Polish orthography is the system of writing the Polish language. The language is written using the Polish alphabet, which derives from the Latin alphabet, but includes some additional letters with diacritics. The orthography is mostly phonetic, or rather phonemic—the written letters (or combinations of them) correspond in a consistent manner to the sounds, or rather the phonemes, of spoken Polish. For detailed information about the system of phonemes, see Polish phonology.
Polish alphabet
The diacritics used in the Polish alphabet are the (graphically similar to the acute accent) in the letters ć, ń, ó, ś, ź; the (overdot) in the letter ż; the stroke in the letter ł; and the ("little tail") in the letters ą, ę. There are 32 letters (or 35 letters, if the foreign letters q, v, x are included) in the Polish alphabet: 9 vowels and 23 or 26 consonants.
+ Polish alphabet, letters in parentheses are only used for loanwordsMajuscule forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)A Ą B C Ć D E ĘF G H I J K L ŁM N Ń O Ó P (Q) R SŚ T U (V) W (X) Y Z Ź ŻMinuscule forms (also called lowercase or small letters)a ą b c ć d e ęf g h i j k l łm n ń o ó p (q) r sś t u (v) w (x) y z ź żName of lettersa ą be ce cie de e ęef gie ha i jot ka el ełem en eń o ó zamknięte pe ku er eseś te u fau wu iks igrek zet ziet żet
The letters q (named ), v (named or rarely ), and x (named ) are used in some foreign words and commercial names. In loanwords q and v are often replaced by kw and w, respectively, and x by ks or gz (as in "quartz", "veranda", "extra", , "exosphere").
When giving the spelling of words, certain letters may be said in more emphatic ways to distinguish them from other identically pronounced characters. For example, H may be referred to as ("h alone") to distinguish it from CH (). The letter Ż may be called ("Ż with a dot") to distinguish it from RZ (). The letter U may be called ("open u", a reference to its graphical form) or ("regular u"), to distinguish it from Ó, which is sometimes called ("closed ó"), or ("ó with a stroke accent"), alternatively or ("o with a stroke accent"). The letter ó is a relic from hundreds of years ago when there was a length distinction in Polish similar to that in Czech, with á and é also being common at the time. Subsequently, the length distinction disappeared and á and é were abolished, but ó came to be pronounced the same as u.
Note that Polish letters with diacritics are treated as fully independent letters in alphabetical ordering (unlike in languages such as French, Spanish, and German). For example, comes after . The diacritic letters also have their own sections in dictionaries (words beginning with ć are not usually listed under c). However, there are no regular words that begin with ą or ń.
Digraphs
Polish additionally uses the digraphs ch, cz, dz, dź, dż, rz, and sz. Combinations of certain consonants with the letter i before a vowel can be considered digraphs: ci as a positional variant of ć, si as a positional variant of ś, zi as a positional variant of ź, and ni as a positional variant of ń (but see a special remark on ni below); and there is also one trigraph dzi as a positional variant of dź. These are not given any special treatment in alphabetical ordering. For example, ch is treated simply as c followed by h, and not as a single letter as in Czech or Slovak (e.g. only has its first letter capitalised, and is sorted after and before ).
Spelling rules
Graphemes and values +VowelsGraphemeUsual valueOther valuesaą, , ; becomes before (see below)eę, , ; becomes word-finally and before and (see below)i before a vowel; marks palatalization of the preceding consonant before a vowel (see below)oóuin certain cases, represents after vowelsyusually transcribed as but pronounced closer to or +ConsonantsGraphemeUsual valueVoiced or devoicedb if devoicedc if voicedć if voicedcz if voicedd if devoiceddz if devoiceddź if devoiceddż if devoicedf if voicedg if devoicedh if voicedchjk if voicedlłmnńp if voicedrs if voicedś if voicedsz if voicedt if voicedw if devoicedz if devoicedź if devoicedż if devoicedrz See below for rules regarding spelling of alveolo-palatal consonants.
H may be glottal in a small number of dialects.
Rarely, is not a digraph and represents two separate sounds: in various forms of the verb zamarzać – "to freeze" in various forms of the verb mierzić – "to disgust" in the place names Murzasichle, Nowe Marzy, Barzowice, Rzy in borrowings, for example erzac (from German Ersatz), Tarzan
Voicing and devoicing Voiced consonant letters frequently come to represent voiceless sounds (as shown in the above tables). This is due to the neutralization that occurs at the end of words and in certain consonant clusters; for example, the in klub ("club") is pronounced like a , and the in prze- sounds like . Less frequently, voiceless consonant letters can represent voiced sounds; for example, the in także ("also") is pronounced like a . The conditions for this neutralization are described under Voicing and devoicing in the article on Polish phonology.
Palatal and palatalized consonants The spelling rule for the alveolo-palatal sounds , , , and is as follows: before the vowel the plain letters are used; before other vowels the combinations are used; when not followed by a vowel the diacritic forms are used. For example, the in siwy ("grey-haired"), the in siarka ("sulphur") and the in święty ("holy") all represent the sound .
SoundWord-finally or before a consonantBefore a vowel other than Before ćcicdździdzśsisźzizńnin
Special attention should be paid to before plus a vowel. In words of foreign origin the causes the palatalization of the preceding consonant to , and it is pronounced as . This situation occurs when the corresponding genitive form ends in -nii, pronounced as , not with -ni, pronounced as (which is a situation typical to the words of Polish origin). For examples, see the table in the next section.
