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|name=Polish |nativename=język polski |familycolor=Indo-European |states= Poland (38 million), also speakers in the United States , Brazil , Argentina , Lithuania , Belarus , France , Germany , Ukraine and other countries. |speakers=46 million |rank=25 |fam2= Balto-Slavic |fam3= Slavic |fam4= West Slavic |fam5= Lechitic |nation= Poland , European Union |agency= Polish Language Council |iso1=pl|iso2=pol|iso3=pol}} Polish (''język polski'', ''polszczyzna'') is the Official Language of Poland . Polish is the main representative of the Lechitic branch of the West Slavic Languages . It originated in the areas of present-day Poland from several local Western Slavic dialects, most notably those spoken in Greater Poland and Lesser Poland . Polish was once a '' Lingua Franca '' in various regions of Central and Eastern Europe , mostly due to the political, cultural, scientific and military influence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth . Although no longer having as great an influence outside of Poland, due in part to the dominance of the Russian Language , it is still sometimes spoken or at least understood in western border areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania as a Second Language . It shares some vocabulary with the languages of the neighboring Slavic Nations , most notably with Ukrainian , Belarusian , Russian , Czech and Slovak . Classification The Polish language is the most widely-spoken of the Slavic language subgroup of the Lechitic Languages which include Kashubian (the only surviving dialect of the Pomeranian language) and the extinct Polabian language. The three languages, along with Upper and Lower Sorbian , Czech and Slovak , belong to the West branch of Slavic Languages . Outside influence Polish has been influenced by contact with foreign languages (mostly Latin , Czech , French , German , Italian , Old Belarusian , Russian ). Recently it has been virtually bombarded by English , especially American English language elements. Many words have been borrowed from the '' (from German ''Adelsgeschlecht'', nobility), ''rachunek'' (''Rechnung'', bill/invoice), ''ratusz'' (''Rathaus'', town hall), ''burmistrz'' (''Bürgermeister'', mayor (of a town)), ''handel'' (''Handel'', commerce), ''kac'' (''Katze/Kater'', hangover), ''kelner'' (''Kellner'', waiter) and ''malarz'' (''Maler'', painter; also, the word ''malować'' has entered Polish as the verb "to paint"). This is especially true of the regional Dialect s of Upper Silesia . There are also several words of French origin in the language, most likely dating from the Napoleon era, such as ''ekran'' (from French ''écran'', screen), ''rekin'' (''requin'', shark), ''meble'' (''meuble'', furniture), ''bagaż'' (''bagage'', lugage), ''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 cottage), as well as the suburb of Żyrardów (from the name Girard , with the Polish suffix -ów attached to form the town's name). Other words are borrowed from other Slavic languages, for example, '' Sejm '', ''hańba'' and ''brama'' from Czech . A word of Italian origin is "autostrada" (from Italian "autostrada", highway). When borrowing international words, Polish often changes their spelling. For example, the Latinate suffix that is spelled '-tion' in English, 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). Since 1945 , as a result of the mass education and mass Migration s that affected several countries (particularly Poland), standard Polish has become far more homogeneous, although regional dialects persist, especially in the south in the mountaineous areas bordering the Czech and Slovak Republics. 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 former eastern provinces. Geographic distribution Polish is mainly spoken in Poland . In fact, Poland is one of the most Homogenous European countries in terms of its mother tongue, as close to 97% of Polish citizens declare Polish as their Mother Tongue . 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. In Lithuania 9 percent of the population declared Polish to be their mother tongue. It is by far the most widely used minority language in the Vilniaus Apskritis (Vilnius Region) (26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results), but it is also present in other Apskritis . In Ukraine, Polish is most often used in the Lwów and Łuck regions. Western Belarus has an important Polish minority, especially in the Brześć and Grodno regions. There are also significant numbers of Polish speakers in Argentina , Australia , Austria , Azerbaijan , Brazil , Canada , Czech Republic , Estonia , Finland , Germany , Greece , Hungary , Israel , Ireland , Kazakhstan , Latvia , New Zealand , Romania , Russia , Slovakia , UAE , the UK and the United States . In the U.S. the number of people of Polish descent is over 9 million, ''see:'' Polish Language In The United States , but most of them do not use Polish in their everyday communications. 