LEARN POLISH WITH A POLISH GIRL
care to learn few Polish words?
(video inspired by taydreamin and captainisland)
eye= oko
eyes= oczy
nose= nos
cheeks= poliki
eyebrow= brwi
chin= broda
ears = uszy
hair= wlosy
hands= rece
watch= zegarek
flip flops= klapki
book= ksiazka
blue = niebieski
green= zielony
brwonish that looks like shit = sraczkowaty
perfume =perfumy
...i cannot use Polish letters here, so if you want to know how really those words look like, just tried to find them on internet or something
LEARN POLISH - FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
Owoce i warzywa (fruits and vegetables)
-I cannot use Polish letters so the words are not written exactly the way they are in Polish language
-few suggestions: "w" is pronounced in Polish just like English "v", in fact "w and V" sound the same in Polish thou V is rarely used and mostly words with "v" are borrowed from other languages; "sz" and "cz" sounds just like "sh" and "ch" in Englihs language
-fruits = owoce
-grapes = winogrona (not bordowe, but fioletowe)
-pear = gruszka (zielona = green)
-apple = jablko (czerwone =red, pomaranczowe= orange, zolte= yellow)
-peach = brzoskwinia (mix czerwono-pomaranczowo-zolta or you can say that brzoskwinia jest (is) koloru (color) brzoskwiniowego)
-orange = pomarancza (pomaranczowy= orange as a color)
-mandarin= mandarynka
-banana = banan (zolty= yellow)
-strawberry = truskawka (czrwona= red)
-avokado= awokado (zielone= green)
-cucumber = ogorek (zielony [remember we use different ending for different gender and number of the world]=green)
-tomato = pomidor (czerwony= red)
-pepper = papryka (zielona= green)
-milk = mleko
This is... = to jest... (more)
LEARN POLISH LANGUAGE - 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:
Their spelling was usually altered to approximately keep the pronunciation, but have them written according to Polish phonetics.
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).
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.
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. Examples include:
szlachta (from German Adelsgeschlecht, "nobility"; root Geschlecht means family, sex (gender), and sex (intercourse).)
punkt (Punkt, "point")
rachunek (Rechnung, "bill/invoice")
ratusz (Rathaus, "town hall")
burmistrz (Bürgermeister, mayor of a town; lit. "a Burgess", or "the Burgs master")
handel (Handel, "commerce")
kac (Katze/Kater, "hangover")
kelner (Kellner, "waiter")
stal (Stahl, "steel")
rycerz (Ritter, "knight"; compare to English "Rider", "Knights ride horses, thus they are Riders")
krzyż (Kreuz, "cross")
granat (Granate, "grenade")
malarz (Maler, painter; also, the word malować has entered Polish as the verb "to paint").
metal (Metalle, "metal")
cecha (Zeichen, "attribute, feature")
kartofel (Kartoffel, "potato")
śluza (Schleuse, "floodgate")
żagiel (Segel, "sail")
rynek (Not certain, mostly thought to be from Ring(means the same in English and German); but "Rynek" means "market", and the German Word "ring" has an obvious meaning, and does have a alternate, but VERY rare meaning of "chain", "market", "area", "link", which aren't used much (if not even at all) in modern High German.)[3][4]
[5]
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.
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).
Other words are borrowed from other Slavic languages, for example, sejm, hańba and brama from Czech.
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.
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).
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) 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.
Thieves' slang includes such words as kimać (to sleep) or majcher (knife) of Greek origin, considered then unknown to the outside world.
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.
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.
Their spelling was usually altered to approximately keep the pronunciation, but have them written according to Polish phonetics.
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).
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.
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. Examples include:
szlachta (from German Adelsgeschlecht, "nobility"; root Geschlecht means family, sex (gender), and sex (intercourse).)
punkt (Punkt, "point")
rachunek (Rechnung, "bill/invoice")
ratusz (Rathaus, "town hall")
burmistrz (Bürgermeister, mayor of a town; lit. "a Burgess", or "the Burgs master")
handel (Handel, "commerce")
kac (Katze/Kater, "hangover")
kelner (Kellner, "waiter")
stal (Stahl, "steel")
rycerz (Ritter, "knight"; compare to English "Rider", "Knights ride horses, thus they are Riders")
krzyż (Kreuz, "cross")
granat (Granate, "grenade")
malarz (Maler, painter; also, the word malować has entered Polish as the verb "to paint").
metal (Metalle, "metal")
cecha (Zeichen, "attribute, feature")
kartofel (Kartoffel, "potato")
śluza (Schleuse, "floodgate")
żagiel (Segel, "sail")
rynek (Not certain, mostly thought to be from Ring(means the same in English and German); but "Rynek" means "market", and the German Word "ring" has an obvious meaning, and does have a alternate, but VERY rare meaning of "chain", "market", "area", "link", which aren't used much (if not even at all) in modern High German.)[3][4]
[5]
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.
