Coordinates	55°38′″N12°36′″N
Name	Polish
Nativename	język polski
Familycolor	Indo-European
Pronunciation
States	. Minorities: Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, United Kingdom, Germany, United States, Czech Republic, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, France, Australia, Ireland, Israel.
Speakers	approximately 40 million up to 48
Fam1	Indo-European
Fam2	Balto-Slavic
Fam3	Slavic
Fam4	West Slavic
Fam5	Lechitic
Script	Latin (Polish variant)
Nation	---- Minority language:
Agency	Polish Language Council
Iso1	pl|iso2pol|iso3pol|lingua53-AAA-cc < 53-AAA-b...-d(varieties: 53-AAA-cca to 53-AAA-ccu)
Notice	IPA}}

Polish (''język polski'', ''polszczyzna'') is a Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages in Central Europe and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds to the Latin alphabet with several additions. Polish speakers use the language in a uniform manner throughout most of Poland.

Despite the pressure of non-Polish administrations in Poland, who have often attempted to suppress the Polish language, a rich literature has developed over the centuries, and the language is currently the largest in terms of speakers of the West Slavic group. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian and before Ukrainian.

Geographic distribution

Dialects

The Polish language became far more homogeneous in the second half of the 20th century, in part due to the mass migration of several million Polish citizens from the eastern to the western part of the country after the Soviet annexation of the Kresy in 1939, and the acquisition of former German territory after World War II. This tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian People's Republic of Poland.

The inhabitants of different regions of Poland 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 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

Masovian, spoken throughout the central and eastern parts of the country

Silesian, spoken in the southwest (controversial)

Some more characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include:

# The distinctive Podhale dialect (''Góralski'') occurs in the mountainous area bordering the Czech and Slovak Republics. The Gorals (highlanders) take great pride in their culture and the dialect. It exhibits some cultural influences from the Vlach shepherds who migrated from Wallachia (southern Romania) in the 14th-17th centuries. The language of the coextensive East Slavic people, the Lemkos, which demonstrates significant lexical and grammatical commonality with the Góralski dialect and Ukrainian, bears no significant Vlach or other Romanian influences. Most urban Poles find it difficult to understand this very distinct dialect. # The 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. # 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. # The Poznanski dialect, spoken in Poznań and to some extent in the whole region of the former Prussian annexation (excluding upper Silesia), with characteristic high tone melody and notable influence of the German language. # In the northern and western (formerly German) regions where Poles from the territories annexed by the Soviet Union resettled after World War II, the older generation speaks a dialect of Polish characteristic of the Eastern Borderlands which resembles Ukrainian or Rusyn— especially in the "longer" pronunciation of vowels. # Poles living in Lithuania (particularly in the Vilnius region), in Belarus (particularly the northwest), and in the northeast of Poland continue to speak the Eastern Borderlands dialect which sounds "slushed" (in Polish described as ''zaciąganie z ruska'', 'speaking with a Russian drawl'), and is easily distinguishable. # Some city dwellers, especially the less affluent population, had their own distinctive dialects — for example the Warsaw dialect, still spoken by some of the population of Praga on the eastern bank of the Vistula. (Praga remained the only part of Warsaw where the population survived World War II relatively intact.) However, these city dialects are mostly extinct due to assimilation with standard Polish. # Many Poles living in emigrant communities (for example in the USA), whose families left Poland just after World War II, retain a number of minor features of Polish vocabulary as spoken in the first half of the 20th century that now sound archaic, however, to contemporary visitors from Poland.

Historical geographic distribution

As a result of World War II, Poland's borders changed significantly. The change in borders was accompanied by a series of migrations (World War II evacuation and expulsion, German expulsions, Operation Vistula). "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.

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 that took place in Polish and Belarusian. The stress falls generally on the penultimate (second to last) syllable.

Orthography

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"). The Polish alphabet was one of two major forms of Latin-based orthography developed for Slavic languages, the other being Czech orthography. Slovak uses the Czech-based system, as do Slovene and Croatian; Kashubian uses a Polish-based system, while Sorbian blends the two.

