Polish orthography

Polish orthography is the system of writing the Polish language. The language is written using the Polish alphabet, which derives from the Latin alphabet, but includes some additional letters with diacritics. The orthography is mostly phonetic, or rather phonemic—the written letters (or combinations of them) correspond in a consistent manner to the sounds, or rather the phonemes, of spoken Polish. For detailed information about the system of phonemes, see Polish phonology.

Polish alphabet

The diacritics used in the Polish alphabet are the ''kreska'' (graphically similar to the acute accent) in the letters ''ć, ń, ó, ś, ź''; the ''kreska ukośna'' ( stroke) in the letter ''ł''; the ''kropka'' (overdot) in the letter ''ż''; and the '' ogonek'' ("little tail") in the letters ''ą, ę''. There are 32 letters (or 35 letters, if the foreign letters ''q, v, x'' are included) in the Polish alphabet: 9 vowels and 23 or 26 consonants.

The letters ''q'' (named ''ku''), ''v'' (named ''fau'' or rarely ''we''), and ''x'' (named ''iks'') are used in some foreign words and commercial names. In loanwords they are often replaced by ''kw'', ''w'', and (''ks'' or ''gz''), respectively (as in ''kwarc'' "quartz", ''weranda'' "veranda", ''ekstra'' "extra", ''egzosfera'', "exosphere").

When giving the spelling of words, certain letters may be said in more emphatic ways to distinguish them from other identically pronounced characters. For example, H may be referred to as ''samo h'' ("h alone") to distinguish it from CH ''(ce ha)''. The letter Ż may be called "''żet'' (or ''zet'') ''z kropką''" ("Ż with a dot") to distinguish it from RZ ''(er zet)''. The letter U may be called ''u otwarte'' ("open u", a reference to its graphical form) or ''u zwykłe'' ("regular u"), to distinguish it from Ó, which is sometimes called ''ó zamknięte'' ("closed ó"), ''ó kreskowane'' or ''ó z kreską'' ("ó with a stroke accent"), alternatively ''o kreskowane'' or ''o z kreską'' ("o with a stroke accent"). The letter ''ó'' is a relic from hundreds of years ago when there was a length distinction in Polish similar to that in Czech, with ''á'' and ''é'' also being common at the time. Subsequently, the length distinction disappeared and ''á'' and ''é'' were abolished, but ''ó'' came to be pronounced the same as ''u''.

Note that Polish letters with diacritics are treated as fully independent letters in alphabetical ordering (unlike in languages such as French, Spanish, and German). For example, ''być'' comes after ''bycie''. The diacritic letters also have their own sections in dictionaries (words beginning with ''ć'' are not usually listed under ''c''). However, there are no regular words that begin with ''ą'' or ''ń''.

Digraphs

Polish additionally uses the digraphs ch, cz, dz, dź, dż, rz, and sz. Combinations of certain consonants with the letter ''i'' before a vowel can be considered digraphs: ci as a positional variant of ć, si as a positional variant of ś, zi as a positional variant of ź, and ni as a positional variant of ń (but see a special remark on ni below); and there is also one trigraph dzi as a positional variant of dź. These are not given any special treatment in alphabetical ordering. For example, ''ch'' is treated simply as ''c'' followed by ''h'', and not as a single letter as in Czech or Slovak (e.g. ''Chojnice'' only has its first letter capitalised, and is sorted after '' Canki'' and before ''Cieszyn'').

Spelling rules

See below for rules regarding spelling of alveolo-palatal consonants.

H may be glottal in a small number of dialects.

Rarely, is not a digraph and represents two separate sounds:
* in various forms of the verb ''zamarzać'' – "to freeze"
* in various forms of the verb ''mierzić'' – "to disgust"
* in the place name Murzasichle
* in borrowings, for example ''erzac'' (from German ''Ersatz''), ''Tarzan''

Voicing and devoicing

Voiced consonant letters frequently come to represent voiceless sounds (as shown in the above tables). This is due to the neutralization that occurs at the end of words and in certain consonant clusters; for example, the in ''klub'' ("club") is pronounced like a , and the in ''prze-'' sounds like . Less frequently, voiceless consonant letters can represent voiced sounds; for example, the in ''także'' ("also") is pronounced like a . The conditions for this neutralization are described under ''Voicing and devoicing'' in the article on Polish phonology.

