Polish language

Phonetics

Vowels

The Polish vowel system is relatively simple with only six oral and two nasal vowels. All Polish vowels are monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:

Related Topics:
Vowel - Monophthong

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Unlike in other Slavic languages, the Proto-Slavic nasal vowels are preserved in Polish. However, nasality tends to be lost, especially at the end of a word. These vowels are never initial. In script they are marked by a diacritic known as ogonek.

Related Topics:
Proto-Slavic - Nasal vowel - Ogonek

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Before all stops and affricates nasal vowels are now pronounced as vowel + nasal consonant (k?t pronounced as kont, g?ba pronounced as gemba, r?ce pronounced as rentse). At the end of the word nasal 'e' is pronounced as non-nasal 'e' by almost all native speakers. Practically nasal vowels survived in pronunciation only before fricatives and in (nasal ?) at the end of the word.

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Unlike those in French, the nasal vowels in Polish are asynchronous, which means that in fact each nasal vowel is pronounced as an oral vowel followed by a nasal semivowel, or a nasal vowel followed by a nasal semivowel, for example ? {{IPA|}} rather than {{IPA|}}. For the sake of simplicity these asynchronous nasal vowels will be henceforth represented as ordinary (synchronous) nasal vowels.

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The length of a vowel is not phonemic in Polish, which means that how long a vowel is pronounced does not change the meaning of a word. However, this was not the case in Proto-Slavic, which distinguished three vowel lengths - short, normal and long. There were two short vowels - hard (?) and soft (?). Eventually, the short vowels either disappeared or turned into a normal e. In the former case two CV syllables became one CVC syllable. Disappearance of a short soft vowel caused the preceding consonant to become "softened" or palatalized. Example:

Related Topics:
Length - Phonemic - Syllable

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'Day' in nominative: d?n? ? dzie?;

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'Day' in genitive: d?na ? dnia

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Meanwhile, long vowels were shortened to normal and simultaneously became higher - apart from the vowels which were already high - i and u. This vowel shift may be presented like this:

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long a ? normal o

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long e ? normal y or normal i

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long i ? normal i

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long o ? normal ó, pronounced

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long u ? normal u

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Note that the normal u which was once a long o is still distinguished in script as ó.

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Consonants

The Polish consonant system is more complicated and its characteristic features are series of affricates and palatal consonants. Affricates are often marked by digraphs. Palatal consonants (known to Poles as "soft" consonants) are marked either by an acute accent or followed by an i. Like in English, voice is phonemic but aspiration is not.

Related Topics:
Consonant - Affricate - Palatal - Digraphs - Acute accent - Phonemic - Aspiration

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Within this consonant system one can distinguish three series of fricatives and affricates:

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• alveolar, aka "hissing" (ci?g sycz?cy): z s dz c
• postalveolar (retroflex in some varieties) aka "rustling" (ci?g szumi?cy): ? sz d? cz
• alveolo-palatal, aka "hushing" (ci?g cisz?cy): ? ? d? ?

In some Polish dialects, for example Masurian, the consonants of the rustling series are replaced by those of the hissing series.

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All palatal and alveolo-palatal consonants (that is ? ? d? ? ? j) as well as those preceding the vowel i are referred to as "soft" consonants. All the other consonants are "hard".

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Note that Polish distinguishes between affricates and plosive + fricative consonant clusters, for example:

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• czysta {{IPA|}} ('clean' fem.) vs trzysta {{IPA|}} ('three hundred')
• d?em {{IPA|}} ('jam') vs drzemka {{IPA|}} ('nap')

In consonant clusters all consonants are either voiced or voiceless. To put it another way, a consonant cluster may not contain both voiced and voiceless consonants. All the consonants are voiced (if the last consonant is normally voiced) or voiceless (if the last consonant is normally voiceless). This rule does not apply to approximants - a consonant cluster may contain voiced approximants and voiceless consonants. Examples:

Related Topics:
Consonant cluster - Approximant

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• ('boat'), ? (k is normally voiceless)
• ('jackdaw'), ? (k is normally voiceless)
• {{IPA|}} ('also'), ? (? is normally voiced)
• ('as if'), ? (b is normally voiced)
• ('king'), does not change (r is an approximant)
• ('worth'), does not change (r is an approximant)

The consonants w and rz are normally voiced, but if a consonant cluster ends with w or rz and the last but one consonant is normally voiceless, then the whole consonant cluster is voiceless.

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• {{IPA|}} ('bush'), ? (k is normally voiceless)
• {{IPA|}} ('to reproduce'), ? & ? (t is normally voiceless)

The most popular Polish tongue-twister, a fragment of the poem Chrz?szcz by Jan Brzechwa, may serve as yet another example:

Related Topics:
Tongue-twister - Chrz?szcz - Jan Brzechwa

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:

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:{{IPA|}}

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:In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed.

Related Topics:
Szczebrzeszyn - Beetle - Reed

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Stress

In Polish the stress falls generally on the penultimate (last but one) syllable, for example zrobi? ('he did'), zrobili ('they did').

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Exceptions include:

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• verbs in first and second person plural past tense, for example zrobili?my ('we did') - stress on the last but two syllable
• verbs in conditional tense, for example zrobi?bym ('I would do') - stress on the last but two syllable
• verbs in first and second person plural conditional tense, for example zrobiliby?my ('we would do') - stress on the last but three syllable
• some words borrowed from Latin (for example matematyka) can optionally be stressed on the last but two syllable, but this has mostly fallen out of use in last 50 years.