There are approximately 55 million speakers of Polish globally, and, as expected, the large majority are to be found in Poland as well as areas bordering Poland, such as western Ukraine and Belarus, Lithuania, and the northern Czech and Slovak Republics. Thanks to Polish immigration though, substantial pockets of Polish speakers can also be found in the USA, UK, and Canada, and Australia.
Having already been a spoken language for several hundred years, Polish was first written when the king and founder of the Polish state, Mieszko I, accepted (Western) Christianity, in the mid-900s, thus adopting the Latin script. However, this acceptance initially created some problems, as the basic Latin script couldn’t adequately provide all of the distinctive sounds necessary for speaking Old Polish.
Considering that the Polish language has not drastically changed and it is written in a Latin script, it should be easy to learn, right? Well, not exactly: Polish had adapted the Latin script to meet its own needs, creating rustling letters (ć, ę, ł, ń, etc.) and digraphs (sz, rz, dz, dż, etc.). These can cause confusion for many non-Poles and non-Slavs due to the unfamiliarity of the sound associated with the letter depicted.
As with many other languages, the first known writing in Polish was related to religion – in this case, it is the papal Bull of Gniezno issued by Pope Innocent II on July 7, 1136 – but the first known secular sentence in Polish language comes from the Book of Henrykow in 1270 and tells of a conversation between a husband and wife, with the husband stating, “Daj, ać ja pobruszę, a ty poczywaj.” (You rest, and I will grind).
Though Polish has 4 major dialects, Greater Polish, Lesser Polish, Mazovian, and Silesian, it is unknown which particular dialect played the dominant role in developing the modern Polish language; this is due to the fact that each dialect contributed to the language as the capital and cultural centres of Poland have changed throughout the centuries.
Interestingly, though Polish language has been used for approximately 1500 years, written for 1000 years, and adapted as well as accepted influences for its entire history, the first Polish dictionary was printed in only the early 1800s, the 6-volume work by Samuel Bogumil Linde was published between 1807 and 1814.
If you are interested in learning other facts about the Polish language, our in-house native speaker Polish translators and Polish interpreters are here to walk you in. Click here to contact EVS Translations Polish translation department today.
