Work
Polish language
Overview
Polish (endonym: język polski, [ˈjɛ̃zɘ̟k ˈpɔlskʲi] , polszczyzna [pɔlˈʂt͡ʂɘ̟zna] or simply polski, [ˈpɔlskʲi] ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic subgroup, within the Indo-European language family, and is written in the Latin script. It is primarily spoken in Poland and serves as the official language of the country, as well as the language of the Polish diaspora around the world. In 2024, there were over 39.7 million Polish native speakers. It ranks as the sixth-most-spoken among languages of the European Union. Polish is subdivided into regional dialects. It maintains strict T–V distinction, obligatory honorifics, and other formalities when addressing individuals.
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. The traditional set comprises 23 consonants and nine written vowels, including two nasal vowels (ę, ą) denoted by a reversed diacritic hook called an ogonek. Polish is a synthetic and fusional language which has seven grammatical cases. It has fixed penultimate stress and an abundance of palatal consonants. Contemporary Polish developed in the 1700s as the successor to the medieval Old Polish (10th–16th centuries) and Middle Polish (16th–18th centuries).
Among the major languages, it is most closely related to Slovak and Czech 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 a large number of loanwords and grammatical structures. Extensive usage of nonstandard dialects has also shaped the standard language; many colloquialisms and expressions were directly borrowed from German or Yiddish and subsequently adopted into the vernacular of Polish in everyday use.
Historically, Polish was a lingua franca, 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.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Philosophers who discussed Polish language
- Henri Bergson
- Władysław Tatarkiewicz
- Renaissance
- Jews
- Johann Gottfried Herder
- Jan Łukasiewicz
- Eleonore Stump
- Alfred Tarski
- Alfred Korzybski
- Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz
- Hugo Kołłątaj
- Władysław Witwicki
- Roman Ingarden
- Kathleen Higgins
- Konstanty Michalski
- William Sweet
- Sebastian Petrycy
Related ideas
- French language
- Germany
- German language
- Greek language
- G
- Grammatical gender
- Hungary
- H
- Hungarian language
- Indo-European languages
- Integrated circuit
- Adam Mickiewicz
- Latin
- Latin alphabet
- Middle Ages
- Argentina
- Muslims
- Dutch language
- Russian Empire
- UNESCO
- Arabic alphabet
- Ottoman Empire
- O
- Poland
Place in the tradition
Part of Alphabetical order.