An Overview of the Polish Language
Polish is a West Slavic language which belongs to the Indo-European language family spoken by approximately 55 million native speakers. It is the official language in Poland and one of the official languages of the European Union and recognised as a minority language in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Slovakia and Ukraine. Polish is considered as one of the most difficult languages in the world, but historically it is known to be the most important language diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe.
The History of Polish
Polish emerged as a distinct language around the 10th century, triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. A constitutional monarchy evolved in 1370-1493 wherein due legal process was established in Poland. Polish became a language civility and was used as the language of diplomacy in east-central Europe as Poland acquired a civilising role between the Baltic and the Black Seas. In 1500-1700, Polish was the lingua franca in some parts of Central and large parts of Eastern Europe and considered the oldest written Slavic language with a continuous tradition of literacy and official use from the 16th century up to this day. In 1795-1918 during the times of the Partitions of Poland, the Austrian, German and Russian administrations tried to suppress Polish identity but they failed and the Poles retained their language intact until now.
Interesting Polish Language Facts:
Polish is said to be one of the most difficult languages in the world. It is hard to pronounce because of its long tongue-twisting consonants.
The first complete sentence in modern Polish spelling dates back to 1270 and was recorded in the Book of Henrykow, which is about a husband saying to his working wife: “Daj, ać ja pobruszę, a ty poczywaj.” which means “You rest, and I will grind.”
Polish has the 2nd largest number of speakers of the Slavic languages after Russian and just ahead of Ukrainian.
The Polish alphabet consists of 32 letters which includes 9 vowels and 23 consonants. Polish language has digraphs CH, CZ, DZ, DŹ, DŻ, RZ, SZ and a trigraph DZI.
Learning Polish
Horse carriages at main square in Krakow in a summer day, Poland
Polish may be a difficult language to learn but knowing how to speak Polish will make you unique and can impress a lot of people. If you know how to speak Polish then you will also understand people speaking in different languages like Russian, Ukrainian, Slovak, Czech and Bulgarian. The ability to speak Polish and understand other languages can open up possibilities for good relationships and more adventure in life, as well as more job opportunities because Polish speakers and interpreters are in demand jobs nowadays.
Learning Polish with Overpass Apps
No matter how hard the language is, Overpass wants to make it easy for you.
Learn Polish Bubble Bath Game makes learning Polish easy by playing a game while you learn and enrich your vocabulary. The game is divided into 63 categories and contains over 600 Polish words and phrases. So whether you want to teach your kids Polish or are planning a trip to Poland, this language game is for you.
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