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Polish (jezyk polski, polszczyzna), an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic language. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a regular orthography. The language developed indigenously and retains many ancient Slavic features of pronunciation and grammar. Although non-Polish administrations in Poland sometimes attempted, historically, to suppress the Polish language, a rich literature has nonetheless developed over the centuries, and many works by Polish authors are available in translations in English and other languages.
Geographic distribution
Nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their mother tongue.
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Encyclopedia
Polish (jezyk polski, polszczyzna), an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic language. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a regular orthography. The language developed indigenously and retains many ancient Slavic features of pronunciation and grammar. Although non-Polish administrations in Poland sometimes attempted, historically, to suppress the Polish language, a rich literature has nonetheless developed over the centuries, and many works by Polish authors are available in translations in English and other languages.
Geographic distribution
Nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their mother tongue. As a result of World War II Poland was forced to change its borders, which resulted in various migrations (World War II evacuation and expulsion, German expulsions, Operation Wisla) as well as in ethnic cleansing of the Poles across the current borders such as the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia. Nevertheless, after the Second World War the previously Polish territories annexed by the Soviet Union retained a significant proportion of the Polish population unwilling or unable to undergo forced migration toward the post-1945 Poland. Even today ethnic Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, and among the Poles in Ukraine. Polish is by far the most widely used minority language in Lithuania's Vilnius County (26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results), and 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.
Significant numbers of Polish speakers also inhabit: Argentina, Andorra, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lebanon, 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.
In the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million, but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. According to the United States 2000 Census, 667,414 Americans of age 5 years and over reported Polish as the language spoken at home: about 1.4% of people who speak languages other than English, or 0.25% of the U.S. population. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census (over 50%) occur in three states: Illinois (185,749), New York (111,740) and New Jersey (74,663).
Canada has a significant Polish Canadian population. The 2006 census recorded 242,885 speakers of Polish, with a particular concentration in the city of Toronto, Ontario (91,810 speakers).
Dialects
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 Soviet Union annexed the eastern Polish lands in 1939.
The inhabitants of different regions of Poland speak "Standard" Polish somewhat differently, although the differences between these broad "dialects" appear slight. First-language speakers of Polish never experience any difficulty in mutual understanding, and non-native speakers can generally not easily distinguish regional variations. 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 relate to:
- 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).
- Silesian, spoken in the southwest (controversy)
Some more characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include:
- The distinctive Podhale dialect (Góralski) occurs in the mountainous areas bordering the Czech and Slovak Republics. The Górale (highlanders) take great pride in their culture and the dialect. It exhibits some cultural influences from the Vlach shepherds who migrated from Wallachia (southern Romania) in the 14th-17th centuries. 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. Most urban Poles find it difficult to understand this very distinct dialect.
- In the western and northern regions where Poles from the territories annexed by the Soviet Union resettled, the older generation speaks a dialect of Polish characteristic of the Eastern Borderlands which resembles Russian — especially in the "longer" pronunciation of vowels.
- The Kashubian language, spoken in the Pomorze region west of Gdansk on the Baltic Sea, a language closely related to Polish, has seemed like a dialect to some observers. However, it exhibits sufficient significant differences 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.
- The Silesian language, spoken in the Silesia region west of Katowice, a language related to Polish, has seemed like a dialect to some observers. However, it exhibits sufficient significant differences to merit its classification as a separate language; for instance, it is not readily understandable to Polish speakers. There are about 60,000 speakers according to the 2002 census.
- Poles living in Lithuania (particularly in the Vilnius region), in Belarus (particularly the northwest), and in the northeast of Poland continue to speak the Eastern Borderlands dialect which sounds "slushed", and is easily distinguishable.
- Some city dwellers, especially the less affluent population, had their own distinctive dialects — for example the Warsaw dialect, still spoken by some of the population of Praga on the eastern bank of the Vistula. (Praga remained the only part of Warsaw where the population survived World War II relatively intact.) However, these city dialects are mostly extinct due to assimilation with standard Polish.
- Many Poles living in emigrant communities (for example in the USA) whose families left Poland just after World War II, retain a number of minor features of Polish vocabulary as spoken in the first half of the 20th century, but which now sound archaic to contemporary visitors from Poland.
Phonology
Polish has a relatively simple vowel-system, with only six oral and two nasal vowels. The Polish consonant system shows more complexity: its characteristic features include 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.