According to one system, similar principles apply to the palatalized consonants , and , except that these can only occur before vowels. The spellings are thus before , and otherwise. For example, the in kim ("whom", instr.) and the in kiedy both represent . In the system without the palatalized velars, they are analyzed as /k/, /ɡ/ and /x/ before /i/ and /kj/, /ɡj/ and /xj/ before other vowels.
Other issues with i and j Except in the cases mentioned in the previous paragraph, the letter if followed by another vowel in the same word usually represents , but it also has the palatalizing effect on the previous consonant. For example, pies ("dog") is pronounced (). Some words with before plus a vowel also follow this pattern (see below). In fact i is the usual spelling of between a preceding consonant and a following vowel. The letter normally appears in this position only after , and if the palatalization effect described above has to be avoided (as in presja "pressure", Azja "Asia", lekcja "lesson", and the common suffixes -cja "-tion", -zja "-sion": stacja "station", wizja "vision"). The letter after consonants is also used in concatenation of two words if the second word in the pair starts with , e.g. wjazd "entrance" originates from w + . The pronunciation of the sequence wja (in wjazd) is the same as the pronunciation of wia (in wiadro "bucket").
The ending -ii which appears in the inflected forms of some nouns of foreign origin, which have -ia in the nominative case (always after , , , and ; sometimes after , , and other consonants), is pronounced as , with the palatalization of the preceding consonant. For example, dalii (genitive of dalia "dalia"), Bułgarii (genitive of Bułgaria "Bulgaria"), chemii (genitive of chemia "chemistry"), religii (genitive of religia "religion"), amfibii (genitive of amfibia "amphibia"). The common pronunciation is . This is why children commonly misspell and write -i in the inflected forms as armii, Danii or hypercorrectly write ziemii instead of ziemi (words of Polish origin do not have the ending -ii but simple -i, e.g. ziemi, genitive of ziemia).
In some rare cases, however, when the consonant is preceded by another consonant, -ii may be pronounced as , but the preceding consonant is still palatalized, for example, Anglii (genitive of Anglia "England") is pronounced . (The spelling Angli, very frequently met with on the Internet, is simply an error in orthography, caused by this pronunciation.)
A special situation applies to : it has the full palatalization to before -ii which is pronounced as – and such a situation occurs only when the corresponding nominative form in -nia is pronounced as , not as .
For example (pay attention to the upper- and lower-case letters):
CaseWordPronunciationMeaningWordPronunciationMeaningNominativedaniadishes (plural)DaniaDenmarkGenitive(dań)()(of dishes)Daniiof DenmarkNominativeManiaMary (diminutive of "Maria")maniamaniaGenitive(Mani)()(of Mary)maniiof mania
The ending -ji, is always pronounced as . It appears only after c, s and z. Pronunciation of it as a simple is considered a pronunciation error. For example, (genitive of "pressure") is ; (genitive of "poetry") is ; (genitive of "reason") is .
Nasal vowels The letters and , when followed by plosives and affricates, represent an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant, rather than a nasal vowel. For example, in dąb ("oak") is pronounced , and in tęcza ("rainbow") is pronounced (the nasal assimilates with the following consonant). When followed by or , and in the case of , also at the end of words by most speakers (in a situation where the speaker pronounces the vowel nasally, it is nasalized only lightly), these letters are pronounced as just or .
Homophonic spellings Apart from the cases in the sections above, there are three sounds in Polish that can be spelt in two different ways, depending on the word. Those result from historical sound changes. The correct spelling can often be deduced from the spelling of other morphological forms of the word or cognates in Polish or in other Slavic languages. can be spelt either or . only occurs in loanwords; however, many of them have been nativized and are not perceived as loanwords. is used: when cognate words have the letter , or , e.g.:
when the same letter is used in the language from which the word was borrowed, e.g. the Latinized Greek prefixes , also , etc. is used: in all native words, e.g. when the same digraph is used in the language from which the word was borrowed, e.g. . can be spelt or ; the spelling indicates that the sound developed from the historical long . is used: usually at the beginning of a word (except for ) always at the end of a word in the endings is used: when cognate words or other morphological forms have the letter , or , e.g.:
in the endings (except for ) can be spelt either or ; the spelling indicates that the sound developed from /r̝/ (cf. Czech ). is used: when cognate words or other morphological forms have the letter/digraph , , , , , , e.g.:
in the particle , e.g. after , , , e.g.:
in loanwords, especially from French, e.g.:
when cognates in other Slavic languages contain the sound or , e.g. – Russian is used: when cognate words or other morphological forms have the letter , e.g. usually after , , , , , , , , , e.g.:
when cognates in other Slavic languages contain the sound or , e.g. – Russian
Other points The letter represents in the digraphs and in loanwords, for example autor, Europa; but not in native words, like nauka, pronounced .
There are certain clusters where a written consonant would not normally be pronounced. For example, the in the words mógł ("could") and jabłko ("apple") is omitted in ordinary speech.
Capitalization Names are generally capitalized in Polish as in English. Polish does not capitalize the months and days of the week, nor adjectives and other forms derived from proper nouns (for example, angielski "English").