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 ż

Fun 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

FrontCenterBack
Closeiy /ɨ/u, ó /u/
Close-mide /e/o /o/
Open-mide /ɛ/o /ɔ/
Opena /a/

While A is transcribed as /a/, it’s more accurately pronounced centered: /ä/.

/e/ and /o/ only occur between palatalized consonants.

Nasal vowels

FrontCenterBack
Open-midę /ɛ̃/ą /ɔ̃/

Description

All vowel sounds are consistent, short, and never distinguished by length:

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/.

ShiftąęCondition
denasalizationwziął → /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

LabialAlveolarRetroflexPalatalVelar
Nasalmnń /ɳ/(/ŋ/)
Plosiveb, pd, tg, k
Affricatedz, c /ts/dż /d͡ʐ/, cz /t͡ʂ/dź /d͡ʑ/, ć /t͡ɕ/
Fricativew /v/, fz, sż /ʐ/, rz /ʐ/, sz /ʂ/ź /ʑ/, ś /ɕ/h /x/, ch /x/
Approximantljł /w/
Trillr

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

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-ødług-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: kostkakostek, sześćsetsześciuset.

Assimilation

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.