For assistance in making IPA transcriptions of Polish for Wikipedia articles, see WP:IPA for Polish.

Vowels

The Polish vowel system is relatively simple with only six oral and two nasal vowels. All Polish oral vowels are monophthongs, which are shown to the right.The (spelt ‹y›) and (spelt ‹i›) have largely complementary distributions. Except for after labial consonants, which can be followed by both and , is usually pronounced when word-initial and after palatal and alveolo-palatal consonants, while appears elsewhere (see Soft vs. hard consonants below).In some phonological descriptions of Polish that phonemically distinguish labials with palatalization, and can be treated as allophones. The vowels and also rhyme in Polish poetry.

Similar allophony, though finer, applies to certain other vowels. Next to a soft consonant, and especially between two soft consonants or between a soft consonant and , is often near-close ( ) and is more front (that is, cardinal rather than ). These distinctions are not represented in the spelling and native speakers are mostly not aware of the differences.

Example words

Polish script	IPA	Example
i		('teddy bear')
e		('this one')
y		('mouse')
a		('executioner')
u / ó		('boom')
o		('cat')

While other Slavic languages have lost the Proto-Slavic nasal vowels, they are preserved in Polish.

Unlike those in French, nasal vowels in Polish often consist of an oral vowel followed by a nasal semivowel (so that Polish są is pronounced like Portuguese são rather than French sont; all of which mean, 'they are'), or, before stops and affricates, by a nasal consonant homorganic with the following stop or affricate (e.g. kąt is pronounced , gęba pronounced , ręka pronounced , piszący , pieniądze , pięć , jęczy ).

Polish nasal vowels

Polish script	IPA	Description	English approximation	Polish example
ę		nasal open-mid front unrounded	nasal e, similar to the vowel in b'en	('snakes')
ą		nasal open-mid back rounded	nasal o (not a), similar to the vowel in l'ong	('snake')

Other nasal nuclei exist in loanwords, though such words are in free variation with the typical diphthongal pronunciation (e.g. instynkt 'instinct'). Similarly, the palatal nasal ( ) in coda position is in free variation with a nasalized palatal approximant ( ). The majority of speakers denasalize word-final .

The length of a vowel is not phonemic in Polish, which means that how long a vowel is pronounced does not change the meaning of a word.

This was not the case in Proto-West-Slavic (including Proto-Polish), which reintroduced the full distinction of vowel lengths as a result of yer vocalization/disappearance. (The distinction had been almost lost in the Late Proto-Slavic period.) Yers were two weak vowels — the so called hard yer (ъ) and the soft yer (ь), which either disappeared or turned into other vowels. If the yer (or another vowel) disappeared, then the preceding vowel became long (unless the preceding vowel was also a yer, because then it turned into a short e). All other vowels became short (except for yers, again, which disappeared in the respective positions). No matter what happened to it, soft yer usually palatalized the preceding consonant. Example:

'day' in nominative: *dьnь → dzień

'day' in instrumental: *dьnьmъ → dniem

The system of new vowel lengths is well preserved in Czech and to a lesser degree in Slovak. In the emerging modern Polish, long vowels were shortened again but simultaneously became higher—apart from the vowels which were already high, like i and u. Typical for the spoken dialects, this shift was finally incorporated into the standard language only in the case of long o and the long nasal vowel, mostly for the vowels located before voiced obstruents. The vowel shift may be presented like this:

long a → short a (certain dialects: o)

long e → short e (certain dialects: y or i)

long y or i → short y or i

long o → short , written <ó>

</ó>long u → short , written

long → short , written <ą></ą>

Note that the u which was once a long o is still distinguished in script as <ó>.</ó> <ó>Former long e was written <é> until the nineteenth century whereas <á> for long a became disused sooner.</á></é></ó> <ó><é><á>Present-day , was derived from the earlier short .</á></é></ó> <ó><é><á>The medieval —both long and short—written as <ø>, was derived from the merged nasal *ę and * of Late Proto-Slavic (they have merged but *ę has left its trace by palatalizing the preceding consonant).</ø></á></é></ó> <ó><é><á><ø>Therefore, the contemporary Polish distinction of and does not continue the Proto-Slavic distinction.</ø></á></é></ó>

As another result of the long vowel shift, alternations o:ó and ę:ą permeate the contemporary word inflection and derivation. Examples:

'corner' in nominative: *rogъ → róg

'corner' in instrumental: *rogъmъ → rogiem

'oak' in nominative: *dãbъ → dąb

'oak' in instrumental: *dãbъmъ → dębem

Consonants

The Polish consonant system is more complicated and its characteristic features are the series of affricates and palatal consonants that resulted from four Proto-Slavic palatalizations and two further palatalizations which took place in Polish and Belarusian. Retroflexes and voiced affricates are often marked by digraphs. Palatal consonants (known in Slavic grammatical tradition as "soft" consonants) are marked either by an acute accent or followed by an i. Voice is phonemic.