!Uppercase	!HTMLcode	!Lowercase	!HTMLcode	!Name of the letter	!Usualphonetic value	!Otherphonetic values
A		a		a
Ą	Ą	ą	ą	ą		, , , , ,
B		b		be
C		c		ze		,
Ć	Ć	ć	ć	c (strong sound, normal "c" in italian)
D		d		de
E		e		e		after and between palatalized consonants
Ę	Ę	ę	ę	ę		, , , , ,
F		f		ef
G		g		ghie
H		ha		ha		, (Eastern Borderlands, Silesia)
I		i		i		, mute (softens preceding consonant)
J		j		jot
K		k		ka
L		l		el		in older pronunciation and eastern dialects
Ł	Ł	ł	ł	ue		in older pronunciation and eastern dialects
M		m		em
N		n		en		,
Ń	Ń	ń	ń	gn
O		o		o
Ó	Ó	ó	ó	"''o kreskowane''", "''o z kreską''", or "''u zamknięte''"("''lined o''", "''o with line''", "''lined u''", or "''closed u''")
P		p		pe
R		r		er
S		s		es		,
Ś	Ś	ś	ś	sc
T		t		te
U		u		"''u''", "''u zwykłe''" or "''u otwarte''"("''simple u''" "''opened u''")
W		w		wu
Y		y		igrek
Z		z		zet		,
Ź	Ź	ź	ź	ziet
Ż	Ż	ż	ż	żet

Polish orthography also includes seven digraphs:

!Capitalized	!HTMLcode	!Lowercase	!HTMLcode	!Usualphonetic value	!Otherphonetic values
Ch		ch
Cz		cz
Dz		dz			, ,
Dź	DŹ	dź	dź		,
Dż	DŻ	dż	dż		,
Rz		rz			, , or (in some dialects),
Sz		sz

Note the laminal postalveolars , , , , perhaps most accurately transcribed using the IPA retracted diacritic as , , , respectively. Also note that Polish ''ń'' (transcribed here as ) is not palatal, having the same place of articulation as and . However, as the IPA does not have a symbol for a nasal alveolo-palatal consonant; a more accurate representation would be .

The letters Q (ku), V (fau) and X (iks) do not exist in 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 very often. In Polish pronunciation there is no need for them. They are replaced with K, W and KS/GZ respectively. Some letters, such asY and W, are pronounced differently.

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

as either h or ch as either ż or rz (though rż denotes a cluster) 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 spelled 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 , as in words "zamarzać" (to freeze), "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''s. 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'' (earthworm), ''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.

Grammar

=== Nouns and adjectives=== A highly inflected language, Polish retains the Old Slavic case system with seven cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives:

# nominative (mianownik) # genitive (dopełniacz) # dative (celownik) # accusative (biernik) # instrumental (narzędnik) # locative (miejscownik) # vocative (wołacz)

The vocative is used mainly in formal contexts; in colloquial speech, the nominative is used instead. ''Janie!'' 'O John!' is perceived as less familiar than ''Jan!'' 'John!'. Interestingly, the vocative is almost always used when insulting people: ''złodzieju'' 'you thief!'; ''idioto'' 'you idiot!'.

Modern Polish has only two number classes: singular and plural. In the past there was also a dual number, which applied only to pairs. This form, however, vanished around the 15th century and now is present only in few traces. For instance, the proverb "Mądrej głowie dość dwie słowie" ("Two words are enough for a clever person," literally "clever head") may seem to be not grammatically correct ("Mądrej głowie dość dwa słowa") but it is a relict of dual number.

Like most Slavic languages, with the exception of Bulgarian and Macedonian, Polish uses no definite or indefinite articles.

The Polish gender system, like that of Russian and of almost all the other Slavic languages, appears complex, because of its combination of three categories: gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), personhood (personal versus non-personal) and animacy (animate versus inanimate). 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.

