Polish language

Polish (polski, język polski) is the official language of Poland.

Polish (Polski)
Spoken in:	Poland and 19 other countries
Region:	--
Total speakers:	46 Million
Ranking:	22
Genetic classification:	Indo-European  Slavic   West    Lekhitic     Polish
Official status
Official language of:	Poland
Regulated by:
Language codes
ISO 639-1	pl
ISO 639-2	pol
SIL	PQL

History

Polish has been influenced by contact with foreign languages (foremost Latin, German, Czech, French, Italian, Russian and English). In Greater Poland and especially Silesia the inimitable regional dialects are influenced by German elements. Since 1945, as the result of mass education and mass migrations (forced by the socialistic government on the society to suppress the development of the local communities), standard Polish has become far more homogeneous, although regional dialects persist. In the western and northern territories, resettled in large measure by Poles from the territories annexed by the Soviet Union, the older generation came to speak a language characteristic of the former eastern provinces.

Classification

The Polish language, together with other Lekhitic languages (Kashubian, Polabian), Upper and Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak, belongs to the West branch of Slavic languages.

Geographic distribution

Polish is mainly spoken in Poland, but Polish emigrants have brought the language with them, and there are significant numbers of Polish speakers in Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, UAE, and the USA.

Also, there are still Polish-speaking minorities in the lands annexed by the Soviet Union after the WWII - in Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine.

Dialects

It has several dialects that correspond in the main to the old tribal divisions; the most significant of these (in terms of numbers of speakers) are Great Polish (spoken in the northwest), Little Polish (spoken in the southeast), Mazovian (Mazur), and Silesian. Mazovian shares some features with the Kashubian language, whose remaining speakers (estimates vary from 100,000 to over 200,000) live west of Gdansk near the Baltic Sea.

Small numbers of people also speak Belarusian, Ukrainian, and German as well as several varieties of Romany.

Phonetics

Vowels

The Polish vowel system is relatively simple with only six oral and two nasal vowels. All Polish vowels are monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:

Polish oral vowels

Polish script	IPA	Description	English approximation	Polish example1
i	[i]	front closed unrounded	seek	miś ('teddy bear')
e	[ε]	front half open unrounded	ten	ten ('this')
y	[i]	central closed unrounded	sick	mysz ('mouse')
a	[a]	central open unrounded	cut	kat ('executioner')
u	[u]	back closed rounded	boom	bum ('boom')
o	[ɔ]	back half open rounded	caught	kot ('cat')

Unlike in other Slavic languages, the Proto-Slavic nasal vowels are preserved in Polish. However, nasality tends to be lost, especially at the end of a word. These vowels are never initial. In script they are marked by a diacritic known as ogonek.

Unlike in French, the nasal vowels in Polish are asynchronous which means that in fact each nasal vowel is pronounced as an oral vowel followed by a nasal semivowel, e.g. ą [ɔw̃] rather then [ɔ~]. For the sake of simplicity these asynchronous nasal vowels will be henceforth represented as ordinary (synchronous) nasal vowels.

Polish nasal vowels

Polish script	IPA	Description	English approximation	Polish example1
ę	[ε̃]	nasal front half open unrounded	length	węże ('snakes')
ą	[ɔ̃]	nasal back half open rounded	nasal o (not a), as in long	wąż ('snake')

The length of a vowel is not phonemic in Polish which means that how long a vowel is pronounced does not change the meaning of a word. However, this was not the case in Proto-Slavic, which distinguished three vowel lengths - short, normal and long. There were two short vowels - hard (ъ) and soft (ь). Eventually, the short vowels either disappeared or turned into a normal e. In the former case two CV syllables became one CVC syllable. Disappearance of a short soft vowel caused the preceding consonant to become "softened" or palatalized. Example:

'Day' in nominative: dьnь --> dzień 'Day' in genitive: dьna --> dnia

Meanwhile, long vowels were shortened to normal and simultaneously became higher - apart from the vowels which were already high - i and u. This vowel shift may be presented like this:

long a --> normal o long e --> normal y or normal i long i --> normal i long o --> normal ó, pronounced [u] long u --> normal u

Note that the normal u which was once a long o is still distinguished in script as ó.

