The Polish language

Presented now are some interesting facts about the Polish language, rich in history and complex in its specificity.

The Polish language (j?zyk polski, or polszczyzna) belongs to the group of West Slavic languages. This group also includes: Czech, Slovak, Kashubian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian and extinct Polabian.

The Polish language is one of the official languages of the European Union. It is the mother tongue for around 44 million people worldwide.

The first Polish sentences, the so-called “Polish voices”, were noted in literature recorded in Latin. The oldest sentence in Polish, “Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai”, was recorded in 1270 in Wroc?aw on page 24 of the Book of Henryków. In the years 1455-in the Annals (Kroniki), or the chronicles of the famous Kingdom of Poland recorded by Jan D?ugosz, the so-called Legnica sentences were quoted: “Byegaycze, byegaycze! (...) Gorze sz? nam stalo!”. They are said to originate from the lost Chronicle of Wincenty from Kielcza, written soon after 1260.

Polish is a difficult language and challenging to learn, so the list of linguistic mistakes made by some is long. This is why it is worth studying the following examples:

w??cza?/w?ancza? (switch on) – the correct form is w??cza?, as well as pod??cza? (connect), za??cza? (switch on/attach), wy??cza? (switch off), od??cza? (disconnect);

wzi??/wzi??? (take) – wzi??, not wzi???;

obejrze?/ogl?dn?? (watch/view) – the general Polish form of this word is obejrze?;

pomarańcza/pomarańcz (orange (fruit)) – pomarańcza is feminine so it is written and spoken as pomarańcza, not pomarańcz;

posz?em/poszed?em (I went) – the form poszed?em is the only true conjugation of the verb pój?? in the singular, masculine, past tense;

pizzeria/pizzernia (pizzeria) – Polish has such words as kawiarnia (café), piekarnia (bakery) and lodziarnia (ice-cream parlour), however in the case of words of foreign origin we have to stick to the original spelling and pronunciation, so pizzeria, not pizzernia;

spada? w dó?/cofa? si? do ty?u (fall down/reverse back) – you can only fall down, and you can only reverse back, therefore correct forms are spada? (fall) and cofa? si? (reverse), without any additions;

t? ksi??k?/t? ksi??k? (this book) – the correct form is t? ksi??k? (this book), t? fili?ank? (this cup) and t? kurtk? (this jacket). However, the form t? is permitted more and more often in the spoken language, i.e. the so-called casual language;

w ka?dym razie/w ka?dym b?d? razie (anyway) – we say ka?dym razie or b?d? co b?d?. The combination of both these phrases as “w ka?dym b?d? razie” is incorrect;

dates and numerals – should it be czwarty grudzień (fourth December) or czwarty grudnia (fourth of December)? Rok dwutysi?czny siedemnasty (the year two thousand seventeen)? Months are inflected, so the correct form is czwarty grudnia, and the year is dwa tysi?ce siedemnasty (2017), although it is different with the year 2000 – dwutysi?czny .

Source: www.polskieradio.pl, pl.wikipedia.org