Polish phonology

The phonological system of the Polish language is similar in many ways to those of other Slavic languages, although there are some characteristic features found in only a few other languages of the family, such as contrasting retroflex and palatal fricatives and affricates, and nasal vowels. The vowel system is relatively simple, with just six oral monophthongs and two nasals, while the consonant system is more complex.

The vowel system


The Polish vowel system consists of six oral and two nasal vowels. Vowel nasality in Polish is preserved from Proto-Slavic, having been lost in most other modern Slavic languages.

All the oral vowels are monophthongs. The nasal vowels are, a nasal open-mid front unrounded vowel (similar to e in English Ben, nasalized), and , a nasal open-mid back rounded vowel (similar to o in English long, nasalized).

The nasal vowels do not feature uniform nasality over their duration. Phonetically, they may consist of an oral vowel followed by a nasal semivowel (so that są is pronounced, which sounds closer to Portuguese são than French sont – all these words mean "(they) are"); it can therefore be argued that they are more accurately called diphthongs. (For nasality following other vowel nuclei, see under Consonant allophony below.) are also less commonly transcribed  respectively, for example by PWN-Oxford Polish-English Dictionary.

The oral vowel is in fact a slightly fronted close-mid central unrounded vowel. This article uses for simplicity.

Some speakers from southern and eastern Poland realize, , tenser than in Standard Polish, i.e. as. This is not very common, especially the last realization.

Vowel allophony
A degree of allophony applies to certain vowels depending on whether they are adjacent to a soft consonant (see Hard and soft consonants below). Between two soft consonants or between a soft consonant and, the quality of vowels changes: is front  rather than central ,  is often close-mid ,  is somewhat higher and more front ,  is very tense, approaching cardinal , and  is somewhat fronted. All these changes strongly resemble Russian.

These distinctions are not represented in the spelling and native speakers are unaware of them, unless they underwent phonetic training.

Vowel distribution
The vowels and  have largely complementary distribution. Either vowel may follow a labial consonant, as in mi ('to me') and my ('we'). Elsewhere, however, is usually restricted to word-initial position and positions after palatal consonants and the palatalized velars, while  cannot appear in those positions (see Hard and soft consonants below). In some phonological descriptions of Polish that make a phonemic distinction between palatized and unpalatized labials, and  may thus be treated as allophones of a single phoneme. However appears outside its usual positions in some foreign-derived words, as in czipsy ('potato chips') and tir ('large lorry', see TIR). The vowels and  are considered to rhyme in Polish poetry out of tradition, as in the past  was closer to, which is acoustically much more similar to.

The nasal vowels do not occur except before a fricative and in word-final position. When the letters ą and ę appear before stops and affricates, they indicate an oral or  followed by a nasal consonant homorganic with the following consonant. For example, kąt is ('angle'), gęba ('mouth') is, and pięć ('five') is. Before  or, the nasality is lost altogether and the vowels are pronounced as oral  or. Many speakers also frequently denasalize to  in word-final position.

Historical development
Distinctive vowel length had been lost in the late Proto-Slavic period, but was reintroduced in Proto-West-Slavic (including Proto-Polish) as a result of yer vocalization and disappearance. If a yer (or other vowel) disappeared, then the preceding vowel became long (unless it was also a yer, in which case it became a short e). All other vowels became short (except for yers, which disappeared in the respective positions). No matter what happened to it, soft yer (ь) usually palatalized the preceding consonant. For example: *dьnь became dzień ("day"), while *dьnьmъ became dniem (instrumental case of "day").

This system of vowel lengths is well preserved in Czech and to a lesser degree in Slovak. In the emerging modern Polish, however, the long vowels were shortened again, although sometimes (depending on dialect) with a change in quality (the vowels tended to become higher). The latter changes came to be incorporated into the standard language only in the case of long o and the long nasal vowel, mostly for vowels located before voiced obstruents. The vowel shift may thus be presented as follows:
 * 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
 * long u → short, written u
 * long → short, written ą

Note that the /u/ which was once a long o is still distinguished in script as ó. Former long e was written é until the 19th century (á for long a became disused sooner).

The history of the nasal vowels is as follows. The nasal vowels *ę and * of late Proto-Slavic merged (*ę leaving a trace by palatalizing the preceding consonant) to become the medieval Polish vowel, written ø. Like other Polish vowels, this developed long and short variants. The short variant developed into present-day ę, while the long form became, written ą, as described above. Overall:
 * Proto-Slavic *ę → ię when short, ią when long (where the i represents palatalization of the preceding consonant)
 * Proto-Slavic * → ę when short, ą when long

These historical shifts are the reason for the alternations o:ó and ę:ą commonly encountered in Polish morphology. For example, *rogъ ('horn') became róg (originally pronounced with a long o, now with /u/), while the instrumental case of the same word went from *rogъmъ to rogiem (with no lengthening of the o). Similarly *dãbъ ('oak') became dąb (originally with the long form of the nasal vowel), while in the instrumental *dãbъmъ the vowel remained short and we now have dębem.