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)"

Seemingly then, there are many cases that share the same nominal and adjectival endings. For instance, in the personal masculine, the accusative is identical to the genitive; in the animate masculine, the accusative and genitive singulars and the accusative and nominative plurals are the same; in the inanimate masculine, the accusative and nominative are identical; the neuter accusative and nominative are the same; and in the feminine the dative and locative singulars and the accusative and nominative plurals are identical. Also of note are the distinctive softening endings on the personal masculine nominative plural; the ending of the animate and inanimate masculine nominative singulars ending in a consonant; and the neuter nominative singular ending in "-o" or "-e" and ending in "-a" in the genitive.

The gender classification of masculine nouns does not always match up with their semantic reference (human, animate, or inanimate). In particular, the class of grammatically animate nouns includes a significant number of nouns referring to inanimate entities (e.g. ''złoty'' "zloty", ''cukierek'' "candy", ''papieros'' "cigarette") as well as nouns used figuratively to refer to people (''geniusz'' "genius", ''oryginał'' "original"). In the plural, personal masculine forms are used for referring to groups of males, or mixed groups of males and females.

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
Personal masculine		oni
Animate masculine
Inanimate masculine
Feminine	ona
Neuter	ono

Verbs

Polish inflects verbs 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). The so-called Slavic perfect is the only past-tense form used in common speech. In Polish, one distinguishes among:

three tenses (present, past and future)

three moods (indicative, imperative and conditional)

three voices (active, passive and reflexive).

Aspect, a grammatical category of the verb, affects almost all Polish verbs in their two aspects, in each tense:

# imperfective (often translated as a progressive tense in English with -ing, for example 'was going', 'is going', "will be going"); # perfective (often translated as a simple tense in English, for example 'went', 'will go' - there is no present tense in this aspect).

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) usually attach to the verb or to the most heavily accented word of a sentence, such as a question preposition.

The fifth Polish tense, the future imperfective, expressed in analytic form, 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?

Co żeście zrobili? (mostly informal; this form is considered incorrect by linguists if used in formal language)

(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 or regional.))

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. 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 past participle depends on number and gender, so the third person, past perfect, 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.

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

"Alicja ma kota" ("Alice has a cat") standard order

"Alicja kota ma" – emphasis and accent on "ma" ("has"). Used in an argumentative response to a statement maintaining the opposite: "Alicja nie ma kota." ("Alice doesn't have a cat"). Ale ona kota ma!" ("She does, too!" or "Yes, she does!")

"Kota Alicja ma" – similar to the word order above.

"Kota ma Alicja" emphasis on Alicja, the owner of the cat: "Kasia ma kota." ("Kathy has a cat"). "Nie, kota ma Alicja." ("No, Alice has a cat." or "No, it's Alice who has a cat.")

"Ma Alicja kota" – rarely useful and often awkward, but still correct. Precise meaning is context- and pronunciation-dependent. This order is often used as a question in spoken / informal language.

"Ma kota Alicja" – similar to the word order above

Note that each word order could carry a slightly different meaning, which may be difficult for a non-native speaker to completely grasp. There are no rules governing this, and even the emphases listed above could be easily changed with proper pronunciation.

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

"Ma kota." ("has a cat") – can be used if it is obvious who the subject is

"Ma." ("has") – a short answer for "Czy Alicja ma kota?" ("Does Alice have a cat?"), as in "Yes" or "Yes, she does."

"Alicja." – answer for "Kto ma kota?" ("Who has a cat?"), as in "Alice does"

"Kota." ("[a] cat") – answer to "Co ma Alicja?" ("What does Alice have?"), as in "A cat"

"Alicja ma." ("Alice has"), as in "Alice does" - answer to "Kto z naszych znajomych ma kota?" ("Who among our acquaintances has a cat?") ("Alice does.").

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

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 "Alicja" alone, without a verb.

In particular personal pronouns are almost always dropped, much like the respective Italian and Spanish pronouns. This is because other language aspects define the subject easily, for example the verb IŚĆ ("to go"):

Idę - [I] go,

Idziesz - [you (singular)] go

Idzie - [he / she / it] goes - in this case (if not known from the context) personal pronoun should be used for clarification

Idziemy - [we] go

Idziecie - [you (plural)] go

Idą - [they] go - same rule apply as for "idzie"

Conjugation

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

Informal forms:

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)

Formal forms:

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:

Informal form:

Ja byłem/byłam – I (masculine/feminine) 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/feminine) were

Formal form:

Pan był/Pani 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)".

