Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) is the official language of Poland. It is the most spoken West Slavic language ^[2]. Image File history File links Flag_of_Poland. ... This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use. ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... This article or section should be merged with List of West Slavic languages The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group (q. ... The Lechitic languages include three languages spoken in Central Europe, principally in Poland and historically also in eastern part of today Germany. ... Writing systems of the world today. ... Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz redirects here. ... The Polish alphabet is the script of the Polish language. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Poland. ... 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 is an international standard for language codes. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in the countries, states, and other territories. ... This article or section should be merged with List of West Slavic languages The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group (q. ...

Statistics

Today Polish is the official language of Poland; it is spoken by most of the 38 million inhabitants of Poland (census 2002). 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). 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. The estimated number of Poles who live beyond the borders of Poland is 21 million. 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]. An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in the countries, states, and other territories. ... Polish voivodeships 1922-1939. ... Not to be confused with Vilnius city municipality. ... Daugavpils (Belarusian Дзьвінск Dźvinsk, Russian Двинcк Dvinsk, Lithuanian Daugpilis, German Dünaburg, Polish Dźwinów, Dźwińsk or Dyneburg, Yiddish דענענבורג Denenburg), population 115,265 in 2000 census) is the second largest city in Latvia. ... There are over ten thousand Poles living in Romania - mainly in the villages of the Suceava region. ... Zaolzie (Czech: , Polish: , literally: Trans-Olza River Silesia) was an area disputed between Poland and Czechoslovakia, west of Cieszyn. ... A memorial statue in Hanko, Finland, commemorating the thousands of emigrants who left the country to start a new life in the United States Emigration is the act and the phenomenon of leaving ones native country or region to settle in another. ... Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics), a Christian linguistic service organization which studies lesser-known languages primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language. ...

Polish has the second largest number of speakers among Slavic languages after Russian. It is the main representative of the Lechitic branch of the West Slavic languages. 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. It shares some vocabulary with the languages of the neighboring Slavic nations, most notably with Slovak, Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian.  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... The Lechitic languages include three languages spoken in Central Europe, principally in Poland and historically also in eastern part of today Germany. ... This article or section should be merged with List of West Slavic languages The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group (q. ... Voivodship wielkopolskie since 1999 Coat of Arms for voivodship wielkopolskie Greater Poland (also Great Poland; Polish: , German: Großpolen, Latin: Polonia Maior) is a historical region of west-central Poland. ... Kraków Katowice WrocÅ‚aw Łódź PoznaÅ„ Bydgoszcz Lublin BiaÅ‚ystok GdaÅ„sk Szczecin Warsaw M A S O V I A S I L E S I A G R E A T E R P O L A N D L E S S E R P O... The Slavic peoples are the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe. ...

History

The precursor to the Polish language is the Old Polish language. Old Polish (Polish: język staropolski) is a name used to describe the period in the history of the Polish language between 9th and 16th century. ...

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. 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. Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. ... Eastern Europe is a concept that lacks one precise definition. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...

Geographic distribution

Polish is mainly spoken in 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). 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. 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. In Ukraine, Polish is most often used in the Lviv and Lutsk regions. Western Belarus has an important Polish minority, especially in the Brest and Grodno regions. First language (native language, mother tongue, or vernacular) is the language a person learns first. ... The expulsion of Germans after World War II refers to the mass deportation of people considered Germans (both Reichsdeutsche and Volksdeutsche) from Soviet-occupied areas outside of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, and is one major part of the German exodus from Eastern Europe after World War II. The... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Administrative divisions ISO_3166-2 code LT-VL Number of municipalities 8 Number of elderates 107 General information Capital Vilnius Major cities Vilnius (pop. ... “Lvov” redirects here. ... Lutsk (Ukrainian: Луцьк) is the capital of the Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. ... West Belarus is the name used by Russian and Belarusian government to denote the territory of modern Belarus that belonged to Second Polish Republic between World War I and World War II. The term is used mostly in historic context. ... Brest (Belarusian: , Russian: , Polish: ; Alternative names), formerly Brest-on-the-Bug and Brest-Litovsk, is a city (population 290,000 in 2004) in Belarus close to the Polish border where the Western Bug and Mukhavets Rivers meet. ... Hrodna (or Grodno; Belarusian: Го́радня, Гро́дна; Grodno in Polish, Гродно in Russian, Gardinas in Lithuanian) is a city in Belarus on the Nemunas river, close to the borders of Poland and Lithuania (about 15 km and 30 km away respectively). ...