Consonants

Polish consonant system is more complicated and its characteristic features are series of affricate and palatal consonants. Affricates are often marked by digraphs. Palatal consonants (known to Poles as "soft" consonants) are marked either by an acute accent or followed by an i. Like in English, voicedness is phonemic but aspiration is not.

Polish consonants

Polish script	IPA	Description	English approximation	Polish example1
b	[b]	voiced bilabial plosive	bus	bas ('bass')
p	[p]	voiceless bilabial plosive	top	pas ('belt')
m	[m]	bilabial nasal	man	masa ('mass')
w	[v]	voiced labiodental fricative	vase	wór ('bag')
f	[f]	voiceless labiodental fricative	phase	futro ('fur')
d	[d]	voiced alveolar plosive	dog	dom ('home')
t	[t]	voiceless alveolar plosive	talk	tom ('volume')
n	[n]	alveolar nasal	not	noga ('leg')
r	[r]	alveolar trill	rolled (vibrating) r as in carramba	krok ('step')
z	[z]	voiced alveolar fricative	zero	zero ('zero')
s	[s]	voiceless alveolar fricative	some	sum ('catfish')
dz	[ʣ]	voiced alveolar affricate	woods	wódz ('leader'), dzwon ('bell')
c	[ʦ]	voiceless alveolar affricate	pots	co ('what')
l	[l]	lateral alveolar approximant	lock	pole ('field')
ź	[ʑ]	voiced alveolo-palatal fricative	where's your	źrebię ('foal')
ś	[ɕ]	voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative	sheer	śruba ('screw')
dź	[dʑ]	voiced alveolo-palatal affricate	would you	dźwięk ('sound')
ć	[tɕ]	voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate	what's your	ćma ('moth')
ż / rz	[ʒ]	voiced postalveolar fricative	treasure	żona ('wife') rzeka ('river')
sz	[ʃ]	voiceless postalveolar fricative	shoe	szum ('rustle')
dż	[ʤ]	voiced postalveolar affricate	jam	dżem ('jam')
cz	[ʧ]	voiceless postalveolar affricate	chair	czas ('time')
ń	[ɲ]	palatal nasal	el Niño	koń ('horse')
j	[ȋ] or [j]	palatal semivowel or palatal approximant	yes	jutro ('tomorrow')
ł	[ȗ] or [w]	labial-velar semivowel or labial-velar approximant	power	mały ('small'), łaska ('grace') or mały
g	[g]	voiced velar plosive	god	gmin ('plebs'), bóg ('god')
k	[k]	voiceless velar plosive	duck	kmin ('caraway'), buk ('beech tree')
h / ch	[x]	voiceless velar fricative	loch	hak ('hook') chór ('choir')

Within this consonant system one can distinguish three series of fricatives and affricates:

• alveolar, a.k.a. "hissing" (ciąg syczący): z s dz c
• postalveolar, a.k.a. "rustling" (ciąg szumiący): ż sz dż cz
• alveolo-palatal, a.k.a. "hushing" (ciąg ciszący): ź ś dź ć

In some Polish dialects, e.g. Masurian, the consonants of the rustling series are replaced by those of the hissing series.

All palatal and alveolo-palatal consonants (i.e. ź ś dź ć ń j) as well as those preceding the vowel i are referred to as "soft" consonants. All the other consonants are "hard".

