Polish pronunciation
This is my attempt to describe Polish phonology and phonotactics. The Wikipedia article has a lot more detail, though.
IPA transcriptions for phonemes are provided, but I skipped exact phones. (Phonemes can encompass many phones; therefore, a phone is a more specific sound than a phoneme.)
Alphabet
The Polish alphabet extends the Latin alphabet, and has 32 letters. Q, V, and X are only in loanwords. Providing it makes it easier to understand the phonology.
A Ą B C Ć D E Ę F G H I J K L Ł M N Ń O Ó P R S Ś T U W Y Z Ź Ż
a ą b c ć d e ę f g h i j k l ł m n ń o ó p r s ś t u w y z ź żFun fact! X actually used to be used in native words, e.g. xiądz (priest). X was removed from the core alphabet at some point, and was replaced with ks, so this example is nowadays spelled ksiądz. In some cases, it was replaced with gz: egzamin (exam), which is a learned borrowing from Latin.
Pronunciation
This mainly applies to contexts where there are native words. Loanwords that are unchanged from the original spelling are pronounced regarding the origin language’s pronunciation rules. Thus, weekend is pronounced like in English, but Waszyngton (Washington) is pronounced with a V sound instead of a W sound.
Most words are stressed on the penultimate syllable.
Vowels
Table
Oral vowels
| Front | Center | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | y /ɨ/ | u, ó /u/ |
| Close-mid | e /e/ | o /o/ | |
| Open-mid | e /ɛ/ | o /ɔ/ | |
| Open | a /a/ |
While A is transcribed as /a/, it’s more accurately pronounced centered: /ä/.
/e/ and /o/ only occur between palatalized consonants.
Nasal vowels
| Front | Center | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open-mid | ę /ɛ̃/ | ą /ɔ̃/ |
Description
All vowel sounds are consistent, short, and never distinguished by length:
- A - as in back
- E - as in left
- I - as Y in very
- O - as in wrong
- Ó/U - as OO in boot
- Y - as I in thin
- Ą and Ę are just O and E, but pronounced nasally, like in French chanson (song) or italien (Italian).
Fun fact! Polish is the only modern Slavic language to have preserved nasal vowels.
However, it appears that a lot of literature about the Polish language, especially the newer one, refutes the existence of nasal vowels. Instead, they claim Ą and Ę are pronounced /ɔŋ/ and /ɛŋ/, respectively.
Ą and Ę may shift into a single oral vowel or into a V(C) structure, where C is /m/, /n/, /ɳ/, or /ŋ/.
| Shift | ą | ę | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| denasalization | wziął → /vʑjɔw/ (he) took | wzięła → /vʑjεwa/ (she) took | before l or ł |
| addition of /m/ | dąb → /dɔmp/ oak (n) | dębowy → /dɛmbɔvɨ/ oak (adj) | before b/p |
| addition of /n/ | piątka → /pjɔntka/ five (n) | wędka → /vɛntka/ fishing rod | before t/d, c/dz, cz/dż |
| addition of /ɳ/ | wziąć → /vʑjoɲt͡ɕ/ (to) take | pięć → /pjeɲt͡ɕ/ five (num) | before ś/ź, ć/dź |
| addition of /ŋ/ | są → /sɔŋ/ they are | węch → /veŋx/ sense of smell | before f/w, k/g, s/z, sz/ż/rz, h/ch, word-finally |
Consonants
Table
| Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ń /ɳ/ | (/ŋ/) | |
| Plosive | b, p | d, t | g, k | ||
| Affricate | dz, c /ts/ | dż /d͡ʐ/, cz /t͡ʂ/ | dź /d͡ʑ/, ć /t͡ɕ/ | ||
| Fricative | w /v/, f | z, s | ż /ʐ/, rz /ʐ/, sz /ʂ/ | ź /ʑ/, ś /ɕ/ | h /x/, ch /x/ |
| Approximant | l | j | ł /w/ | ||
| Trill | r |
Sources can’t agree on whether phonemic /ŋ/ exists in Polish or not. Those that say so deny the existence of nasal vowel phonemes. Otherwise, [ŋ] is just considered an allophone of /n/ before /k/ or /g/.
