:, long form, is a Landlocked country in Central Europe with a population of over five million The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians (Carpaţi Czech, Polish and Slovak: Karpaty; Ukrainian: Карпати

Thieves' slang includes such words as kimać (to sleep) or majcher (knife) of Greek origin, considered then unknown to the outside world. Grypsera (from Low German greips meaning mind) is a distinct Non-standard dialect of the Polish language, used traditionally by recidivist

Direct borrowings from Russian are extremely rare, in spite of long periods of dependence on tzarist Russia and the Soviet Union, and are limited to few internationalisms as sputnik or pieriestrojka. In Linguistics, an internationalism or international word is a Loanword that occurs in several languages with the same or at least similar meaning and etymology (Перестройка) is the Russian term (now used in English for the economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev

There are also few words borrowed form Mongolian language, those are dzida (spear) or szereg (a line, column). Those words were brought to Polish language during wars with Genghis Khan's armies. Genghis Khan ( or;, Chinggis Khaan, ʧiŋgɪs χaːŋ Činggis Qaɣan; 1162–1227 born (meaning "ironworker" was the Mongol founder

Brief vocabulary

Personal pronouns

Singular	Plural
ja - I	my - we
ty - you	wy - you (Plural)
on - he ona - she ono - it	oni - they (group of people, including at least one male) one - they (group of female persons or group not involving persons)

Numerals

jeden - one	dwa - two
trzy - three	cztery - four
pięć - five	sześć - six
siedem - seven	osiem - eight
dziewięć - nine	dziesięć - ten
jedenaście - eleven	dwanaście - twelve
trzynaście - thirteen	czternaście - fourteen
piętnaście - fifteen	szesnaście - sixteen
siedemnaście - seventeen	osiemnaście - eighteen
dziewiętnaście - nineteen	dwadzieścia - twenty
dwadzieścia jeden - twenty-one	dwadzieścia dziewięć - twenty-nine

trzydzieści - thirty	czterdzieści - forty
pięćdziesiąt - fifty	sześćdziesiąt - sixty
siedemdziesiąt - seventy	osiemdziesiąt - eighty
dziewięćdziesiąt - ninety	sto - one hundred
pięćset - five hundred	tysiąc - one thousand
milion - one million	miliard - one billion

Chronology

(Notice lower case)

czas	time
sekunda	second
minuta	minute
godzina	hour
dzień	day
tydzień	a week
miesiąc	month
rok	year
dziesięciolecie or dekada	decade
wiek or stulecie	a century
tysiąclecie	a millennium
styczeń	January
luty	February
marzec	March
kwiecień	April
maj	May
czerwiec	June
lipiec	July
sierpień	August
wrzesień	September
październik	October
listopad	November
grudzień	December

Weather

bardzo zimno	very cold
deszczowo	rainy
słonecznie	sunny
mokro	wet
pochmurnie	cloudy
wietrznie	windy
sucho	dry
gorąco	hot
duszno	muggy
żar leje się z nieba	it's boiling hot

Seasons

wiosna	Spring
lato	Summer
jesień	Autumn
zima	Winter

Environment

słoń	elephant
koń	horse
kot	cat
pies	dog
krowa	cow
wilk	wolf
świnia	pig
mucha	fly
osa	wasp
pszczoła	bee
niedźwiedź	bear
ślimak	snail
jeż	hedgehog
komar	mosquito
sowa	owl
ptak	bird
ryba	fish
rekin	shark
pająk	spider
wieloryb	whale
motyl	butterfly
drzewo	tree
kwiat	flower
jezioro	lake
las	forest
morze	sea
niebo	sky
łąka	meadow
rzeka	river