Palatal and palatalized consonants

The spelling rule for the alveolo-palatal sounds , , , and is as follows: before the vowel the plain letters are used; before other vowels the combinations are used; when not followed by a vowel the diacritic forms are used. For example, the in ''siwy'' ("grey-haired"), the in ''siarka'' ("sulphur") and the in ''święty'' ("holy") all represent the sound .

Special attention should be paid to before plus a vowel. In words of foreign origin the causes the palatalization of the preceding consonant to , and it is pronounced as . This situation occurs when the corresponding genitive form ends in ''-nii'', pronounced as , not with ''-ni'', pronounced as (which is a situation typical to the words of Polish origin). For examples, see the table in the next section.

According to one system, similar principles apply to the palatalized consonants , and , except that these can only occur before vowels. The spellings are thus before , and otherwise. For example, the in ''kim'' ("whom", instr.) and the in ''kiedy'' both represent . In the system without the palatalized velars, they are analyzed as /k/, /ɡ/ and /x/ before /i/ and /kj/, /ɡj/ and /xj/ before other vowels.

Other issues with ''i'' and ''j''

Except in the cases mentioned in the previous paragraph, the letter if followed by another vowel in the same word usually represents , but it also has the palatalizing effect on the previous consonant. For example, ''pies'' ("dog") is pronounced (). Some words with before plus a vowel also follow this pattern (see below).
In fact ''i'' is the usual spelling of between a preceding consonant and a following vowel. The letter normally appears in this position only after , and if the palatalization effect described above has to be avoided (as in ''presja'' "pressure", ''Azja'' "Asia", ''lekcja'' "lesson", and the common suffixes ''-cja'' "-tion", ''-zja'' "-sion": ''stacja'' "station", ''wizja'' "vision"). The letter after consonants is also used in concatenation of two words if the second word in the pair starts with , e.g. ''wjazd'' "entrance" originates from ''w'' + . The pronunciation of the sequence ''wja'' (in ''wjazd'') is the same as the pronunciation of ''wia'' (in ''wiadro'' "bucket").

The ending ''-ii'' which appears in the inflected forms of some nouns of foreign origin, which have ''-ia'' in the nominative case (always after , , , and ; sometimes after , , and other consonants), is pronounced as , with the palatalization of the preceding consonant. For example, ''dalii'' (genitive of ''dalia'' "dalia"), ''Bułgarii'' (genitive of ''Bułgaria'' "Bulgaria"), ''chemii'' (genitive of ''chemia'' "chemistry"), ''religii'' (genitive of ''religia'' "religion"), ''amfibii'' (genitive of ''amfibia'' "amphibia"). The common pronunciation is . This is why children commonly misspell and write ''-i'' in the inflected forms as ''armii'', ''Danii'' or hypercorrectly write ''ziemii'' instead of ''ziemi'' (words of Polish origin do not have the ending ''-ii'' but simple ''-i'', e.g. ''ziemi'', genitive of ''ziemia'').

In some rare cases, however, when the consonant is preceded by another consonant, ''-ii'' may be pronounced as , but the preceding consonant is still palatalized, for example, ''Anglii'' (genitive of ''Anglia'' "England") is pronounced . (The spelling ''Angli'', very frequently met with on the Internet, is simply an error in orthography, caused by this pronunciation.)

A special situation applies to : it has the full palatalization to before ''-ii'' which is pronounced as – and such a situation occurs only when the corresponding nominative form in ''-nia'' is pronounced as , not as .

