| Also Known As: Polish language,Polnisch,Polski,Polish
Description:
Polish (język polski, polszczyzna), an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic language and, as for all the Slavic languages, its popularity is second only to Russian. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a Latin-based orthography. The language developed indigenously and retains many ancient Slavic features of pronunciation and grammar. Although non-Polish administrations in Poland sometimes attempted, historically, to suppress the Polish language, a rich literature has nonetheless developed over the centuries, and many works by Polish authors are available in translations in English and other languages.
Nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their mother tongue. As a result of World War II Poland was forced to change its borders, which resulted in various migrations (World War II evacuation and expulsion, German expulsions, Operation Wisła) as well as in ethnic cleansing of the Poles across the current borders such as the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia. Nevertheless, after the Second World War the previously Polish territories annexed by the Soviet Union retained a significant..... full article at Wikipedia |
Location of Polish Language Speakers
<googlemap zoom="1" width=400 height=300 lat="52.213662" lon="14.586296" type="map">
51.427323, 20.172591, Poland
53.000000, 9.000000, Europe</googlemap>
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