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Languages > Polish
Most Popular Polish Language Product Types
Baby - Kindergarten
My First Bilingual Book of Numbers in Polish & English
Children's Books
Minutka: The Bilingual Dog (Polish-English)
Classroom/Schools
Bilingual Visual Dictionary CD-ROM (English–Polish)
Dictionary
Word to Word Polish / English Dictionary (Paperback)
Handheld Dictionary
English<->French/Polish Electronic Dictionary
Harry Potter
Harry Potter in Polish [5] Harry Potter (i Zakon Feniksa) (Paperback)
Keyboard Stickers
Keyboard Stickers for Polish (White letters for Black Keyboards)
Learn
Talk Now Vocabulary Builder - Polish
Movies/Videos
Bolek & Lolek Go Camping DVD
All Polish language product types


Language Information


Polish is spoken by almost all of the 35 million inhabitants of Poland, by about 700,000 people in the United States, and by smaller groups in the Lithuania, Ukraine, Canada, Brazil, and other countries. It is one of the Slavic languages and thus part of the Indo-European family.

Polish is written in the Roman alphabet, with q, v, and x missing, and with j pronounced y, w pronounced v, and c pronounced ts. However, there are a bewildering number of diacritical marks, including acute accents, dots, hooks, and, in the case of the 1, a bar (l).

***

Polish vocabulary naturally resembles that of the other Slavic languages. Such Polish words as bez (without), most (bridge), cena (price), and zima (winter) are identical in Russian, Czech, Bulgarian, and Serbo-Croatian. But "peace," which is mir in Russian and mír in Czech, in Polish is pokój, while "island" (ostrov in Russian and Czech) in Polish is wyspa. The Polish words for "north," "south," "east," and "west" are respectively pólnoc (which also means "midnight"), poludnie (noon), wschód (rising), and zachód (setting). Some Polish words seem unpronounceable to one who has never studied the language (e.g., przemysl— industry, szescziesiat—sixty, wszeehs'wiat—universe, szczs'liw)—happy; lucky). Equally formidable are the names of the Polish cities Szczecin, Bydgoszcz, and Swietochiowice.

Wiadyslaw Reymont, the Polish novelist and short-story writer, was the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1924.


Polish is spoken/used in the following countries:
Brazil, Canada, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, United States of America.

Language Family
Family: Indo-European
Subgroup: Slavic
Branch: Western


Copyright © Kenneth Katzner, The Languages of the World, Published by Routledge.


Writing Sample


Writing Sample

Translation


Matthew sprang instantly at him, but before he knew what happened Antek pounced upon him like a crazed wolf. With one hand he clutched his collar, stifling both his breath and voice, with the other he grabbed his belt and tore him from his place as one roots out a bush. He kicked open the door, rushed with him beyond the sawmill to the river fence, and hurled him with such fury against the fence that four of the posts snapped like straws, and Matthew fell into the water like a heavy log.

—WLADYSLAW REYMONT, The Peasants


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