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

Informal form:

Ja będę – I (masculine/feminine) will be

Ty będziesz – You (masculine/feminine) will be

On/ona/ono będzie – He/she/it will be

My będziemy – We (masculine/feminine) will be

Wy będziecie – You (masculine/feminine) will be (plural)

Oni/one będą – They (masculine/feminine) will be

Formal form:

Pan/Pani będzie – You will be (masculine/feminine, singular, polite)

Państwo będą – You will be (plural, both sexes together, polite)

Panowie będą – You will be (plural, masculine, polite)

Panie będą – You will be (plural, feminine, polite)

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

Informal form:

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)

Formal form:

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 imperfect):

Informal form:

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 szło (neuter) – He/she/it was going

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) – You were going

Oni szli – (masculine, masculine + feminine, masculine + neutral)- They were going

One szły – (feminine + feminine) – They were going

Formal form:

Pan szedł – (masculine) – Pani szła (feminine) – You were going (polite)

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 a 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 number of words from other languages. Usually, borrowed words have been adapted rapidly in the following ways: # Spelling was altered to approximate the pronunciation, but written according to Polish phonetics. # Word endings are liberally applied to almost any word to produce verbs, nouns, adjectives, as well as adding the appropriate endings for cases of nouns, diminutives, augmentatives, etc.

Depending on the historical period, borrowing has proceeded from various languages. Recent borrowing is primarily of "international" words from the English language, mainly those that have Latin or Greek roots, for example ''komputer'' (computer), ''korupcja'' (corruption) etc. Slang sometimes borrows and alters common English words, e.g. ''luknąć'' (to look). Concatenation of parts of words (e.g. ''auto-moto''), which is not native to Polish but common in English, for example, is also sometimes used. When borrowing international words, Polish often changes their spelling. For example, Latin suffix '-tion' corresponds to ''-cja''. To make the word plural, ''-cja'' becomes ''-cje''. Examples of this include ''inauguracja'' (inauguration), ''dewastacja'' (devastation), ''konurbacja'' (conurbation) and ''konotacje'' (connotations). Also, the digraph ''qu'' becomes ''kw'' (''kwadrant'' = quadrant; ''kworum'' = quorum).

Other notable influences in the past have been Latin (9th-18th century), Czech (10th and 14th-15th century), Italian (15th-16th century), French (18th-19th century), German (13-15th and 18th-20th century), Hungarian (14th-16th century) and Turkish (17th century).

The Latin language, for a very long time the only official language of the Polish state, has had a great influence on Polish. Many Polish words (''rzeczpospolita'' from ''res publica'', ''zdanie'' for both "opinion" and "sentence", from ''sententia'') were direct calques from Latin.

Many words have been borrowed from the German language, as a result of being neighbours for a millennium, and also as the result of a sizable German population in Polish cities since medieval times.

The regional dialects of Upper Silesia and Masuria (Modern Polish East Prussia) have noticeably more German loanwords than other dialects. Latin was known to a larger or smaller degree by most of the numerous szlachta in the 16th to 18th centuries (and it continued to be extensively taught at secondary schools until World War II). Apart from dozens of loanwords, its influence can also be seen in somewhat greater number of verbatim Latin phrases in Polish literature (especially from the 19th century and earlier), than, say, in English.

In the 18th century, with the rising prominence of France in Europe, French supplanted Latin in this respect. Some French borrowings also date from the Napoleonic era, when the Poles were enthusiastic supporters of Napoleon. Examples include ''ekran'' (from French ''écran'', screen), ''abażur'' (''abat-jour'', lamp shade), ''rekin'' (''requin'', shark), ''meble'' (''meuble'', furniture), ''bagaż'' (''bagage'', luggage), ''walizka'' (''valise'', suitcase), ''fotel'' (''fauteuil'', armchair), ''plaża'' (''plage'', beach) and ''koszmar'' (''cauchemar'', nightmare). Some place names have also been adapted from French, such as the 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).