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. Anthem:  Serbia() on the European continent()  —  [] Capital (and largest city) Belgrade Official languages Serbian Recognised regional languages Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Croatian, Rusyn 1 Albanian 2 Demonym Serbian Government Parliamentary Democracy  -  President Boris Tadić  -  Prime Minister Vojislav KoÅ¡tunica    -  First state 7th century   -  Serbian Kingdom3 1217   -  Serbian Empire 1345   -  Independence lost... UAE redirects here. ...

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. 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 0.25% of the U.S. population. Polish-American refers to American citizens of Polish descent. ... The United States Census of year 2000, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

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[1]. The dialects (dialekt in Polish) are often further subdivided into subdialectal groups called gwara or region. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

"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. Mazovian shares some features with the Kashubian language (see below). Greater Poland (also Great Poland; Polish: Wielkopolska, German: Grosspolen, Latin: Polonia Maior) is one of the historical regions of Poland. ... Kraków Katowice Wrocław Łódź Poznań Bydgoszcz Lublin Białystok Gdańsk Szczecin Warsaw M A S O V I A S I L E S I A G R E A T E R P O L A N D L E S S E R P O... Masurian (also known as Mazurian, Masovian, and Mazovian) is a dialect of Polish from Masovia and Masuria. ... Mazur can refer to: Mazurian ethnic group Mazur (Masur), a Polish or German surname (see also Mazurek) This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... This article is about the West Slavic language. ... Kashubian or Cassubian (Kashubian: kaszëbsczi jãzëk, pòmòrsczi jãzëk, kaszëbskò-słowińskô mòwa) is one of the Lechitic languages, which are a group of Slavic languages. ...

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. It has some cultural influences from the Vlach shepherds^{[citation needed]} who migrated from Wallachia (southern Romania) in the 14th-17th centuries^{[citation needed]}. The language of the coextensive East Slavic ethnic group, the Lemkos, which demonstrates significant lexical and grammatical commonality with the Góralski dialect, bears no significant Vlach or other Romanian influences.^[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.
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. 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.
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. (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.

The Goralen (Polish Górale, slovak Gorali) are a people tribe living at the Polish-slovak boundary. ... The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. ... Lemko - one of four major groups of Ruthenian montagnards of the northwest Carpathian mountain chain, having a unique dialect and culture. ... Vlachs (also called Wlachs, Wallachs, Olahs) are the Romanized population in Central and Eastern Europe, including Romanians, Aromanians, Istro-Romanians and Megleno-Romanians, but since the creation of the Romanian state, this term was mostly used for the Vlachs living south of the Danube river. ... Polish voivodeships 1922-1939. ... Kashubian is: one of the Kashubians the Kashubian language This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Pomerania (Polish: Pomorze, German: Pommern and Pommerellen, Pomeranian (Kashubian): Pòmòrze and Pòmòrskô, Latin: Pomerania, Pomorania) is a geographical and historical region in northern Poland and Germany on the south coasts of the Baltic Sea between and on both sides of the Vistula and Oder (Odra) rivers, reaching the Reknitz river... For alternative meanings of GdaÅ„sk and Danzig, see GdaÅ„sk (disambiguation) and Danzig (disambiguation) Motto: Nec temere, nec timide (No rashness, no timidness) Coordinates: , Country Voivodeship Powiat city county Gmina GdaÅ„sk Established 10th century City Rights 1263 Government  - Mayor PaweÅ‚ Adamowicz Area  - City 262 km²  (101. ... For other uses, see Baltic (disambiguation). ... Not to be confused with Vilnius city municipality. ... Polish voivodeships 1922-1939. ... The Warsaw dialect (jÄ™zyk warsiaski, Polish: ) is a regional dialect of the Polish language spoken in Warsaw. ... Praga Północ and Praga PoÅ‚udnie Pragas market, Jan Piotr Norblin, 1791. ... For other uses, see Vistula (disambiguation). ...

Phonology

Main article: Polish phonology

The Polish vowel system is relatively simple with only six oral and two nasal vowels. 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. The stress falls generally on the penultimate (second to last) syllable. // Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... An affricate is a consonant that begins like a stop (most often an alveovelar, such as [t] or [d]) and that doesnt have a release of its own, but opens directly into a fricative (or, in one language, into a trill). ... 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 Old Church Slavonic and all the other Slavic languages later emerged. ... Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ... In linguistics, stress is the emphasis given to some syllables (often no more than one in each word, but in many languages, long words have a secondary stress a few syllables away from the primary stress, as in the words cóunterfòil or còunterintélligence. ...