Orthography
The Polish alphabet derives from the Latin alphabet but uses diacritics, such as kreska (graphically similar to the acute accent), kropka (superior dot) and ogonek ("little tail"). Unlike other Latin-character Slavic languages (apart from Kashubian), Polish did not adopt a version of the Czech orthography, but developed one independently.
Upper
case | HTML
code | Lower
case | HTML
code | Name of the letter | Usual
phonetic value | Other
phonetic values |
|---|
| A | | a | | a | | | | A | Ą | a | ą | a | | | | B | | b | | be | | | | C | | c | | ce | | | | C | Ć | c | ć | ci | | | | D | | d | | de | | | | E | | e | | e | | | | E | Ę | e | ę | e | | | | F | | f | | ef | | | | G | | g | | gie | | | | H | | h | | ha | | | | I | | i | | i | | | | J | | j | | jot | | | | K | | k | | ka | | | | L | | l | | el | | | | L | Ł | l | ł | el | | | | M | | m | | em | | | | N | | n | | en | | | | N | Ń | n | ń | en | | | | O | | o | | o | | | | Ó | Ó | ó | ó | ó kreskowane | | | | P | | p | | pe | | | | R | | r | | er | | | | S | | s | | es | | | | S | Ś | s | ś | es | | | | T | | t | | te | | | | U | | u | | u or u otwarte | | | | W | | w | | wu | | | | Y | | y | | igrek | | | | Z | | z | | zet | | | | Z | Ź | z | ź | ziet | | | | Z | Ż | z | ż | zet | | | |
Note the laminal postalveolars , , , , perhaps most accurately transcribed using the IPA retracted diacritic as , , , respectively. Also note that Polish n (transcribed here as ) is not palatal, having the same place of articulation as and . However, as the IPA does not have a symbol for a nasal alveolo-palatal consonant, a more accurate representation would be or the obselete .
The letters Q (ku), V (fau) and X (iks) do not belong to the Polish alphabet, but they occur in some commercial names and in some foreign words. Some letters, such as those listed are used but not that often. In Polish pronunciation there is no need for them. They are replaced with K, W and KS/GZ respectively. Some letters, like Y and W are pronounced differently.
Polish orthography also includes seven digraphs:
| Capitalized | HTML
code | Lower
case | HTML
code | Usual
phonetic value | Other
phonetic values |
|---|
| Ch | | ch | | | | | Cz | | cz | | | | | Dz | | dz | | | | | Dz | DŹ | dz | dź | | | | Dz | DŻ | dz | dż | | | | Rz | | rz | | | | | Sz | | sz | | | | |
Note that although the Polish orthography mostly follows phonetic-morphological lines, some sounds may appear in more than one written form:
as either h or ch
as either z or rz (though rz denotes a cluster)
as either u or ó
- soft consonants are spelt either c, dz, n, s, z, or ci, dzi, ni, si, zi (c, n etc. are spelt before a consonant or at the end of a word, whereas ci, ni etc. are used before vowels a, a, e, e, o, u; c, dz, n, s, z alone are used before i.)
The two consonants rz very occasionally reflect the sounds "r z", not , as in words "zamarzac" (to get frozen), "marznac" (to feel cold) or in the name "Tarzan".
The pronunciation of geminates (doubled consonants) in Polish always sounds distinct from single consonants. Note that they should not be pronounced in a prolonged manner, as in Finnish and Italian, but it happens often in informal conversations. In correct pronunciation, speakers should articulate and release each of the two consonants separately. The prolongation is therefore rather a repetition of the consonant. For example, the word panna (young lady/maiden) is not read the same way as pana (mr.'s/master's), but 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), dzdzownica (earth-worm), ssak (mammal), wwóz (importation), zstapic (to descend; to step down), and zza (from behind; from beyond) but never appear at the end of a word of Slavic origin.
Grammar
Nouns and adjectives
A highly inflected language, Polish retains the Old Slavic case-system with seven cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives:
- nominative (mianownik)
- genitive (dopelniacz)
- dative (celownik)
- accusative (biernik)
- instrumental (narzednik)
- locative (miejscownik)
- vocative (wolacz)
Modern Polish has only two number classes: singular and plural. In the past there was also a dual number, which applied to only to pairs. This form, however, vanished around 15th Century and now is present only in few traces. For instance, the proverb "Madrej glowie dosc dwie slowie" (Two words are enough for a clever head) may seem to be not grammatically correct ("Madrej glowie dosc dwa slowa"), but it is a relict of dual number.
Like many other Slavic languages, including Russian, Polish uses no definite or indefinite articles.
