[an error occurred while processing this directive]Polish is the
official language of
Poland. It belongs to
the family of
Indo-European languages,
and the group of West
Slavic languages
(alongside Czech,
Slovak, Kashubian, Lower
Sorbian, Upper Sorbian
and the now defunct
Polabian language).
Poland is the most
linguistically
homogeneous European
country where nearly 97%
of Poland's citizens
declare Polish as their
native language.
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
five years and over
reported Polish as the
language spoken at home,
which is about 1.4% of
people who speak
languages other than
English, 0.25% of the US
population, and 6% of
the Polish-American
population. The largest
concentrations of Polish
speakers reported in the
census (over 50%) were
found in three states:
Illinois (185,749), New
York (111,740), and New
Jersey (74,663).
According to the 2011
census there are now
over 500,000 people in
England and Wales who
consider Polish to be
their "main" language.
In Canada, there is a
significant Polish
Canadian population:
There are 242,885
speakers of Polish
according to the 2006
census, with a
particular concentration
in Toronto (91,810
speakers) and Montreal.
There are significant
numbers of Polish
speakers among Polish
emigrants and their
descendants in many
other countries around
the world.
It is estimated that an
average Pole has an
active vocabulary of
approximately 30,000
words, and a passive
vocabulary of around
100,000 words which he
or she does not use.
According to the
philologists from the
University of Bialystok,
it is enough to know the
1200 most frequently
used words to
communicate in Polish.
The Polish alphabet is
based on the Latin
alphabet and consists of
32 letters. It includes
seven digraphs (sz, rz,
cz, ch, dz, dż, dź), one
digraph (dzi) and nine
letters formed using
diacritics (ą, ć, ę, ł,
ń, ó, ś, ź, ż):
[ Gray letters are not used in Polish Alphabet ]
Letters from Latin
alphabet:: Q, V i X are
not on the Polish
Alphabet,
because
there is no need for
them in Polish word
formation. They occur
only in words of foreign
origin, ie borrowed
letters.
Once in Polesie the Arabic language was used among the
Tartars to write the
Polish language.
There are seven
grammatical cases and
types of conjugation.
Cases apply to nouns,
adjectives, and
participles in the
function of modifiers,
pronouns substituting
nouns, adjectives and
numerals, as well as
numerals.
The originality of
Polish culture is tied
to its language and to
its Slavonic roots.
Linguistic studies
indicate that 5000 to
4000 years ago early
Balto-Slavic languages
were part of the Aryan
or the Eastern
Indo-European languages.
Over 3500 years ago, the
languages of the Balto-Slavs
separated from the Aryan
languages. Than about
3000 years ago, the
Baltic and Slavic
languages separated from
each other, and for the
next 1500 years, the
Slavic languages evolved
parallel to the Greek,
Latin, Celtic, Germanic,
and other languages. The
evolution of the Polish
language occurred during
the following 1500
years.
The oldest sentence in
the Polish language:
‘Day, ut ia pobrusa, a
ti poziwai’ was written
in 1270 in Wrocław, in
the Book of Henryków.
Fifteen years later, at
the gathering in Łęczyca,
it was decided that the
Polish language will be
used next to Latin in
cloister and cathedral
schools.
The Polish language has
been influenced by
Latin, Greek, German,
Czech, Ruthenian,
Turkish, French,
Italian, Russian,
Hungarian and Yiddish.
Currently, it is most
influenced by the lingua
franca of our times –
the English language.
The main dialects of the
Polish language include:
Greater Polish, Lesser
Polish, Silesian,
Masovian,
Chełm-Kociewie-Warmian
and North- and
South-Eastern
Borderlands’ dialects.
Polish is a highly
inflected language, with
relatively free word
order, although the
dominant arrangement is
subject–verb–object (SVO).
More information about
Polish language you may
find on web site:
www.wikipedia.org
Polish
Language |
Polski Język ...
