Polish Language

Polish (Polska) is a Slavic language spoken by over 70 million people, mainly in Poland and by communities of Poles worldwide (mostly in the United States, Germany, Brazil, Israel and Canada). It is a West Slavic language, most closely related to Czech and Slovak. It is an official language of the European Union.

Polish has several letters and diacritics not present in English. The tables below give an introductory guide to pronunciation and transcription:^[1]

Alphabet[edit]

• Aa = English 'ah'
• Ąą = English 'on'
• Bb = English 'b'
• Cc = English 't'+'s'
• Ćć = English 'ch' soft
• Dd = English 'd'
• Ee = English 'e'
• Ęę = English 'en'
• Ff = English 'f'
• Gg = English 'g' hard
• Hh = English 'h'
• Ii = English 'i'
• Jj = English 'y'
• Kk = English 'k'
• Ll = English 'l'
• Łł = English 'w'
• Mm = English 'm'
• Nn = English 'n'
• Ńń = English 'n'
• Oo = English 'oh'
• Óó = English 'ou'
• Pp = English 'p'
• Rr = English 'r' rolled
• Ss = English 's'
• Śś = English 'sh' soft
• Tt = English 't'
• Uu = English 'oo'
• Ww = English 'v'
• Yy = English 'eh'
• Zz = English 'z'
• Źź = English 'zh' soft
• Żż = English 'zh' harder

Consonant Sounds[edit]

• l~ - same as w in woman
• Z~ - same as s in street
• ch - same as h in happy
• cz - same as ch in church
• dz - same as d followed by z
• dz~ - same as d followed by z~
• rz - same as s in treasure
• sz - same as sh in share

Polish Diacritics[edit]

How Polish diacritics (accented) letters are typically represented in type:

Use of the tilde " ~ " is the accepted practice for typing Polish diacritic letters when a suitable keyboard is not present.

Type | Accent | located | Pronounced "sound"

• A~ a~ | below | nasal,| pronounced "on" (or as "om" when following a B or P, Da~browski = Dombrowski)
• C~ c~ above| |pronounced roughly "ch"
• E~ e~ below| nasal,| generally pronounced "en" (or "em" when following a B or P, [De~bin~ski = Dembin~ski])
• L~ l~ angled | slash | pronounced much like English W
• N~ n~ above | |kind of like "ni" in "onion"
• O~ o~ above | |sounding much like "oo" in "book".
• S~ s~ above | |kind of like "sh" in "sheep"
• Z~ z~ above | |a soft, hissing "zh" sound
• Z* z* dot |above|a chunkier "zh" sound

References[edit]