Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland (being that country's official language) and by Polish minorities in other countries. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has several additions to the letters of the basic Latin script.

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

Poland is one of the most linguistically homogeneous European countries; nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their mother tongue. Elsewhere, ethnic Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine – Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuania's Vilnius County (26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results); in Ukraine it is most common in the Lviv and Lutsk regions, while in Western Belarus it is used by the significant Polish minority especially in the Brest and Grodno regions.