Dialectal variation of vowels
Polish dialects differ particularly in their realization of nasal vowels; both in terms of whether and when they are decomposed to an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant, and in terms of the quality of the vowels used.

Also, some dialects preserve non-standard developments of the historical long vowels (see previous section); for example, a may be pronounced with an o sound in words where it was historically long.

The consonant system
The Polish consonant system is more complicated; its characteristic features include 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.

The Polish consonants are as follows:

Alveolar are allophones of  before. Denti-alveolar is an allophone of  before dental consonants. is most often a tap in fast speech.

The fricatives and affricates shown as retroflex may instead be transcribed as palato-alveolar consonants with, , etc. However they are more accurately described as retroflex, and they may therefore be transcribed phonetically with the symbols etc., indicating the laminal feature.

The phoneme may be written with the non-standard symbol  to indicate that it is alveolo-palatal, because ɲ represents a palatal nasal in standard IPA.

The phonemes and  are less commonly transcribed as  and  (i.e. as if they were palatal stops).

Note the distinction between the laminal retroflex sounds (sz, ż, cz, dż) and the corresponding alveolo-palatals (ś, ź, ć, dź) – both of these series sound similar to the English palato-alveolar consonants (the sh and ch sounds and their voiced equivalents). The alveolo-palatals are pronounced with the body of the tongue raised to the palate. The series are known as "rustling" (szeleszczące) and "humming" (szumiące) respectively; the equivalent alveolar series (s, z, c, dz) is called "hissing" (syczące).

Polish distinguishes between affricates and stop+fricative consonant clusters, for example:
 * [[Media:Pl-czysta.ogg|czysta]] ('clean' fem.) vs. [[Media:Pl-trzysta.ogg|trzysta]] ('three hundred').
 * [[Media:Pl-dżem.ogg|dżem]] ('jam') with vs. drz'em ('take a nap' imper.).

For the possibility of an additional glottal fricative phoneme for h, see Dialectal variation of consonants below.

Consonant allophony
has a voiced allophone that occurs whenever  is followed by a voiced obstruent (even across a word boundary), in accordance with the rules given under Voicing and devoicing below. For example, dach ('roof') is, but dach domu ('roof of the house') is.

has the strongest friction before consonants, weaker friction before vowels and weakest friction intervocalically, where it may be realized as glottal. The intervocalic variant "may appear to be voiced".

has a velar allophone,, which occurs before velar consonants (as in bank 'bank').

Non-palatal consonants are weakly palatalized when they precede. This is far less audible than it is in Russian.

The approximants and  may be regarded as non-syllabic vowels when not followed by a vowel. For example, raj ('paradise'), dał ('gave') , autor ('author').

Before fricatives, nasal consonants may be realized as nasalized semivowels, analogous to those found in the pronunciations of ą and ę (see The vowel system above). This occurs in loanwords, and in free variation with the typical consonantal pronunciation (e.g. instynkt 'instinct'). Similarly, the palatal nasal in coda position is in free variation with a nasalized palatal approximant.

Consonant distribution
Polish, like other Slavic languages, permits complex consonant clusters, which historically often arose from the disappearance of yers (see Historical development above). Examples of such clusters can be found in words such as bezwzględny ('absolute' or 'heartless', 'ruthless'), źdźbło ('blade of grass'), [[Media:Pl-wstrząs.ogg|wstrząs]] ('shock'), and krnąbrność ('disobedience'). A popular Polish tongue-twister (from a verse by Jan Brzechwa) is W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie ('In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed').

For restrictions on combinations of voiced and voiceless consonants in clusters, see Voicing and devoicing below. Note that unlike languages such as Czech, Polish does not have syllabic consonants – the nucleus of a syllable is always a vowel.

The consonant is restricted to positions adjacent to a vowel. It also cannot precede i or y. (For other restrictions on consonants appearing before i or y, see Vowel distribution above.)

The palatized velar stops occur only before e (where they are spelt ki and gi) and before i (where they are spelt k and g; plain and  do not occur in that position).

