Polish Language - Dialects

Dialects

The Polish language became far more homogeneous in the second half of the 20th century, in part due to the mass migration of several million Polish citizens from the eastern to the western part of the country after the Soviet annexation of the Kresy in 1939, and the acquisition of former German territory after World War II. This tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian People's Republic of Poland.

The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak "standard" Polish somewhat differently, although the differences between these broad "dialects" appear slight. First-language speakers of Polish never experience any difficulty in mutual understanding; however, non-native speakers have difficulty distinguishing regional variations. The differences are slight compared to the variety of dialects in English.

Main three dialects of Polish language:

• Greater Polish, spoken in the west
• Lesser Polish, spoken in the south and southeast
• Masovian, spoken throughout the central and eastern parts of the country

Some more characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include:

1. The distinctive Podhale dialect (Góralski) occurs in the mountainous area bordering the Czech and Slovak Republics. The Gorals (highlanders) take great pride in their culture and the dialect. It exhibits some cultural influences from the Vlach shepherds who migrated from Wallachia (southern Romania) in the 14th-17th centuries. The language of the coextensive East Slavic people, the Lemkos, which demonstrates significant lexical and grammatical commonality with the Góralski dialect and Ukrainian, bears no significant Vlach or other Romanian influences. Most urban Poles find it difficult to understand this very distinct dialect.
2. The Poznanski dialect, spoken in Poznań and to some extent in the whole region of the former Prussian annexation (excluding upper Silesia), with characteristic high tone melody and notable influence of the German language.
3. In the northern and western (formerly German) regions where Poles from the territories annexed by the Soviet Union resettled after World War II, the older generation speaks a dialect of Polish characteristic of the Eastern Borderlands which resembles Ukrainian or Rusyn— especially in the "longer" pronunciation of vowels.
4. Poles living in Lithuania (particularly in the Vilnius region), in Belarus (particularly the northwest), and in the northeast of Poland continue to speak the Eastern Borderlands dialect which sounds "slushed" (in Polish described as zaciąganie z ruska, 'speaking with a Russian drawl'), and is easily distinguishable.
5. Some city dwellers, especially the less affluent population, had their own distinctive dialects — for example the Warsaw dialect, still spoken by some of the population of Praga on the eastern bank of the Vistula. (Praga remained the only part of Warsaw where the population survived World War II relatively intact.) However, these city dialects are now mostly extinct due to assimilation with standard Polish.
6. Many Poles living in emigrant communities (for example in the USA), whose families left Poland just after World War II, retain a number of minor features of Polish vocabulary as spoken in the first half of the 20th century that now sound archaic, however, to contemporary visitors from Poland.

Previously regarded as dialects, now increasingly recognized as languages:

1. The Kashubian language, spoken in the Pomorze region west of Gdańsk on the Baltic Sea, has seemed like a dialect to some observers. However, it exhibits sufficient significant differences to merit its classification as a separate language; for instance, it is not readily understandable to Polish speakers unless it is written. There are about 106,000 speakers native according to the Polish 2011 census, while it is the third most used language in Poland, after the Polish language and the Silesian language.

1. The Silesian language is spoken in the Upper Silesia region, mainly in the Silesian Voivodeship and Opole Voivodeship in Poland, while also in the Moravian–Silesian Region in Czech Republic. Only in Poland are there more than 0.5 million native speakers according to the 2011 census, while it is the second most used language in Poland, after the Polish language.