Polish language
Polish (endonym: język polski, [ˈjɛ̃zɨk ˈpɔlskʲi] ⓘ, polszczyzna [pɔlˈʂt͡ʂɨzna] ⓘ or simply polski, [ˈpɔlskʲi] ⓘ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group within the Indo-European language family written in the Latin script.[9] It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In addition to being the official language of Poland, it is also used by the Polish diaspora. In 2023, there were over 40.6 million Polish native speakers.[10] It ranks as the sixth most-spoken among languages of the European Union.[11] Polish is subdivided into regional dialects and maintains strict T–V distinction pronouns, honorifics, and various forms of formalities when addressing individuals.[12]
Polish
The traditional 32-letter Polish alphabet has nine additions (ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź, ż) to the letters of the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet, while removing three (x, q, v). Those three letters are at times included in an extended 35-letter alphabet, although they are not used in native words.[13] The traditional set comprises 23 consonants and 9 written vowels, including two nasal vowels (ę, ą) defined by a reversed diacritic hook called an ogonek.[14] Polish is a synthetic and fusional language which has seven grammatical cases.[15] It is one of very few languages in the world possessing continuous penultimate stress (with only a few exceptions) and the only in its group having an abundance of palatal consonants.[16] Contemporary Polish developed in the 1700s as the successor to the medieval Old Polish (10th–16th centuries) and Middle Polish (16th–18th centuries).[17]
Among the major languages, it is most closely related to Slovak[18] and Czech[19] but differs in terms of pronunciation and general grammar. In addition, Polish was profoundly influenced by Latin and other Romance languages like Italian and French as well as Germanic languages (most notably German), which contributed to a large number of loanwords and similar grammatical structures.[20][21][22] Extensive usage of nonstandard dialects has also shaped the standard language; considerable colloquialisms and expressions were directly borrowed from German or Yiddish and subsequently adopted into the vernacular of Polish which is in everyday use.[23][24]
Historically, Polish was a lingua franca,[25][26] important both diplomatically and academically in Central and part of Eastern Europe. In addition to being the official language of Poland, Polish is also spoken as a second language in eastern Germany, northern Czech Republic and Slovakia, western parts of Belarus and Ukraine as well as in southeast Lithuania and Latvia. Because of the emigration from Poland during different time periods, most notably after World War II, millions of Polish speakers can also be found in countries such as Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak Polish somewhat differently, although the differences between modern-day vernacular varieties and standard Polish (język ogólnopolski) appear relatively slight. Most of the middle aged and young speak vernaculars close to standard Polish, while the traditional dialects are preserved among older people in rural areas.[44] First-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty recognizing the regional and social differences. The modern standard dialect, often termed as "correct Polish",[44] is spoken or at least understood throughout the entire country.[19]
Polish has traditionally been described as consisting of four or five main regional dialects:
Kashubian, spoken in Pomerania west of Gdańsk on the Baltic Sea, is thought of either as a fifth Polish dialect or a distinct language, depending on the criteria used.[45][46] It contains a number of features not found elsewhere in Poland, e.g. nine distinct oral vowels (vs. the six of standard Polish) and (in the northern dialects) phonemic word stress, an archaic feature preserved from Common Slavic times and not found anywhere else among the West Slavic languages. However, it "lacks most of the linguistic and social determinants of language-hood".[47]
Many linguistic sources categorize Silesian as a dialect of Polish.[48][49] However, many Silesians consider themselves a separate ethnicity and have been advocating for the recognition of a Silesian language. According to the last official census in Poland in 2011, over half a million people declared Silesian as their native language. Many sociolinguists (e.g. Tomasz Kamusella,[50] Agnieszka Pianka, Alfred F. Majewicz,[51] Tomasz Wicherkiewicz)[52] assume that extralinguistic criteria decide whether a lect is an independent language or a dialect: speakers of the speech variety or/and political decisions, and this is dynamic (i.e. it changes over time). Also, research organizations such as SIL International[53] and resources for the academic field of linguistics such as Ethnologue,[54] Linguist List[55] and others, for example the Ministry of Administration and Digitization[56] recognized the Silesian language. In July 2007, the Silesian language was recognized by ISO, and was attributed an ISO code of szl.
Some additional characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include:
Polish linguistics has been characterized by a strong strive towards promoting prescriptive ideas of language intervention and usage uniformity,[58] along with normatively-oriented notions of language "correctness"[44] (unusual by Western standards).[58]