Polish Immigrants and Language

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LANGUAGE

Polish is a West Slavic language, part of the Lekhite subgroup, and is similar to Czech and Slovak. Modern Polish, written in the Roman alphabet, stems from the sixteenth century. It is still taught in Sunday schools and parochial schools for children. It is also taught in dozens of American universities and colleges. The first written examples of Polish are a list of names in a 1136 Papal Bull. Manuscripts in Polish exist from the fourteenth century. Its vocabulary is in part borrowed from Latin, German, Czech, Ukrainian, Belarusan, and English. Dialects include Great Polish, Pomeranian, Silesian and Mazovian. Spelling is phonetic with every letter pronounced. Consonants in particular have different pronunciation than in English. "Ch," for example is pronounced like "h" in horse; "j" is pronounced like "y" at the beginning of a word; "cz" is pronounced "ch" as in chair; "sz" is pronounced like "sh" as in shoe; "rz" and "z" are pronounced alike as the English "j" in jar; and "w" is pronounced like the English "v" in victory. Various diacriticals are also used in Polish: "ż," "ź," "ń," "ć," "ś," "ą," "ę," and "ł."