Selected countries

• Europe: Europa

Stany Zjednoczone Ameryki	United States of America
Kanada	Canada
Anglia	England
Szkocja	Scotland/Scotia
Walia	Wales
Irlandia	Ireland
Wielka Brytania	Great Britain
Zjednoczone Królestwo	United Kingdom
Niemcy	Germany
Holandia/Niderlandy	Netherland
Szwajcaria	Switzerland
Belgia	Belgium
Nowa Zelandia	New Zealand
Francja	France
Hiszpania	Spain
Norwegia	Norway
Węgry	Hungary
Rosja	Russia
Ukraina	Ukraine
Meksyk	Mexico
Dania	Denmark
Wyspy Owcze	Faroe Islands
Portugalia	Portugal
Monako	Monaco
Włochy	Italy
Słowenia	Slovenia
Słowacja	Slovakia
Litwa	Lithuania
Wenezuela	Venezuela
Brazylia	Brazil
Chiny	China
Irak	Iraq
Zjednoczone Emiraty Arabskie	United Arab Emirates
Republika Czeska/Czechy	Czech Republic/Czechia
Szwecja	Sweden
Antarktyda	Antarctica
Japonia	Japan
Republika Południowej Afryki	Republic of South Africa
Wybrzeże Kości Słoniowej	Republic of Cote d'Ivoire

Geometry

kwadrat	square
prostokąt	rectangle
trójkąt	triangle
koło	disk
okrąg	circle
wielokąt	polygon
sześcian	cube
ostrosłup	pyramid
graniastosłup	prism

Direction

północ	north
południe	south
zachód	west
wschód	east
północny zachód	north-west
północny wschód	north-east
południowy zachód	south-west
południowy wschód	south-east
lewo	left
prawo	right
góra	up
dół	down
przód	front
tył	back

Common phrases

Polska	Poland
Polak (m)/ Polka (f)	Pole (Polish person)
polski *	Polish
Cześć	Hi/Hello
Miłego dnia	Have a nice day
No exact equivalent Dzień dobry is used	Good Morning/Afternoon (good day)
Dobry wieczór	Good Evening
Do widzenia	Good bye (See you later)
Dziękuję	Thank you
Przepraszam	I'm sorry/Excuse me
Do zobaczenia/Na razie(informal)	See you later
Do jutra	See you tomorrow
Dobranoc	Good night
Dobra robota!	Good job!
Nieźle!	Nice (not too bad)
Nie ma mowy!	No way! (literally "there is no talk of it")
Jak leci?	How's it going? (literally "how is it flying?")
Miło mi Cię poznać	Nice to meet you
Ile to kosztuje?	How much does this cost?
Jedno jabłko poproszę	One apple please

* Note that adjectives based on proper nouns (polski, amerykański, etc) are not capitalized, unlike in English. A decade is a period of 10 Years (since 1594 a factor of 10 difference between two numbers, or sometimes a set or a group of ten (since 1451 A millennium (pl millennia) is a period of Time equal to one thousand Years (from Latin la mille, thousand and la annum In Geometry, a disk (also spelled disc) is the region in a plane bounded by a Circle. In Geometry a polygon (ˈpɒlɨɡɒn ˈpɒliɡɒn is traditionally a plane figure that is bounded by a closed path or circuit General right and uniform prisms A right prism is a prism in which the joining edges and faces are perpendicular to the base faces

Locations

dom	house/home
lotnisko	airport
dworzec kolejowy	train station
dworzec autobusowy	bus station
sklep	shop/store
zamek	castle
plaża	beach
miasto	city/town
wieś	village, country-side
kino	cinema/movie theater
kościół	church
rynek	market square
więzienie	prison/jail
poczta	post office
szkoła	school
cmentarz	cemetery
ulica	street

See also

• Poglish
• Slavic languages
• Slavic people
• Swadesh list of Slavic languages
• Wiktionary:Polish language
• Wikibooks:Basic Polish language course
• Holy Cross Sermons

References

External links

• "A Touch of Polish," BBC
• 1,000 free multi-choice Polish grammar drills online
• A Concise Polish Grammar, by Ronald F. Feldstein (110-page 600-KB pdf)
• Univ. of Pittsburgh: Polish Language Website
• Map of Polish dialects
• Oneness City - Polish Lessons with Activities
• Polish verb conjugator from Logos Translations

Dictionaries

• Polish bilingual dictionaries
• Basic English-Polish Dictionary
• Polish Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary
• English-Polish-English dictionary DICT
• English-Polish-English dictionary from lingvoSoft
• English-Polish dictionary with 14,000 words

---

© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic