Polish language

Polish
Polish
Polski
Pronunciation	[ˈpɔlski]
Native to	Poland
Region	Mainly in Poland, but there are minorities in Ukraine, Belarus, Czechia, Slovakia, Germany and Lithuania
Ethnicity	Poles
Native speakers
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic West Slavic Lechitic Polish; ; ; ; ;
Early forms:	Old Polish Middle Polish Polish; ;
Dialects	Kashubian , though it is often called a separate language Silesian Greater Polish Lesser Polish Masovian
Writing system	Latin (Polish alphabet); Cyrillic (Cyrillization of Polish); Polish Braille
Official status
Official language in	Poland; European Union
Recognised minority language in	Czech Republic; Slovakia; Hungary; Lithuania; Ukraine
Regulated by	Polish Language Council
Language codes
ISO 639-1	pl
ISO 639-2	pol
ISO 639-3	pol
Linguasphere	53-AAA-cc < 53-AAA-b...-d; (varieties: 53-AAA-cca to 53-AAA-ccu)
	This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
	This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) is the official language of Poland. It is the most common Western Slavic language and the second Slavic language, after Russian.

Polish has been an important language in Central and Eastern Europe. Polish is now spoken by over 43.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a Second language in western parts of Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine. Because of emigration during different times, millions of Polish-speakers can be found in Australia, Ireland, Brazil, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and elsewhere. There are over 50 million speakers around the world.

Letters

There are 9 letters in Polish that English does not have. They look like English letters with marks above or below them.

In lower case, the 9 letters are: ą ć ę ł ń ś ó ź ż

In upper case, the 9 letters are: Ą Ć Ę Ł Ń Ś Ó Ź Ż

There are 3 English letters not used in Polish: q, v, x.

There are 7 combinations of 2 letters that are like a single letter sound (similar to "th" or "qu" in English). These include "ch", "cz", "dz", "dź", "dż", "rz", "sz".

Sounds

Many letters have the same sound in Polish and English, such as "f" "m", and others, but other letters sound different: Polish "w" sounds like an English "v", and Polish "ł" sounds like an English "w". There are also some Polish sounds that do not exist in English and some English sounds that do not exist in Polish.

The vowels "ą" and "ę" are nasal and so they are pronounced by blowing air partly out of both the nose and the mouth.

Most words are pronounced with an accent on the second-last syllable: "student" (which means the same as the English word) is pronounced with the accent on "stu" ("STU-dent"), and "studenci" (the plural form of "student") is pronounced with the accent on "den" (stu-DEN-ci).

Dialects

The Polish language has several dialects but they are more similar to one another than most other European languages. There are small differences, but all speakers can understand one another, and non-native speakers often cannot notice the differences.

Grammar

Grammar is complex, and has features that are unlike English.

Like many other languages, Polish has grammatical gender. A table (stół) is masculine, a book (książka) is feminine, and a window (okno) is neuter.

Nouns and adjectives and verbs have many endings, depending on their role in a sentence. There are 7 cases that show the role of a noun in a Polish sentence. Each has its own ending, which also depends on the gender of the noun.

Word order is freer than in English, partly because the case and gender endings help to understand the role of the noun. In English, "The boy bites the dog" is quite different from "The dog bites the boy", but in Polish, both orders can be used without confusion.

Sample Phrases

Dzień dobry (Dz'yehn DOH-brih) - Good morning or Good afternoon

Dobry wieczór (DOH-brih v-YETCH-oor) - Good evening'

Do widzenia (doh vee-DZEN-yah) - Good bye

Cześć! (tsheshch) - Hi, Hello! or Bye

Tak (tahk) - Yes (in Polish, long-short answers like Yes, I did are not needed, and Tak is enough)

Nie (nyeh) - No or Not (in Polish, long-short answers like No, I won't are not needed, and Nie is enough)

Jak się masz? (yahk shyeh mahsh) - How do you do?

Co robisz? (tsoh robish) - What you doing?

Jak się nazywasz? (YAHK shyeh nahZYvash) or Jak masz na imię? (YAHK mahsh nah EE-myeng/EE-myeh) - What's your name?

Nazywam się... (nah-ZIH-vahm shyeh) - My (name and) surname is...

Mam na imię... (mahm nah EE-myeng/EE-myeh) - My (given) name is...

Nie mówię po Polsku (nyeh MOW-vyeng/MOW-vyeh poh POL-skoo) - I do not speak Polish

Lubię Cię (loo-bee-EH chyeh) - I like you

Kocham Cię (koh-hahm chyeh) - I love you

Nie mówię po Angielsku (nyeh MOW-vyeng/MOW-vyeh poh ahng-YEL-skoo) - I do not speak English

Jak dojechać na lotnisko/dworzec (yak do-YEH-khatch nah lot-NEE-sco/dvo-ZHETS) - How do you get the airport/rail station?
(where dworzec - station means rail station by default)

Jeden (ye-den) -One

Dwa (dva) -Two

Trzy (Trzhi) -Three

Polish Language Media

The Book of Henryków is the earliest document to include a sentence written entirely in what can be interpreted as Old Polish – Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ty poziwai, meaning "let me grind, and you have a rest" highlighted in red.
The oldest printed text in Polish – Statuta synodalia Episcoporum Wratislaviensis printed in 1475 in Wrocław by Kasper Elyan.
The Polish alphabet contains 32 letters. Q, V and X are not used in the Polish language.
Spoken Polish in a neutral informative tone
A Polish speaker, recorded in Poland
Polish oral vowels depicted on a vowel chart. Main allophones (in black) are in broad transcription, whereas positional allophones (in red and green) are in narrow transcription. Allophones with red dots appear in palatal contexts. The central vowel [ɐ] is an unstressed allophone of /ɛ, ɔ, a/ in certain contexts
A formal-tone informative sign in Polish, with a composition of vowels and consonants and a mixture of long, medium and short syllables
The Jakub Wujek Bible in Polish, 1599 print. The letters á and é were subsequently abolished, but survive in Czech.
Common handbag in Polish is called a torba, a word directly derived from the Turkish language. Turkish loanwords are common as Poland bordered the Ottoman Empire for centuries
There are numerous words in both Polish and Yiddish (Jewish) languages which are near-identical due to the large Jewish minority that once inhabited Poland. One example is the fishing rod, ווענטקע (ventke), borrowed directly from Polish wędka.