Polish consonants

	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
						palatalized	plain
Nasal							( )
Plosive
Affricate
Fricative						( )
Trill
Approximant

1. The retroflex consonants are also transcribed with , , etc. However, laminal retroflex is more accurate.
2. and are less commonly transcribed as and . , , , , and are alveolo-palatal
3. In some Polish dialects, is distinguished from (see below).

Within this consonant system one can distinguish three series of fricatives and affricates:

• alveolar, a.k.a. "hissing" (ciąg syczący): z s dz c
• laminal retroflex, a.k.a. "rustling" (ciąg szumiący): ż sz dż cz
• alveolo-palatal, a.k.a. "hushing" (ciąg ciszący): ź ś dź ć

In some Polish dialects, for example Masurian, the consonants of the rustling series are replaced by those of the hissing series.

The phoneme , apart from the voiceless allophone has also a voiced allophone (voiced velar fricative) , which appears obligatorily whenever is followed by a voiced obstruent (also across a word boundary), e.g. dach is [dax] but dach domu is . The occurrence of a voiced glottal fricative is found only in the speech of those people from Eastern Borderland and (Upper) Silesia who distinguish between the pronunciation of and . The same can be said about the velarized alveolar lateral approximant, the so-called "dark l" ( ), which is a former standard pronunciation of <ł> (now usually ).</ł>

Example words

Polish script		Example	Polish script		Example
m		('mass')	dź / dz(i)		('sound')
b		('bass')	ć / c(i)		('moth')
p		('belt')	ż / rz		('wife') ('river')
w		('bag')	sz		('rustle')
f		('fur')	dż		('jam')
n		('leg')	cz		('time')
d		('home')	ń / n(i)		('horse')
t		('volume')	g(i)		('plaster cast')
z		('zero')	k(i)		('when')
s		('catfish')	g		('populace')
dz		('bell')	k		('caraway'), ('beech tree')
c		('what')	h / ch		('hook'), ('choir')
r		('step')	j		('tomorrow')
l		('field')	ł		('small'), ('grace')
ź / z(i)		('foal')	l(i)		('leaf')
ś / s(i)		('screw')	h(i) / ch(i)		('history'), ('giggle')

Soft vs. hard consonants

Multiple palatalizations and some depalatalizations that took place in the history of Proto-Slavic and Polish created quite a complex system of so called "soft" and "hard" consonants. The exact scope of these classes depends on the criteria chosen (in particular, deciding whether some consonants and vowels are allophones of the same or two different phonemes) but some distinction between "hard" and "soft" consonants (and consequently, "hard" and "soft" word stems) can be helpful in describing contemporary word inflection patterns or other morphological processes. According to the simplest criterion, soft consonants are those that can precede the contemporary vowel i , whereas hard ones are those that can precede the contemporary vowel y .

Polish hard and soft consonants (auditory distinction)

before i or y

m

b

p

w

f

not before i

n

d

t

z

s

h / ch

ł

r

ż/rz

sz

dż

cz

dz

c

not before y

ń/n(i)

dź/dz(i)

ć/c(i)

ź/z(i)

ś/s(i)

g(i)

k(i)

h(i)/ch(i)

l

j

neither before i nor before y

g

k

The above table is a simplification since it does not take into account certain few loanwords where , , , , , and appear before i, or where and appear before y.

There exist also some phonological descriptions of Polish which distinguish between "hard" labials m , b , p , w , f and "soft" labials m(i) , b(i) , p(i) , w(i) , f(i) . This softness (palatalization) is hardly heard before and absent in the syllable coda (unlike in Russian). In this analysis, the pairs , and can be treated as allophones. The pair can almost be unified; occurs mostly in loanwords. This description leads to the following classification of hard and soft consonants.

