The Lechitic (or Lekhitic) languages are a language subgroup consisting of

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

and several other languages and dialects that were once spoken in the area that is now Poland and eastern Germany. It is one of the branches of the larger West Slavic subgroup; the other branches of this subgroup are the Czech–Slovak languages and the Sorbian languages.

Languages

The Lechitic languages are: *

, used by approximately 38 million native speakers in Poland and several million elsewhere. Polish is considered to have several dialects, including Greater Polish,

Lesser Polish Lesser Poland, often known by its Polish name Małopolska ( la, Polonia Minor), is a historical region situated in southern and south-eastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Kraków. Throughout centuries, Lesser Poland developed a s ...

and Masovian, among others; ** Silesian, used today by over 530,000 people (2011 census) in Polish Silesia and by some more in Czech Silesia. The different varieties of Silesian are often considered to be dialects of

and Czech, and are sometimes seen as forming a distinct language; * Pomeranian, spoken by

Slavic Pomeranians The Pomeranians (german: Pomoranen; csb, Pòmòrzónie; pl, Pomorzanie), first mentioned as such in the 10th century, were a West Slavic tribe, which since the 5th to the 6th centuries had settled at the shore of the Baltic Sea between the m ...

, of which the only remaining variety is: **

Kashubian Kashubian can refer to: * Pertaining to Kashubia, a region of north-central Poland * Kashubians, an ethnic group of north-central Poland * Kashubian language See also *Kashubian alphabet The Kashubian or Cassubian alphabet (''kaszëbsczi alf ...

, used today by over 110,000 people (2011 census)Narodowy Spis Powszechny Ludności i Mieszkań 2011. Raport z wyników
–

Central Statistical Office of Poland Statistics Poland (formerly known in English as the Central Statistical Office ( pl, Główny Urząd Statystyczny, popularly called GUS)) is Poland's chief government executive agency charged with collecting and publishing statistics related to th ...

in the eastern part of Pomerania. Sometimes it is considered a dialect of

; * Polabian, extinct since the mid-18th century, a language formerly spoken by Slavic peoples in areas around the Elbe river in what is now the northeast of Germany.

Features

Characteristics of Lechitic languages include: * Change of the so-called liquid dipthong in the TorT group (where T is any consonant) variously into either TroT or TarT (see also: Slavic liquid metathesis and pleophony) * Retention of ''*dz'' as an affricate, rather than a plain fricative ''z'', both when inherited from Proto-Slavic from the result of the second Slavic palatalization, as well as when it came from Proto-Slavic ''*ď''. Compare Polish , Czech and Slovak ("money"). Slovak preserves ''dz'' when coming from PS ''*ď'', but has ''z'' in the former case. * Lack of the ''g'' → ''ɣ'' transition. Compare Polish , Czech ("mountain"). * Preservation of

nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...

s. * Depalatalization of Proto-Slavic *''ě'', *''ę'' into ''a'', ''ǫ'' before hard (palatalization (phonetics), unpalatalized)

dental consonants A dental consonant is a consonant articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , . In some languages, dentals are distinguished from other groups, such as alveolar consonants, in which the tongue contacts the gum ridge. Dental c ...

. This gives rise to alternations such as modern Polish ("summer", nominative) vs. (locative). In Polish this change was later obscured by the merger of ''ę'' and ''ǫ'' into one nasal ''ą'', but it is still visible in

, e.g. ("calf (animal)", genitive; PS *''ę'' before a soft dental) but and ("calves", nominative and genitive; PS *''ę'' before a hard dental). * Depalatalization of (Late) Proto-Slavic

syllabic sonorant A syllabic consonant or vocalic consonant is a consonant that forms a syllable on its own, like the ''m'', ''n'' and ''l'' in some pronunciations of the English words ''rhythm'', ''button'' and ''bottle''. To represent it, the understroke diacrit ...

s *ŕ̥ *ĺ̥ in the same positions as the above change. This is shared with the Sorbian languages. * Vocalization of (Late) Proto-Slavic syllabic sonorants *r̥ *l̥ *ŕ̥ *ĺ̥.

Sample text

The following is the

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...

in several of the Lechitic languages:

Etymology

The term ''Lechitic'' is applied both to the languages of this group and to Slavic peoples speaking these languages (known as Lechites). The term is related to the name of the legendary Polish forefather Lech and the name

Lechia The ethnonyms for the Poles (people) and Poland (their country) include endonyms (the way Polish people refer to themselves and their country) and exonyms (the way other peoples refer to the Poles and their country). Endonyms and most exonyms ...

by which Poland was formerly sometimes known. For more details, see '' Lechites''.

Notes

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