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. Unlike other Latin-character Slavic languages (apart from Kashubian), Polish did not adopt a version of the Czech orthography, but developed one independently. The Polish alphabet is the script of the Polish language. ... Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz redirects here. ... Example of a letter with a diacritic A diacritic or diacritical mark, also called an accent, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ... The acute accent (   ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin and Greek scripts. ... It has been suggested that Ę be merged into this article or section. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... Kashubian or Cassubian (Kashubian: kaszëbsczi jãzëk, pòmòrsczi jãzëk, kaszëbskò-sÅ‚owiÅ„skô mòwa) is one of the Lechitic languages, which are a group of Slavic languages. ... Czech orthography is a system of rules for correct writing (orthography) in the Czech language. ...

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], [t͡ʂ̠], [d͡ʐ̠] respectively. 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]. Ogonek (Polish for little tail; In Lithuanian it is nosinÄ— which literally means handkerchief) is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in Polish (letters Ä…, Ä™), Lithuanian (Ä…, Ä™, į, ų), Navajo, Western Apache, Chiricahua and Tutchone. ... Ć in upper and lowercase Look up Ć in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Ogonek. ... Łł Ł or Å‚, described in English as L with stroke, is a letter of the Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, Łacinka (Latin Belarusian), and Navajo alphabets. ... The acute accent ( Â´ ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin script. ... The acute accent ( Â´ ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin script. ... Åš (S with acute accent) Slavic: voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative Polish language In the Łacinka alphabet for the Belarusian language (сь) Proposed Montenegrin language Indo-Aryan: voiceless postalveolar fricative IAST Romany alphabet transliteration of a palatalized s in the Lydian language In Proto-Semitic, a reconstructed voiceless lateral fricative phoneme, the parent... The acute accent ( Â´ ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin script. ... When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the middle dot ·, or to the glyphs combining dot above ̇ and combining dot below Ì£ which may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in use in Eastern European languages and Vietnamese. ... 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 tongue. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... In phonetics, a retracted or backed sound is one that is pronounced further to the back of the vocal tract than some reference point. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Sagittal section of alveolo-palatal fricative In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants are palatalized postalveolar fricatives, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate. ...

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: Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

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. 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". For other uses, see Tarzan (disambiguation). ...

The pronunciation of geminates (doubled consonants) in Polish is clearly prolonged, as in Finnish and Italian. 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. There are two number classes, singular and plural. In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor. ... In linguistics, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. ... In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun (called the adjectives subject), giving more information about what the noun or pronoun refers to. ... 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 verb arguments. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... 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 verb. ... In linguistics, the instrumental case (also called the eighth case) indicates that a noun is the instrument or means by which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. ... Locative is a case which indicates a location. ... The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person (animal, object, etc. ... For other uses of number, see number (disambiguation). ...

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). 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 linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... In grammar, an antecedent is generally the noun or noun phrase to which an anaphor refers in a coreference, however an antecedent also can be a clause, especially when the anaphor is a demonstrative. ...

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:

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). The so-called Slavic perfect is the only past tense form used in common speech. In Polish, one distinguishes between It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ... In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... For other uses, see Point of view (literature). ... For other uses of number, see number (disambiguation). ... Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs. ... Aorist (from Greek αοριστός without horizon, unbounded) a verb tense used in some Indo-European languages, such as Classical Greek, to denote action, or in the indicative mood, past action, without further implication. ... Imperfect has several meanings: The imperfect tense in linguistics an imperfect cadence in music theory This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The pluperfect tense exists in most Indo-European languages, including English. ...

• three tenses (present, past and future)
• three moods (indicative, imperative and conditional)
• three voices (active, passive and reflexive).

Aspect is a grammatical category of the verb, and almost all Polish verbs have two aspects, in each tense. 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'). For referencing in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Citing sources. ... The past tense is a verb tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past. ... It has been suggested that Future perfect tense be merged into this article or section. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood (or mode), which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc. ... In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in the described event or state. ...

The tenses include:

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 (in Cracow region it is naturally spoken with "że")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. 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: A pro-drop language (from pronoun-dropping) is a language where pronouns can be deleted when they are in some sense pragmatically inferable (the precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite intricate). ...

• 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: In linguistics, a participle is an adjective derived from a verb. ...

• - 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 linguistic typology, subject-verb-object (SVO) is the sequence subject verb object in neutral expressions: Sam ate oranges. ... 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: Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...

• 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)". This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

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.

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. 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). 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 word in order to convey the sense of a larger size. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ...

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. For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ... ...

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. German (called Deutsch in German; in German the term germanisch is equivalent to English Germanic), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the worlds major languages. ...