Polish hard and soft consonants (inflectional distinction)

hard

m

b

p

w

f

n

d

t

z

s

c

l

r

g

k/

(c)h

dz

rz/ż

sz

dż

cz

j

ł

soft

m(i)

b(i)

p(i)

w(i)

f(i)

ń/n(i)

d(i)

t(i)

ź/z(i)

ś/s(i)

ć/c(i)

l(i)

r(i)

g(i)

k(i)

(c)h(i)

dź/dz(i)

Consonant clusters

Polish, like other Slavic languages, permits complex consonant clusters, which historically arose after the disappearance of yers (certain short vowels existing in late Proto-Slavic):

• bezwzględny ('absolute')
• przestępstwo ('crime')
• Strwiąż (name of a river)
• ('shock')

The existence of complex clusters is, however, not an exclusively Slavic feature; even bigger clusters can be found in Georgian or Salishan languages.

Polish distinguishes between affricates and plosive + fricative consonant clusters, for example:

• ('clean' fem.) vs ('three hundred')
• ('jam') vs drzem (part of word drzemka meaning 'nap') , also the imperative of drzemać, ('to have a nap').

In consonant clusters, adjacent obstruents are either all voiced or all voiceless. That is, a consonant cluster cannot contain both voiced and voiceless obstruents. All the obstruents are either voiced (if the last obstruent is normally voiced) or voiceless (if the last obstruent is normally voiceless). This is also true across a word boundary. Word-final obstruents are also pronounced voiceless if the following word starts with a vowel. This rule does not apply to sonorants - a consonant cluster may contain voiced sonorants and voiceless obstruents. Some regional variations of pronunciation, especially in Western and Southern Poland, make voiceless obstruents voiced if the following word starts with a sonorant (for example instead of the expected )

Examples:

• ('boat'), → (k is normally voiceless)
• ('jackdaw'), → (w is normally voiced)
• ('also'), → (ż is normally voiced)
• ('as if'), → (b is normally voiced)
• ('king'), does not change (r is a sonorant)
• ('worth'), does not change (r is a sonorant)

The consonants w and rz are normally voiced, but if a consonant cluster ends with w or rz and the preceding consonant is normally voiceless, then the whole consonant cluster is voiceless. W remains voiced after a voiceless consonant in dialects of Wielkopolska and Kresy Wschodnie, but is devoiced in other varieties.

Examples:

• ('bush'), → (k is normally voiceless)
• ('to reproduce'), → & → (d and w are normally voiced)

The most popular Polish tongue-twister, a fragment of the poem Chrząszcz by Jan Brzechwa, may serve as yet another example:

In [the town of] Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed.

Stress

The predominant stress pattern is penultimate stress with alternating preceding syllables carrying secondary stress (e.g. człowiekowi 'human being dat. sg.'). Loanwords complicate this, as they introduce antepenultimate stress (e.g. fizyka 'physics'). However, even loanwords may move stress to the penultimate syllable upon suffixation as in uniwersytet ('university' with antepenultimate stress) which becomes (with penultimate stress) when the genitive singular affix is added. Over time, loanwords become nativized to have penultimate stress.

Outside of loanwords, exceptions include:

• verbs in first and second person plural past tense, for example zro'biliśmy ('we did') - the stress is on the third syllable from the end
• verbs in conditional, for example zrobiłbym ('I would do') - stressed on the third syllable from the end
• verbs in first and second person plural conditional, for example zro'bilibyśmy ('we would do') - the stress is on the fourth syllable from the end

The explanation for the irregular verbal stress is that these endings are clitics, not verbal inflections: zro'bili=śmy, zrobił=bym, zrobili=byśmy. They are remnants of the auxiliary być ('to be'). This can be demonstrated with phrases such as Kogo=ście zoba'czyli? (in spoken Polish Kogo zobaczyli=ście?) ('Who did you see?'), where the clitic attaches to the word kogo 'who' rather than to a verb (Kogo zoba'czyli=ście?), but kogo maintains its normal stress. However, these endings are in the process of being reanalyzed as suffixes, and as this happens, the stress is shifting to penultimate position in colloquial speech (though by prescriptive grammarians this is still considered an error): zrobiliśmy, zrobiłbym, zrobilibyśmy.

References

1. , citing , , in arguing that they are more accurately called diphthongs.
2. , citing
3. , deferring to for further discussion.
4. Phonetics and Phonology of lexical stress in Polish verbs,Dominika Oliver, Martine Grice, Institute of Phonetics, Saarland University, Germany

Bibliography

See also

• Polish alphabet
• Polish orthography
• Polish language
• Polish pronunciation guide