Polish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland, written in the Latin alphabet with a set of diacritics that mark sounds the plain Latin letters do not cover. It preserves a system of nasal vowels and a fixed penultimate stress that most of its Slavic relatives have lost.
Facts
ISO 639-3 Code Speaker CountFigure is for first-language speakers in Poland; a substantial diaspora, chiefly in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, adds several million more heritage speakers of varying fluency not counted here. Attested From (Year) RegionPoland (official); minority communities in Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine; diaspora in Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Australia, United Kingdom, United States 8 Browse and compare
Difficulty for an English Speaker Classification
Language Kind Official Status Connections
Associated With
This source names Latin directly: "language of Poland, written in the Latin alphabet with a set of diacritics that mark sounds the plain Latin letters do not cover."
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
In Family
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Written In
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
In the Other Atlases
Same As
Also in Divinity Atlas: the same subject.
Original Language Of
Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Source Czesław Miłosz (Wikipedia)Lead, language of poetryQuote, Lead, language of poetry
His poetry was primarily written in Polish
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Found In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Sources
1. Glottolog: Polish (Glottolog languoid poli1260)
GlottologEndangerment, AES statusQuote, Endangerment, AES status
AES status: not endangered
2. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2010Official status, Polish entity page
Polish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland, written in the Latin alphabet with a set of diacritics that mark sounds the plain Latin letters do not cover.
- In Family: Slavic
3. WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures): Polish / Order of Subject, Object and Verb (WALS datapoint)
WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures)Datapoint pageQuote, Datapoint page
Feature: Order of Subject, Object and Verb by Matthew S. Dryer Value: SVO
4. WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures): Polish / Tone (WALS datapoint)
WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures)Datapoint pageQuote, Datapoint page
Feature: Tone by Ian Maddieson Value: No tones
5. Effective Language Learning: Language Difficulty Ranking
Effective Language LearningForeign Service Institute categories listQuote, Foreign Service Institute categories list
Category IV: 44 weeks (1100 hours) Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English Albanian Amharic Armenian Azerbaijani Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Burmese Croatian Czech * Estonian * Finnish * Georgian Greek Hebrew Hindi * Hungarian Icelandic Khmer Lao Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian * Mongolian Nepali Pashto Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik) Polish
6. Ethnologue: Languages of the World
SIL International, 2024- ISO 639-3 Code: pl
- Speaker Count: 40,000,000
- Status: Living
View the Source 7. Omniglot: Polish language, alphabet and pronunciation
OmniglotWritten PolishQuote, Written Polish
Polish first appeared in writing in 1136 in the "Gniezno papal bull"
8. Wikipedia: Polish Language
Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Encyclopaedia Britannica
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