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 (annotated /…/) are provided, but I tried to avoid going into phones (annotated […]) as much as possible. Graphemes are annotated ⟨…⟩.

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 or gz, depending on the pronunciation, such as in ksiądz, egzamin (“exam”).

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

Tables

Modern Polish’s oral vowel system is similar to languages like Ukrainian or Indonesian, having two front, two central, and two back vowel phonemes. Vowel length is not significant.

The close central vowel can be transcribed /ɘ/, /ɨ/, or (more rarely) /ɪ/. This article will use /ɘ/.

The phonological status of nasal vowels in modern Polish is debated. Some sources support the above table, but others don’t and consider nasal vowels as diphthongs. In most positions, they would end with /ŋ/ or /w̃/. This article will transcribe those with /w̃/.

Fun fact! Polish is one of the few Slavic languages to preserve nasal vowels in some way. In other Slavic languages, they have merged with other vowels.

Fun fact! The U/Ó split is a relic of when Ó represented the long O sound. At some point, when Polish stopped distinguishing vowels by length, Ó represented /o/, and eventually /u/. Some words have been respelled with the other letter of the two, such as bruzda (“furrow, groove”) and ogórek (“cucumber”).

In Ą and Ę, the consonant may be reduced or shifted into another one.

In careful speech, Ę is pronounced /ɛw̃/ word-finally. Otherwise, it is pronounced /ɛ/.

Consonants

Table

All consonants use the same graphemes as the IPA, except:

The sounds /ŋ/, /w̃/, /ɣ/ don’t have separate graphemes. Instead, they can only happen in certain circumstances:

• /ŋ/ represents ⟨n⟩, and it only appears before /k/, /ɡ/, /x/.
  • It also appears after /ɔ/ and /ɛ/, before /k/ and /ɡ/, to represent ⟨ą⟩ and ⟨ę⟩.
• /w̃/ only appears:
  • after /ɔ/ before /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /ʂ/, /ʐ/, /x/, and word-finally to represent ⟨ą⟩.
  • after /ɛ/ before /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /ʂ/, /ʐ/, /x/ to represent ⟨ę⟩.
    • In careful speech, it also appears after /ɛ/ word-finally.
• /ɣ/ only appears before voiced obstruents (see below).

Fun fact! Polish used to use the /ɫ/ sound (same as the dark L in English, but as a separate phoneme), but as delateralization took its course, it shifted to /w/. Despite this, it is still written Ł, a letter suggesting similarity to L.

We have a name for this shift: wałczenie. This is a fairly old phenomenon, which started with 16th-century peasants. It was rejected by the upper class, and the stigma lasted until around the 1950s. It was described by realizing Ł as a “non-syllabic U”. Today, pronouncing Ł as [ɫ] is considered conservative.

Fun fact! RZ used to be a fricative R (/r̻/), but has merged into Ż phonemically. This is another leftover of old Slavic languages, preserved in Czech and Slovak. In other Slavic languages, it has become R instead.

In modern Polish, this is preserved in inflection and derivation, where RZ can become R and vice-versa, e.g. powietrze (“air”) and wiatr (“wind”).

In dialects with mazuration, chiefly the Mazovian and Lesser Poland dialects, ⟨ż⟩ is pronounced /z/, but ⟨rz⟩ is pronounced /ʐ/. Therefore, morze (“sea”) and może (“maybe”), which are homophones in standard Polish, are not homophones in those dialects.

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” [noun]).

Final obstruents are devoiced: dług (“debt”) → /dwuk/. Inflection explains the spelling: dług-∅ → dług-u.

Some words have difficult consonant clusters in the middle that get simplified: sześćset (“six hundred”) → /ʂɛɕ.sɛt/ or /ʂɛj.sɛt/, jabłko (“apple”) → /jap.ko/. Inflection and derivation often explains the spelling of those consonant clusters: sześćset → sześciuset, jabłko → jabłuszko.

Assimilation

• Voiced obstruents right before voiceless consonants become voiceless: książka (book) → /kɕɔw̃ʂka/.
• 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/.
  • This is the only instance when a phonemic /ɣ/ may appear: klechda (legend) -> /klɛɣ.da/.
  • Unlike in English, this kind of assimilation does not happen before sonorants: tandetny (trashy) -> /tan.dɛt.nɘ/.

Onset consonant clusters

Idiosyncracies like rdza (“rust”), rtęć (“mercury, quicksilver”), 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. This shows a fossilized trace of otherwise reduced yers, very short vowels that existed in Proto-Slavic, marked with *ь/*ĭ and *ъ/*ŭ.

In Czech and Slovak, r and l may be syllabic, which led to the tongue twister strč prst skrz krk. In Polish and most other Slavic languages, only vowels may be syllabic.