|
Polish Language
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
We offer profesional translation services from/to
Polish language. Please
contact us for more details
|