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. 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 west), Lesser Polish (spoken in the south and southeast), Mazovian ( Mazur ) spoken throughout the centre and east of the country, and Silesian spoken in the southwest. Mazovian shares some features with the Kashubian Language , whose remaining speakers (53.000, according to 2002 Census) live around the city of Gdańsk near the Baltic Sea , predominantly to the west of the city. There are also several, now mostly extinct, regional dialects of Polish, including the Warsaw Dialect . Small numbers of people in Poland also speak Belarusian , Ukrainian , and German as well as several varieties of Romany . Phonology See Also: Polish phonology Orthography See Also: Polish orthography The Polish Alphabet is based on the Latin Alphabet but uses Diacritic s such as kreska (graphically similar to Acute Accent ), superior dot and Ogonek . Polish orthography also includes seven Digraphs : Note that although the Polish orthography is mostly phonetic, some sounds may be written in more than one way:
Unlike in English, doubled consonants indicate Gemination , or the doubling of pronunciation time. Gemination is distinctive; for example: ''panna'' and ''pana'' ; ''motto'' and ''moto'' . Grammar Polish is often said to be one of the most difficult languages for non-native speakers to learn; of course, this depends on one's native language. While difficult for English speakers, it is relatively easy for speakers of Russian and other Slavic languages. It has a complex , Genitive , Dative , Accusative , Instrumental , Locative and Vocative ) and two numbers (singular and plural). Noun s, Adjective s and Verb s are inflected, and both Noun Declension and Verb Conjugation are highly irregular. Aspect is a grammatical category of the verb, and every verb is either imperfective or perfective, usually the imperfective form with a prefix, although there are many perfective verbs with different prefixes derived from single imperfective words, sometimes with unrelated meanings. The tenses include: 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-'' (''-ż''). So ''what have you done ?'' can be:
All the above examples show inflected forms of the verb "zrobić" for the subject "you" informal plural ("wy"). However, it is of note that none of the above examples include the subject itself. The inclusion of the subject is not necessary here because Polish is a Pro-drop Language . This means that a subject does not need to be used with an inflected verb. Instead, the reader or listener can tell which subject is implied through the type ending on the verb, which is different for each person, singular and plural. 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 a subject in the last one. The below examples show how the subject could be included in such sentences, where possible:
The Past Participle depends on number and gender, so third person, singular past perfect tense can be:
Word order Basic word order in Polish is SVO , however it is possible to move words around in the sentence, and to drop 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 another word order. In increasing order of sophistication:
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 Alice have a cat?"; an optional 'czy' could be added to the beginning (but native speakers do not always use it). If apparent from context, you can drop the subject, object or even the verb:
Note the marker "czy" which is used to start a yes/no question, much like the French "est-ce que". There is a tendency in Polish to drop the subject rather than the object and you rarely 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" (I) and "ty" (you, singular), and also their plural equivalents "my" (we) and "wy" (you, plural), are almost always dropped. Conjugation Conjugation of "iść" ("to go, walk" in the present tense):
Brief vocabulary Singular: ja - I ty - you on - he ona - she ono - it Plural: my - we wy - you (Plural) oni - they (mixed group, both men and women) one - they (group of only women and children or things) słoń - elephant kot - cat pies - dog krowa - cow świnia - pig mucha - fly osa - wasp pszczoła - bee drzewo - tree kwiat - flower Anglia - England Szkocja - Scotland Walia - Wales Irlandia - Ireland Wielka Brytania - Great Britain Zjednoczone Królestwo - United Kingdom Niemcy - Germany Japonia - Japan Stany Zjednoczone Ameryki - The United States of America Francja - France Hiszpania - Spain Wenezuela - Venezuela Polska - Poland Polak (m)/ Polka (f) - Pole polski - Polish Notes 1 You can hear the voice samples by clicking on the Polish example ( Ogg format). See also
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