Note that Polish distinguishes between affricates and plosive + fricative consonant clusters, e.g.:

• czysta ['ʧista] ('clean' fem.) vs. trzysta ['tʃista] ('three hundred')
• dżem [ʤεm] ('jam') vs. drzemka ['dʒεmka] ('nap')

In consonant clusters all consonants are either voiced or voiceless. To put it another way, a consonant cluster may not contain both voiced and voiceless consonants. All the consonants are voiced (if the last consonant is normally voiced) or voiceless (if the last consonant is normally voiceless). This rule does not apply to approximants - a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants. Examples:

• łódka ['wutka] ('boat'), [d] --> [t] (k is normally voiceless)
• kawka ['kafka] ('jackdaw'), [v] --> [f] (k is normally voiceless)
• także ['tagʒε] ('also'), [k] --> [g] (ż is normally voiced)
• jakby ['jagbi] ('as if'), [k] --> [g] (b is normally voiced)
• król [krul] ('king'), [k] does not change (r is an approximant)
• wart [vart] ('worth'), [r] does not change (r is an approximant)

The consonants w and rz are normally voiced, but if a consonant cluster ends with w or rz and the last but one consonant is normally voiceless, then the whole consonant cluster is voiceless.

• krzak [kʃak] ('bush'), [ʒ / Z] --> [&#643 / S] (k is normally voiceless)
• odtworzyć [ɔt'tfɔʒitɕ] ('to reproduce'), [d] --> [t] & [v] --> [f] (t is normally voiceless)

The most popular Polish tongue-twister, a fragment of Chrząszcz poem by Jan Brzechwa, may serve as yet another example:

W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie.

[v ʃʧεbʒεʃiɲε xʒɔ̃ʃʧ bʒmi v tʃtɕiɲε]

In [the town of] Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed.

Stress

In Polish the stress falls generally on the penultimate (last but one) syllable, e.g. zrobił ('he did'), zrobili ('they did').

Exceptions include:

• verbs in first and second person plural past tense, e.g. zrobiliśmy ('we did') - stress on the last but two syllable
• verbs in conditional tense, e.g. zrobiłbym ('I would do') - stress on the last but two syllable
• verbs in first and second person plural conditional tense, e.g. zrobilibyśmy ('we would do') - stress on the last but three syllable
• some words borrowed from Latin (e.g. matematyka) can optionally be stressed on the last but two syllable, but this have mostly fell out of use in last 50 years.

Orthography

The Polish alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet but uses diacritics such as kreska (graphically similar to acute accent), superior dot and ogonek. The standard character encoding for the Polish alphabet is ISO 8859-2 (Latin-2).

Upper case	HTML code	Lower case	HTML code	Usual phonetic value	Other phonetic values
A		a		[a]
Ą	Ą	ą	ą	[ɔ̃]	[ɔ], [ɔm], [ɔn], [ɔŋ], [ɔɲ]
B		b		[b]	[p]
C		c		[ʦ]	[ʣ], [tɕ]
Ć	Ć	ć	ć	[tɕ]	[dʑ]
D		d		[d]	[t]
E		e		[ε]
Ę	Ę	ę	ę	[ε̃]	[ε], [εn], [εn], [εŋ], [εɲ]
F		f		[f]	[v]
G		g		[g]	[k]
H		h		[x]	[γ]
I		i		[i]	[ȋ], mute (softens preceding consonant)
J		j		[ȋ] or [j]
K		k		[k]	[g]
L		l		[l]
Ł	Ł	ł	ł	[ȗ] or [w]	dental [l] in eastern dialects
M		m		[m]
N		n		[n]	[ŋ], [ɲ]
Ń	Ń	ń	ń	[ɲ]
O		o		[ɔ]
Ó	Ó	ó	ó	[u]
P		p		[p]	[b]
R		r		[r]
S		s		[s]	[z], [ɕ]
Ś	Ś	ś	ś	[ɕ]	[ʑ]
T		t		[t]	[d]
U		u		[u]	[ȗ]
W		w		[v]	[f]
Y		y		[i]
Z		z		[z]	[s], [ʑ]
Ź	Ź	ź	ź	[ʑ]	[ɕ]
Ż	Ż	ż	ż	[ʒ]	[ʃ]

The letters Q, V and X do not belong to the Polish alphabet but they are used in some commercial names and foreign words.