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).
Other words are borrowed from other Slavic languages, for example, sejm, hańba and brama from Czech.
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.
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).
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) 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.
Thieves' slang includes such words as kimać (to sleep) or majcher (knife) of Greek origin, considered then unknown to the outside world.
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.
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.
LEARN POLISH LANGUAGE - Conjugation
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)
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)
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)
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)
LEARN POLISH LANGUAGE - Order of words
Basic word order in Polish is SVO, however, as it is a morpheme rich language, 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 different word orders. In increasing order of markedness:
Ala ma kota - Alice has a cat (take care with this sentence as it could be mis-understood as a very offensive idiom meaning "Ala is crazy" when spoken with a different sentence tempo)
Ala kota ma - Alice does have (own) a cat (and has not borrowed it)
Kota ma Ala - The/a cat is owned by Alice
Ma Ala kota - Alice really does have a cat
Kota Ala ma - It is just the cat that Alice really has
Ma kota Ala - The relationship of Alice 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 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, 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 "Alice does")
Kota - answer for "Co ma Ala?" (as in "The cat")
Ala ma - (as in "Alice 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.
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 - Alice has a cat (take care with this sentence as it could be mis-understood as a very offensive idiom meaning "Ala is crazy" when spoken with a different sentence tempo)
Ala kota ma - Alice does have (own) a cat (and has not borrowed it)
Kota ma Ala - The/a cat is owned by Alice
Ma Ala kota - Alice really does have a cat
Kota Ala ma - It is just the cat that Alice really has
Ma kota Ala - The relationship of Alice 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 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, 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 "Alice does")
Kota - answer for "Co ma Ala?" (as in "The cat")
Ala ma - (as in "Alice 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.
POLISH LANGUAGE - 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 three tenses (present, past and future; however, when considering the aspect of the verb, one could detect five tenses, not six, since present perfect forms do not exist in Polish), three moods (indicative, imperative and conditional) and three voices (active, passive and reflexive). Aspect is a grammatical category of the verb, and almost all Polish verbs have two distinct forms, one imperfective and one perfective. A few verbs have two imperfective forms, where the imperfective aspect subdivides into either the indeterminate and determinate aspect (chodzić - iść - pójść (to go)) or the actual and frequentative aspect (pisać - pisywać - napisać (to write)). The perfective verb form is usually an imperfective verb changed with prefixation (robić - zrobić (to make; to do)), suffixation (kichać - kichnąć (to sneeze)), stem alternation (oddychać - odetchnąć (to breathe)) or very rare infixation [5]. A few verbs show suppletion in their aspect formation, like brać - wziąć (to take).
POLISH LANGUAGE - 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 numbers, singular and plural.
The Polish gender system 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.
The Polish gender system 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.
POLISH LANGUAGE - Ortography
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.
POLISH LANGUAGE - Dialects
The Polish language became far more homogeneous in the second half of the 20th century, partly due to universal education, but also because of 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.
"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. Mazovian shares some features with the Kashubian language (see below).
Some more characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include:
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.[4]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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. Mazovian shares some features with the Kashubian language (see below).
Some more characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include:
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.[4]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
POLISH LANGUAGE - 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 the WWII German expulsions, and suppression of foreign languages by Communists during the Cold War. 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 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.
There are also significant numbers of Polish speakers in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Latvia, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, UAE, the UK, Uruguay and the United States.
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.
There are also significant numbers of Polish speakers in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Latvia, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, UAE, the UK, Uruguay and the United States.
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 LANGUAGE - History
The precursor to the Polish language is the Old Polish Language.
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, whilst the Slovaks became part of the kingdom of Hungary. The remaining tribes, including the Polanie, Wislanie, Pomorzanie and the Mazovians, joined together (in time) to form the Polish State.
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, whilst the Slovaks became part of the kingdom of Hungary. The remaining tribes, including the Polanie, Wislanie, Pomorzanie and the Mazovians, joined together (in time) to form the Polish State.
Polish Language - Statics
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 some native speakers of Polish in western Belarus and Ukraine, as well as in eastern Lithuania. Because of emigration from Poland in various periods, millions of Polish-speakers may be found in countries such as Ireland, Australia, Israel, Brazil, Canada, the United Kingdom, United States, etc. The estimated number of Poles who live beyond the borders of Poland is 10 million. It is not clear, however, how many of them can actually speak Polish - the estimates range from 3,5 to 10 million[1]. This puts the number of native speakers of Polish all over the world between 40 and 48 million. According to Ethnologue, there are about 43 million first language speakers of Polish worldwide[2].
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.
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.
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