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. For dialects of programming languages, see Programming language dialect. ... Map of Upper Silesia, 1746 Upper Silesia (Czech: ; German: ; Latin: Silesia Superior; Polish: ; Silesian: Gůrny Åšlůnsk) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Lower Silesia is to the northwest. ... Sailing on Lake MikoÅ‚ajki Masuria (Polish: ; German: ) is an area in northeastern Poland famous for its lakes and forests. ... East Prussia (German: Ostpreu en; Polish: Prusy Wschodnie; Russian: Восточная Пруссия — Vostochnaya Prussiya) was a province of Kingdom of Prussia, situated on the territory of former Ducal Prussia. ... For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ... StanisÅ‚aw Antoni Szczuka, a Polish nobleman Szlachta ( ) was the noble class in Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the two countries that later jointly formed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. ...

In the 18th century, with 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). For other uses, see Napoleon (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Warsaw (disambiguation) and Warszawa (disambiguation). ... Area km² Population (2003) Population density Mayor Notable landmarks Website Warsaw Citadel and the Hibner park in Å»oliborz Å»oliborz is one of the northern boroughs of the city of Warsaw. ... Area 35,42 km² Population (2003) 221 000 Population density 6239,4 Mayor Ewa WÄ™gÅ‚owska Notable landmarks Polish Radio and Television, Pole Mokotowskie, School of Economics, Rakowiecka Street Prison Website Mokotow (pol. ... Neo-gothic church in Å»yrardów Å»yrardów is a town in central Poland with 31,900 inhabitants (2004). ... Philippe Henri de Girard (1775-1845), was born in (Lourmarin) (Vaucluse, France). ...

Other words are borrowed from other Slavic languages, for example, sejm, hańba and brama from Czech.  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... The Sejm building in Warsaw. ...

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 (ייִדיש, Jiddisch) is a Germanic language spoken by about four million Jews throughout the world. ... The history of the Jews in Poland reaches back over a millennium. ... For other uses, see Holocaust (disambiguation) and Shoah (disambiguation). ...

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. Another interesting word of Italian origin is autostrada (from Italian "autostrada", highway). Bona Sforza in her youth Bona Sforza in 1517 Bona Sforza (February 2, 1494 - November 19, 1557) was a member of the Milanese Sforza dynasty, was a queen of Poland, Grand Duchess of Lithuania, and became the second wife of Sigismund I of Poland in 1518. ... Reign From December 8, 1506 until April 1, 1548 Coronation On January 24, 1507 in the Wawel Cathedral, Kraków, Poland Royal House Jagiellon Parents Kazimierz IV JagielloÅ„czyk Elżbieta Rakuszanka Consorts Katarzyna Telniczanka Barbara Zapolya Bona Sforza Children with Katarzyna Telniczanka Jan Regina Katarzyna with Barbara Zapolya Jadwiga...

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.g. baca, gazda, juhas, hejnał) and Romanian from historical contacts with Hungarian-dominated Slovakia and Wallachian herders who travelled north along the Carpathians. The Goralen (Polish Górale, slovak Gorali) are a people tribe living at the Polish-slovak boundary. ... Satellite image of the Carpathians. ...

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 prison inmates. ...

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^{[citation needed]}. In linguistics (especially in German linguistics), an internationalism is a loanword that occurs in several languages with the same or at least similar meaning and etymology. ... Sputnik redirects here. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

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. This article is about the person. ...

Brief vocabulary

Personal pronouns

Numerals

Chronology

(Notice lower case)

For other senses of this word, see decade (disambiguation). ... A millennium (pl. ...

Weather

Seasons

Environment

Selected countries

• Europe: Europa

Geometry

In geometry, a disk is the region in a plane contained inside of a circle. ... Look up polygon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In geometry, an n-sided prism is a polyhedron made of an n-sided polygonal base, a translated copy, and n faces joining corresponding sides. ...

Direction

Common phrases

* Note that adjectives based on proper nouns (polski, amerykański, etc) are not capitalized, unlike in English.

Locations

See also

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

Poglish, a portmanteau word combining the words Polish and English, designates the product of mixing Polish and English language elements (words, grammatical structures, syntactic elements, etc. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... The Slavic peoples are the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe. ... All Slavic languages arose from Proto-Slavic, which developed during the early first millennium and split off into differing dialects around the fifth or sixth century. ... The Holy Cross Sermons (Polish: Kazania Å›wiÄ™tokrzyskie), so called after the Holy Cross Monastery in Polands Holy Cross Mountains (Polish: Góry ÅšwiÄ™tokrzyskie) where they had originally been housed: dating from the 14th century, they are the oldest extant manuscripts of fine prose in the Polish language. ...

References

2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Era (or Anno Domini), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 53rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Era (or Anno Domini), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 30th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

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
• A short English-Polish-Japanese phrase list(renewal) incl. sound file

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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