Polish orthography also includes seven digraphs:

Capitalized	HTML code	Lower case	HTML code	Usual phonetic value	Other phonetic values
Ch		ch		[x]	[γ]
Cz		cz		[ʧ]	[ʤ]
Dz		dz		[ʣ]	[ʦ], [dʑ], [d-z]
Dź	DŹ	dź	dź	[dʑ]	[tɕ]
Dż	DŻ	dż	dż	[ʤ]	[ʧ], [dʒ]
Rz		rz		[ʒ]	[ʃ], [r-z]
Sz		sz		[ʃ]	[ʒ]

Note that although the Polish orthography is mostly phonetic, some sounds may be written in more than one way:

• [x] as either h or ch
• [ʒ] as either ż or rz (though rż denotes a [rʒ] cluster)
• [u] as either u or ó
• some soft consonants as either ć, dź, ń, ś, ź, or ci, dzi, ni, si, zi

Unlike in English, if consonants are doubled in script, it means that they are also doubled in pronunciation, e.g.: wanna ['vanna], not ['vana] ('bathtub'); motto ['mɔttɔ], not ['mɔtɔ].

Grammar

Polish is often said to be one of the most difficult languages for non-native speakers to learn. It has a complex gender system with five genders: neuter, feminine and three masculine genders (personal, animate and inanimate). There are 7 cases and 2 numbers.

Nouns, adjectives and verbs are inflected, and both noun declension and verb conjugation are highly irregular. Every verb is either perfective or imperfective.

Verbs often come in pairs, one of them imperfective and the other perfective (usually imperfective verb with a prefix), but often there are many perfective verbs with different prefixes for single imperfective words.

Tenses are:

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

Movable suffix is usually attached to verb or to the most accented word of sentence, like question preposition.

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

So what have you done ? can be:

• Co zrobiliście?
• Coście zrobili?
• Cóżeście zrobili?

All these forms are used without a subject -- "wy" ("you" in plural). Of course, it is possible to use the subject along, but it sounds well only in the first sentence (the other two are stronger, with the stress on the verb, so the subject is not so important):

• Co wy zrobiliście?
• Coście zrobili? (in fact, a Pole won't use subject here)
• Co żeście zrobili? (as above)
• Co wyście zrobili? (here the stress goes to "you" -- "wy"+ście)

Past participle depends on number and gender, so 3rd person, singular past perfect tense can be:

• zrobił (he made/did)
• zrobiła (she made/did)
• zrobiło (it made/did)

Word order

From Wikibooks' Polish Language Course. In Polish it is possible to move words around in the sentence, and to drop subject or object if they are obvious from context.

These sentences mean the same ("Ala has a cat"):

• Ala ma kota
• Ala kota ma
• Kota ma Ala
• Ma Ala kota
• Kota Ala ma
• Ma kota Ala

Yet only the first of these sounds natural in Polish, and others should be used for emphasis only, if at all.

If apparent from context, you can drop the subject, object or even the verb:

• Ma kota - can be used if it's obvious who is being talked about
• Ma - answer for "Czy Ala ma kota?" ("Does Ala have a cat?")
• Ala - answer for "Kto ma kota?" ("Who has a cat?")
• Kota - answer for "Co ma Ala?" ("What does Ala have?")
• Ala ma - answer for "Kto z naszych znajomych ma kota?" ("Which of our friends does have a cat?")

Note the marker "czy" ("what"), which turns a sentence into a question, much as the French use "Est-ce que...".

There is a tendency in Polish to drop the subject rather than the object and rarely you know the object but not the subject. If the question was "Kto ma kota ?" (who has a cat ?), the answer should be "Ala" alone, without a verb.

In particular, "ja" and "ty", and also their plural equivalents "my" and "wy", are almost always dropped.

Vocabulary

to do: Polish vocabulary

Notes

¹ You can hear the voice samples by clicking on the Polish example.

See also

• Slavic languages
• Slavic peoples
• Poland
• Common phrases in different languages
• Wiktionary:Polish language
• Wikibooks:Basic Polish language course
• radioukacz -- One of the ten non-English words that were voted hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company

External Links