For example (pay attention to the upper- and lower-case letters):

The ending ''-ji'', is always pronounced as . It appears only after ''c'', ''s'' and ''z''. Pronunciation of it as a simple is considered a pronunciation error. For example, (genitive of "pressure") is ; (genitive of "poetry") is ; (genitive of "reason") is .

Nasal vowels

The letters and , when followed by plosives and affricates, represent an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant, rather than a nasal vowel. For example, in ''dąb'' ("oak") is pronounced , and in ''tęcza'' ("rainbow") is pronounced (the nasal assimilates with the following consonant). When followed by or , and in the case of , always at the end of words, these letters are pronounced as just or .

Homophonic spellings

Apart from the cases in the sections above, there are three sounds in Polish that can be spelt in two different ways, depending on the word. Those result from historical sound changes. The correct spelling can often be deduced from the spelling of other morphological forms of the word or cognates in Polish or in other Slavic languages.
* can be spelt either or .
** only occurs in loanwords; however, many of them have been nativized and are not perceived as loanwords. is used:
*** when cognate words have the letter , or , e.g.:
***: ''wahadło – waga''
***: ''druh – drużyna''
***: ''błahy – błazen''
*** when the same letter is used in the language from which the word was borrowed, e.g. Greek prefixes ''hekto-, hetero-, homo-, hipo-, hiper-, hydro-'', also ''honor, historia, herbata'', etc.
** is used:
*** in all native words, e.g. ''chyba, chrust, chrapać, chować, chcieć''
*** when the same digraph is used in the language from which the word was borrowed, e.g. ''chór, echo, charakter, chronologia'', etc.
* can be spelt or ; the spelling indicates that the sound developed from the historical long /oː/.
** is used:
*** usually at the beginning of a word (except for ''ósemka, ósmy, ów, ówczesny, ówdzie'')
*** always at the end of a word
*** in the endings ''-uch, -ucha, -uchna, -uchny, -uga, -ula, -ulec, -ulek, -uleńka, -ulka, -ulo, -un, -unek, -uni, -unia, -unio, -ur, -us, -usi, -usieńki, -usia, -uszek, -uszka, -uszko, -uś, -utki''
** is used:
*** when cognate words or other morphological forms have the letter , or , e.g.:
***: ''mróz – mrozu''
***: ''wiózł – wieźć''
***: ''skrócić – skracać''
*** in the endings ''-ów, -ówka, -ówna'' (except for ''zasuwka, skuwka, wsuwka'')
* can be spelt either or ; the spelling indicates that the sound developed from /r̝/ (cf. Czech ).
** is used:
*** when cognate words or other morphological forms have the letter/digraph , , , , , , e.g.:
***: ''może – mogę''
***: ''mosiężny – mosiądz''
***: ''drużyna – druh''
***: ''każe – kazać''
***: ''wożę – woźnica''
***: ''bliżej – blisko''
*** in the particle ''że'', e.g. ''skądże, tenże, także''
*** after , , , e.g.:
***: ''lżej''
***: ''łże''
***: ''rżysko''
*** in loanwords, especially from French, e.g.:
***: ''rewanż''
***: ''żakiet''
***: ''garaż''
*** when cognates in other Slavic languages contain the sound or , e.g. ''żuraw'' – Russian журавль
** is used:
*** when cognate words or other morphological forms have the letter , e.g. ''morze – morski, karze – kara''
*** usually after , , , , , , , , , e.g.:
***: ''przygoda''
***: ''brzeg''
***: ''trzy''
***: ''drzewo''
***: ''krzywy''
***: ''grzywa''
***: ''chrzest''
***: ''ujrzeć''
***: ''wrzeć''
*** when cognates in other Slavic languages contain the sound or , e.g. ''rzeka'' – Russian река

Other points

The letter represents in the digraphs and in loanwords, for example ''autor, Europa''; but not in native words, like ''nauka'', pronounced .

There are certain clusters where a written consonant would not normally be pronounced. For example, the in the words ''mógł'' ("could") and ''jabłko'' ("apple") is omitted in ordinary speech.