Description
- C is pronounced like TS in parts.
- Ć, Ś, Ź, DŹ are pronounced like CH in chip, SH in ship, G in regime, and J in jinn, respectively. Those are iotized. The same applies to CI, SI, ZI, and DZI in most cases.
- CZ, SZ, Ż, DŻ are pronounced like CH in chop, SH in show, S in vision, and J in jar, respectively. Those are not iotized.
- G is always a hard G.
- H and CH are pronounced a lot like H in English, but lean closer to K.
- J is pronounced like Y in yen.
- L is always a clear L, never a dark L like in call.
- Ł is pronounced like W in week.
- Ń is pronounced like NY in canyon.
- R is trilled (like in Spanish perro), but in fast speech it’s a tap (like in Spanish pero.)
- RZ is pronounced like Ż (see above).
- S is always devoiced, so it’s pronounced like in sock.
- T never becomes a tongue flap, so it’s pronounced like in the word tap!
- W is pronounced like V in vine.
- All other consonants are pronounced like you’d expect if you spoke English, that is: B, D, F, K, M, N, P, Z.
Fun fact! “Iotized” is just a fancy term for palatalization, used in the context of Slavic languages.
Fun fact! Many other Slavic languages cannot distinguish between /v/ and /w/, so they only end up using /v/, even in loanwords. Polish used to use the /ɫ/ sound (same as the dark L in English), but as delateralization took its course, it shifted to /w/. The orthography and several dialects still using /ɫ/ are evidence of this. In other Slavic languages, except Belarusian, it shifted to /l/ instead.
Fun fact! RZ used to be a voiceless R (/r̥/), but has merged into Ż phonetically. This is another leftover of old Slavic languages, preserved in Czech and Slovak. In other Slavic languages, it has become R instead.
In some words, RZ is changed to R when inflected, or substituted by a different word from the same word family.
Phonotactics
The Polish syllable structure appears to be (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C), as exemplified by the words wstrząs (shock, impact) and rejestr (register).
Final obstruents are devoiced: dług (debt) → /dwuk/. It is still written with a g because of inflection: dług-ø → dług-u.
Consonant clusters (not onset): It’s common to simplify some difficult consonant clusters in the middle of a word: kostka (dice, knuckle, ankle) → /kɔs.ka/, sześćset (six hundred) → /ʂɛɕ.sɛt/ OR /ʂɛj.sɛt/. In those cases, the word’s inflected forms, or other related words, explain the spelling, as can be seen in the genitive: kostka → kostek, sześćset → sześciuset.
Assimilation
- Voiced obstruents right before voiceless consonants become voiceless: książka (book) → /kɕɔ̃ʂka/.
- In the onset, Voiced obstruents right after voiceless consonants become voiceless: przemiana (transformation) → /pʂɛ.mja.na/.
- In the middle of a word, voiceless obstruents immediately before voiced obstruents become voiced: prośba (request) → /prɔʑ.ba/.
- It is possible to cause H/CH to be voiced in this way: klechda (legend) -> /klɛɣ.da/.
- Unlike in English, this kind of assimilation does not happen before any sonorant: tandetny (trashy) -> /tan.det.nɨ/.
Onset consonant clusters
Idiosyncracies like rtęć (mercury) or źdźbło (blade [of a grass or cereal]) are mostly preserved for historical reasons. For this reason, Poles often insert a very short vowel between the consonants in everyday speech. They are written like this because of the reduction of yers, very short vowels that existed in Proto-Slavic.
In the below list, an asterisk (*) indicates that the term was reconstructed, never attested during the language’s supposed lifetime.
- rtęć comes from *rьtǫtь.
- źdźbło comes from Old Polish śćbło, Proto-Slavic *stьblo. That in turn comes from Proto-Indo-European *stebʰ- (to harden). Interestingly, Proto-Germanic *stabaz also descends from that, making the English word staff a cognate.