The Polish gender system, like that of Russian and of almost all the other Balto-Slavic languages, appears 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.
| Gender | Nominative singular | Accusative singular | Nominative plural | Meaning |
|---|
| Adjective | Noun | Adjective | Noun | Adjective | Noun |
|---|
| Personal masculine | nowy | student | nowego | studenta | nowi | studenci | "new student(s)" | | Animate masculine | nowy | pies | nowego | psa | nowe | psy | "new dog(s)" | | Inanimate masculine | nowy | stól | nowy | stól | nowe | stoly | "new table(s)" | | Feminine | nowa | szafa | nowa | szafe | nowe | szafy | "new wardrobe(s)" | | Neuter | nowe | krzeslo | nowe | krzeslo | nowe | krzesla | "new chair(s)" |
The gender classes display the following inflectional properties (with rare exceptions):
- Personal masculine: accusative = genitive (both singular and plural), distinctive softening ending in the nominative plural
- Animate (non-personal) masculine: nominative singular ending in a consonant (nouns), accusative singular = genitive singular, accusative plural = nominative plural
- Inanimate masculine: nominative singular ending in a consonant (nouns), accusative = nominative (singular and plural)
- Neuter: nominative singular in "-o" or "-e", genitive singular in "-a" (nouns), accusative = nominative (singular and plural)
- Feminine: dative singular = locative singular, accusative plural = nominative plural.
The gender classification of masculine nouns does not always match up with their semantic reference (human, animate, or inanimate). In particular, the class of grammatically animate nouns includes a significant number of nouns referring to inanimate entities (e.g. zloty "zloty", cukierek "candy", papieros "cigarette") as well as nouns used figuratively to refer to people (geniusz "genius", oryginal "original"). In the plural, personal masculine forms are used for referring to groups of males, or mixed groups of males and females.
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:
| Gender of antecedent | Singular | Plural |
|---|
| Personal masculine | on | oni | | Animate masculine | one | | Inanimate masculine | | Feminine | ona | | Neuter | ono |
Verbs
Polish inflects verbs 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
Aspect, a grammatical category of the verb, affects almost all Polish verbs in their two aspects, in each tense:
- imperfective (often translated as a progressive tense in English with -ing, for example 'was going', 'is going', "will be going")
- perfective (often translated as a simple tense in English, for example 'went', 'go' 'will go').
The tenses include:
| construction | (for perfective verbs) | (for imperfective verbs) | example imperfective | example perfective |
|---|
| verb+c | infinitive | infinitive | robic | zrobic | | verb+suffix | future simple tense | present tense | robicie | zrobicie | | past participle+suffix | past perfective tense | past imperfective tense | robiliscie | zrobiliscie | | (this suffix can be moved) | | coscie robili / co robiliscie | coscie zrobili / co zrobiliscie |
Movable suffixes (those of the past tenses) usually attach to the verb or to the most accented word of a sentence, like question preposition.
The fifth Polish tense, the future imperfective, expressed in analytic form, consists of the simple future form of the auxiliary verb byc ‘to be’ (bede, bedziesz...), and either infinitive or past participle (imperfective). The choice between bedziecie robic and bedziecie robili is free, and both forms have the same meaning.
Sometimes the sentence may be emphasised with a particle -ze- (-z).
So what have you done? can be:
- Co zrobiliscie?
- Coscie zrobili?
- Co zescie zrobili? (although this form is considered regional and/or incorrect by some)
(It is also well worth noticing that the two latter forms - "coscie zrobili?" and "co zescie zrobili?" often carry a negative emotional load, a possible translation of these examples being "what (the hell) have you done!?" The third form, using "zescie", would be even stronger - fitting for situations involving desperation, etc. (and indeed being a little archaic or regional))
All the above examples show inflected forms of the verb "zrobic" 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 past participle depends on number and gender, so the third person, past perfect tense, can be:
- - singular
- zrobil (he made/did)
- zrobila (she made/did)
- zrobilo (it made/did)
- - plural
- zrobili (they made/did )
- zrobily (they made/did )
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.
These sentences mean more or less the same ("Alice has a cat"), but different shades of meaning are emphasized by selecting different word orders.
- Alicja ma kota - standard order
- Alicja kota ma - emphasis on "ma" = "has" - it could be said in response to a statement saying that the relation is opposite, like "- Alicja nie ma kota. - Ale ona kota ma!" ("- Alice doesn't have a cat. - But she has!")
- Kota ma Alicja - emphasis on "Alicja" - "It is Alice, who has the cat."
