Poland - Languages

Polish is one of the western Slavic languages using the Latin alphabet and the only major Slavic language to preserve the old Slavic nasal vowels. It is easily distinguishable from other Slavic languages by the frequent accumulation of consonants. In addition to the letters of the English alphabet, it has the following letters and diphthongs: a, ch, ci, cz, z ˙ , dz ´ , dzi, e, l, n ´ , ni, ó, rz, s ´ , si, sz, z, z ˙ , z ´, and zi . It has no q, v , or x . Among the several dialects are Great Polish (spoken around Poznan ´), Kuyavian (around Inowroclaw), Little Polish (around Cracow), Silesian (around Katowice and Wroclaw), and Mazovian (around Warsaw and extending north and east). Some philologists consider that Kashubian, spoken along the Baltic, is not a Polish dialect but a separate language. Many Poles speak English, French, German, or Russian, and understand other Slavic languages in varying degrees.