Other words are borrowed from other Slavic languages, for example, ''sejm'', ''hańba'' and ''brama'' from Czech.

Some words like ''bachor'' (an unruly boy or child), ''bajzel'' (slang for mess), ''belfer'' (slang for teacher), ''ciuchy'' (slang for clothing), ''cymes'' (slang for very tasty food), ''geszeft'' (slang for business), ''kitel'' (slang for apron), ''machlojka'' (slang for scam), ''mamona'' (money), ''menele'' (slang for oddments and also for homeless people), ''myszygine'' (slang for lunatic), ''pinda'' (slang for girl, pejorativelly), ''plajta'' (slang for bankruptcy), ''rejwach'' (noise), ''szmal'' (slang for money), ''trefny'' (dodgy) were borrowed from Yiddish spoken by the large Polish Jewish population before their numbers were severely depleted during the Holocaust.

Typical loanwords from Italian include ''pomidor'' from pomodoro (tomato), ''kalafior'' from cavolfiore (cauliflower), ''pomarańcza'' from pomo (pome) and (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. Another interesting word of Italian origin is ''autostrada'' (from Italian "autostrada", highway).

The contacts with Ottoman Turkey in the 17th century brought many new words, some of them still in use, such as: ''jar'' (deep valley), ''szaszłyk'' (shish kebab), ''filiżanka'' (cup), ''arbuz'' (water melon), ''dywan'' (carpet), ''kiełbasa'' (sausage), etc.

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

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

Direct borrowings from Russian are extremely rare, in spite of long periods of dependence on tzarist Russia and the Soviet Union, and are limited to few internationalisms as ''sputnik'' or ''pieriestrojka'' .

There are also few words borrowed from Mongolian language: those are ''dzida'' (spear) or ''szereg'' (a line, column). Those words were brought to the Polish language during wars with Genghis Khan's armies.

Loanwords from Polish

The Polish language has influenced others. Particular influences show in German and in other Slavic languages — due to their proximity and shared borders. Examples of loanwords include German ''Grenze'' (border), Dutch and Afrikaans ''Grens'' from Polish ''granica'', German ''Peitzker'' from Polish ''piskorz'' (weatherfish), German ''Zobel'', French ''Zibeline'', Swedish ''Sobel'', English ''Sable'' from Polish ''soból'' or ''ogonek'' ("little tail") — the word describing a diacritic hook-sign added below some letters in various alphabets. Also "spruce" ("z Prus" = "from Prussia") in English.

Quite a few culinary loanwords exist in German and in other languages, some of which describe distinctive features of Polish cuisine. These include German and English ''Quark'' from ''twaróg'' (a kind of cheese; see: quark (cheese) and German ''Gurke'', English ''gherkin'' from ''ogórek'' (cucumber). The word ''pierogi'' (Polish dumplings) has spread internationally, as well as ''pączki'' (Polish donuts).

See also

The School of Polish for Foreigners

Slavic languages

Slavic people

Swadesh list of Slavic languages

Wiktionary:Polish language

Wikibooks:Basic Polish language course

''Holy Cross Sermons''

Adam Mickiewicz Institute

A Translation Guide to 19th-Century Polish-Language Civil-Registration Documents

Notes

References

External links

University of Pittsburgh: Polish Language Website

"A Touch of Polish," ''BBC''

A Concise Polish Grammar, by Ronald F. Feldstein (110-page 600-KB pdf)

Oscar Swan's Electronic Polish-English, English-Polish dictionary

Basic English-Polish Dictionary

English-Polish Polish-English Dictionary

Polish Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)

Polish Conjugation Search

USA Foreign Service Institute (FSI) Polish basic course

Category:Lechitic languages Category:Fusional languages Category:West Slavic languages Category:Languages of Poland Category:Languages of Belarus Category:Languages of Lithuania Category:Languages of Russia Category:Languages of Ukraine Category:SVO languages

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