- Ma Alicja kota - rarely useful and often awkward, but still correct. Precise meaning is context- and pronounciation dependant.
- Kota Alicja ma - similar to the word order above
- Ma kota Alicja - similar to the word order above
Note that each word order could carry a slightly different meaning, which might be really hard to get ahold of for a non-native speaker. There are no rules governing this, and even the emphases listed above could be easily changed with proper pronounciation.
Sometimes 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 Alicja ma kota?" (as in "Yes, she does")
- Alicja - answer for "Kto ma kota?" (as in "Alice does")
- Kota - answer for "Co ma Alicja?" (as in "The cat")
- Alicja 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". (See also tag question.) The particle is not obligatory, and sometimes rising intonation is the only signal of the interrogative character of the sentence: "Alicja 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 "Alicja" 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 "byc" (to be) in the present tense:
- Ja jestem - I am
- Ty jestes - You are (familiar singular)
- On/ona/ono jest - He/she/it is
- My jestesmy - We are
- Wy jestescie - You are (plural)
- Oni/one sa - They are (masculine/feminine)
- Pan/Pani jest - You are (masculine/feminine, singular, polite)
- Panstwo sa - You are (plural, both sexes together, polite)
- Panowie sa - You are (plural, masculine, polite)
- Panie sa - You are (plural, feminine, polite)
Conjugation of "byc" (to be) in the past tense:
- Ja bylem/bylam - I (masculine/femine) was
- Ty byles/bylas - You (masculine/feminine) were
- On byl/ona byla/ono bylo - He/she/it was
- My bylismy/bylysmy - We (masculine/feminine) were
- Wy byliscie/bylyscie - You (masculine/feminine) were (plural)
- Oni byli/one byly - They (masculine/femenine) were
- Pan/Pani byl/byla - You were (masculine/feminine, singular, polite)
- Panstwo byli - You were (plural, both sexes together, polite)
- Panowie byli - You were (plural, masculine, polite)
- Panie byly - You were (plural, feminine, polite)
Past tense for verbs is usually made this way, by replacing the infinitive final "-c" with "-l(+V)".
Conjugation of "byc" (to be) in the future tense:
- Ja bede - I (masculine/femine) will be
- Ty bedziesz - You (masculine/feminine) will be
- On/ona/ono bedzie - He/she/it will be
- My bedziemy - We (masculine/feminine) will be
- Wy bedziecie - You (masculine/feminine) will be (plural)
- Oni/one beda - They (masculine/femenine) will be
- Pan/Pani bedzie - You will be (masculine/feminine, singular, polite)
- Panstwo beda - You will be (plural, both sexes together, polite)
- Panowie beda - You will be (plural, masculine, polite)
- Panie beda - You will be (plural, feminine, polite)
Conjugation of "isc" ("to go, walk" in the present tense):
- Ja ide – 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 ida – They are going ("oni" masculine personal, "one" feminine, neuter, masculine animate or masculine inanimate)
- Pan/Pani idzie - You are going (masculine/feminine, singular, polite)
- Panstwo ida - You are going (plural, both sexes together, polite)
- Panowie ida - You are going (plural, masculine, polite)
- Panie ida - You are going (plural, feminine, polite)
Conjugation of "isc" ("to go, walk" in the past imperfect tense):
- Ja szedlem - (masculine) - Ja szlam (feminine) - I was going
- Ty szedles - (masculine) - Ty szlas (feminine) - you were going
- On szedl - (masculine) - Ona szla (feminine) - Ono szlo (neutral) - He/she/it was going
- Pan szedl - (masculine) - Pani szla (feminine) - You were going (polite)
- My szlismy (inf mysmy szli) - (masculine, masculine + feminine, masculine + neutral)- We were going
- My szlysmy (inf, mysmy szly) - (feminine + feminine) - We were going
- Wy szliscie (inf. wyscie szli) - (masculine, masculine + feminine, masculine + neutral)- You were going
- Wy szlyscie (inf. wyscie szly) - (feminine + feminine) - You were going
- Oni szli - (masculine, masculine + feminine, masculine + neutral)- They were going
- One szly - (feminine + feminine) - They were going
- Panstwo szli - (masculine, masculine + feminine, masculine + neutral)- You were going (polite)
- Panie szly - (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:
- Ide (= I am going)
- Idziesz (= You are going)
- Idzie (= She/He/It is going)
- Idziemy (= We are going)
- Idziecie (= You are going)
- Ida (= They are going)
Borrowed words
Polish has, over the centuries, borrowed a number of words from other languages. Usually, borrowed words have been adapted rapidly in the following ways:
- Spelling was altered to approximate the pronunciation, but 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), korupcja (corruption) etc. Slang sometimes borrows and alters common English words, e.g. luknac (to look). 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.