Capitalization

Names are generally capitalized in Polish as in English. Polish does not capitalize the months and days of the week, nor adjectives and other forms derived from proper nouns (for example, ''angielski'' "English").

Titles such as ''pan'' ("Mr"), ''pani'' ("Mrs/Ms"), ''lekarz'' ("doctor"), etc. and their abbreviations are not capitalized, except in written polite address. Second-person pronouns are traditionally capitalized in formal writing (e.g. letters or official emails); so may be other words used to refer to someone directly in a formal setting, like ''Czytelnik'' ("reader", in newspapers or books). Third-person pronouns are capitalized to show reverence, most often in a sacred context.

Punctuation

Polish punctuation is similar to that of English. However, there are more rigid rules concerning use of commas— subordinate clauses are almost always marked off with a comma, while it is normally considered incorrect to use a comma before a coordinating conjunction with the meaning "and" (''i'', ''a'' or ''oraz'').

Abbreviations (but not acronyms or initialisms) are followed by a period when they end with a letter other than the one which ends the full word. For example, ''dr'' has no period when it stands for ''doktor'', but takes one when it stands for an inflected form such as ''doktora'' and ''prof.'' has period because it comes from ''profesor'' (professor).

Apostrophes are used to mark the elision of the final sound of foreign words not pronounced before Polish inflectional endings, as in ''Harry'ego'' (, genitive of ''Harry'' – the final is elided in the genitive). However, it is often erroneously used to separate a loanword stem from any inflectional ending, for example, ''*John'a'', which should be ''Johna'' (genitive of ''John''; no sound is elided).

Quotation marks are used in different ways: either „ordinary Polish quotes” or «French quotes» (without space) for first level, and ‚single Polish quotes’ or «French quotes» for second level, which gives three styles of nested quotes:
# „Quote ‚inside’ quote”
# „Quote «inside» quote”
# «Quote ‚inside’ quote»
Some older prints have used „such Polish quotes“.

History

Poles adopted the Latin alphabet in the 12th century. However, that alphabet was ill-equipped to represent certain Polish sounds, such as the palatal consonants and nasal vowels. Consequently, Polish spelling in the Middle Ages was highly inconsistent, as different writers used different systems to represent these sounds, For example, in early documents the letter ''c'' could signify the sounds now written ''c, cz, k'', while the letter ''z'' was used for the sounds now written ''z, ż, ś, ź''. Writers soon began to experiment with digraphs (combinations of letters), new letters (φ and ſ, no longer used), and eventually diacritics.

The Polish alphabet was one of two major forms of Latin-based orthography developed for Slavic languages, the other being Czech orthography, characterized by carons (háčeks), as in the letter ''č''. The other major Slavic languages which are now written in Latin-based alphabets ( Slovak, Slovene, and Serbo-Croatian) use systems similar to the Czech. However a Polish-based orthography is used for Kashubian and usually for Silesian, while the Sorbian languages use elements of both systems.

Computer encoding

There are several different systems for encoding the Polish alphabet for computers. All letters of the Polish alphabet are included in Unicode, and thus Unicode-based encodings such as UTF-8 and UTF-16 can be used. The Polish alphabet is completely included in the Basic Multilingual Plane of Unicode. ISO 8859-2 (Latin-2), ISO 8859-13 (Latin-7), ISO 8859-16 (Latin-10) and Windows-1250 are popular 8-bit encodings that support the Polish alphabet.

The Polish letters which are not present in the English alphabet use the following HTML character entities and Unicode codepoints:

For other encodings, see the following table. Numbers in the table are hexadecimal.

A common test sentence containing all the Polish diacritic letters is the nonsensical "''Zażółć gęślą jaźń''".

See also

* Polish Braille
* Polish manual alphabet

Further reading

*

References

External links

Polish Pronunciation Audio and Grammar Charts


Online editor for typing Polish characters

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Orthography
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Indo-European Latin-script orthographies