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 medieval times.
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), abazur (abat-jour, lamp shade), rekin (requin, shark), meble (meuble, furniture), bagaz (bagage, luggage), walizka (valise, suitcase), fotel (fauteuil, armchair), plaza (plage, beach) and koszmar (cauchemar, nightmare). Some place names have also been adapted from French, such as the two Warsaw boroughs of Zoliborz (joli bord=beautiful riverside) and Mokotów (mon coteau=my hill), as well as the town of Zyrardów (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, hanba 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), pomarancza 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, such as: jar (deep valley), szaszlyk (shish kebab), filizanka (cup), arbuz (water melon), dywan (carpet), kielbasa (sausage) , etc.
The mountain dialects of the Górale in southern Poland, have quite a number of words borrowed from Hungarian (e.g. baca, gazda, juhas, hejnal) and Romanian from historical contacts with Hungarian-dominated Slovakia and Wallachian herders who travelled north along the Carpathians.
Thieves' slang includes such words as kimac (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.
Borrowings from Polish
The Polish language has influenced others. Particular influences show in German and in other Slavic languages — due to their proximity and shared borders. Examples of loanwords include German Grenze (border) from Polish granica, Peitzker from piskorz (weatherfish). Quite a few culinary loanwords exist in German and in other languages, some of which describe distinctive features of Polish cuisine. These include German Quark from twaróg (cottage cheese) and Gurke from ogórek (cucumber). The word pierogi (a plural noun in Polish) has spread internationally, as have paczki and ogonek ("little tail") — the word describing a diacritic hook-sign added below some letters in various alphabets.
Brief vocabulary
Personal pronouns
| Singular | Plural |
|---|
| ja - I | my - we | | ty - you | wy - you (Plural) | on - he
ona - she
ono - it | oni - they (group of people, including at least one male)
one - they (group of female persons or group not involving persons) |
Numerals
| jeden - one | dwa - two | | trzy - three | cztery - four | | piec - five | szesc - six | | siedem - seven | osiem - eight | | dziewiec - nine | dziesiec - ten | | jedenascie - eleven | dwanascie - twelve | | trzynascie - thirteen | czternascie - fourteen | | pietnascie - fifteen | szesnascie - sixteen | | siedemnascie - seventeen | osiemnascie - eighteen | | dziewietnascie - nineteen | dwadziescia - twenty | | dwadziescia jeden - twenty-one | dwadziescia dziewiec - twenty-nine |
| | trzydziesci - thirty | czterdziesci - forty | | piecdziesiat - fifty | szescdziesiat - sixty | | siedemdziesiat - seventy | osiemdziesiat - eighty | | dziewiecdziesiat - ninety | sto - one hundred | | piecset - five hundred | tysiac - one thousand | | milion - one million | miliard - one billion |
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Chronology
(Note the use of lower case)
| czas | time | | sekunda | second | | minuta | minute | | godzina | hour | | dzien | day | | doba | 24 hours | | tydzien | week | | dwa tygodnie | fortnight (two weeks) | | miesiac | month | | rok | year | | dziesieciolecie or dekada | decade | | wiek or stulecie | a century | | tysiaclecie | a millennium | | styczen | January | | luty | February | | marzec | March | | kwiecien | April | | maj | May | | czerwiec | June | | lipiec | July | | sierpien | August | | wrzesien | September | | pazdziernik | October | | listopad | November | | grudzien | December |
Weather
| bardzo zimno | very cold | | deszczowo | rainy | | slonecznie | sunny | | mokro | wet | | pochmurno | cloudy | | wietrznie | windy | | sucho | dry | | goraco | hot | | duszno | muggy | | zar leje sie z nieba | it's boiling hot |
Seasons
| wiosna | Spring | | lato | Summer | | jesien | Autumn | | zima | Winter |
Locations
| dom | house/home | | lotnisko | airport | | dworzec kolejowy | train station | | dworzec autobusowy | bus station | | sklep | shop/store | | zamek | castle | | plaza | beach | | miasto | city/town | | wies | village, country-side | | kino | cinema/movie theater | | kosciól | church | | rynek | market square | | wiezienie | prison/jail | | poczta | post office | | szkola | school | | cmentarz | cemetery | | ulica | street |
See also
External links
Dictionaries
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