Voicing and devoicing
Polish obstruents (stops, affricates and fricatives) are subject to voicing and devoicing in certain positions. This leads to neutralization of voiced/voiceless pairs in those positions (or equivalently, restrictions on the distribution of voiced and voiceless consonants). The phenomenon applies in word-final position and in consonant clusters.

In a Polish consonant cluster, including across a word boundary, the obstruents are either all voiced or all voiceless. To determine (based on the spelling of the words) whether a given cluster has voiced or voiceless obstruents, examine whether the last obstruent in the cluster, excluding w or rz, appears to be voiced or voiceless. The consonants n, m, ń, r, j, l, ł do not represent obstruents, and therefore do not affect the voicing of other consonants; they are also usually not subject to devoicing except when surrounded by unvoiced consonants. Some examples follow (click the words to hear them spoken):
 * [[Media:Pl-łódka.ogg|łódka]] ('boat'),  →  before the voiceless k
 * [[Media:Pl-kawka-2.ogg|kawka]] ('jackdaw'),  →  before the voiceless k
 * [[Media:Pl-także.ogg|także]] ('also'),  →  before the voiced ż
 * [[Media:Pl-jakby.ogg|jakby]] ('as if'),  →  before the voiced b
 * [[Media:Pl-krzak-2.ogg|krzak]] ('bush'),  → ; rz does not determine the voicing of the cluster
 * [[Media:Pl-odtworzyć.ogg|odtworzyć]] ('to reproduce'),  →  &  → ; w does not determine the voicing of the cluster
 * dach domu ('roof of the house'),  → ; the rule still applies across a word boundary

In some dialects of Wielkopolska and the eastern borderlands, w remains voiced after voiceless consonants.

The above rule does not apply to sonorants – a consonant cluster may contain voiced sonorants and voiceless obstruents, as in [[Media:Pl-król-2.ogg|król]], [[Media:Pl-wart.ogg|wart]], słoń, tnąc.

At the end of a word obstruents are pronounced voiceless, (unless followed by a word beginning with a voiced obstruent, in which case the above cluster rules apply). For example, the in bóg ('god') is pronounced, and the zd in zajazd ('inn') represents a pronunciation like st. However in some regional dialects, especially in western and southern Poland, final obstruents are voiced if the following word starts with a sonorant (here, for example, the t in brat ojca 'father's brother' would be pronounced as a d).

Hard and soft consonants
Multiple palatalizations and some depalatalizations that took place in the history of Proto-Slavic and Polish created quite a complex system of what are often called 'soft' and 'hard' consonants. These terms are useful in describing some inflection patterns and other morphological processes, although exact definitions of 'soft' and 'hard' may differ somewhat.

'Soft' generally refers to the palatal nature of a consonant. The alveolo-palatal sounds ń, ś, ź, ć, dź are considered soft, as normally is the palatal j. The l sound is also normally classed as a soft consonant – like the preceding sounds it cannot be followed by y, but takes i instead. The palatalized velars, and  might also be regarded as soft on this basis.

Consonants which are not classed as soft are called 'hard'. However there exists a subset of the hard consonants, c, dz, sz, ż/rz, cz, dż, which often derive from historical palatalizations (for example, rz usually represents a historical palatalized r), and which behave like the soft consonants in some respects (for example, they normally take e in the nominative plural). These sounds may be called 'hardened' or 'historically soft' consonants.

In some phonological descriptions of Polish, however, a greater number of consonants, including especially the labials m, p, b, f, w, are regarded as occurring in 'hard' and 'soft' pairs. In this approach, for example, the word pies ('dog') is analysed not as but as, with a soft. These consonants are then also analysed as soft when they precede the vowel (as in pić 'to drink'), although here the palatalization is hardly audible, especially in case of the retroflexes. Unlike their equivalents in Russian, these consonants cannot retain their softness in the syllable coda (when not followed by a vowel). For example, the word for 'carp' has inflected forms karpia, karpie etc., with soft (or, depending on the analysis), but nominative singular karp, with hard.

The consonants t, d, r (and some others) can also be regarded as having hard and soft forms according to the above approach, although the soft forms occur only in loanwords such as tir ('large lorry'; see TIR). If the distinction is made for all relevant consonants, then y and i can be regarded as allophones of a single phoneme, with y following hard consonants and i following soft ones (and in initial position).

The historical palatized forms of some consonants have developed in Polish into noticeably different sounds. Thus historical palatized t, d, r have become the sounds now represented by ć, dź, rz respectively. Similarly palatized s, z, n became the sounds ś, ź, ń. Palatization of labials has resulted (according to the main phonological analysis given in the sections above) in the addition of, as in the example pies just given. These developments are reflected in some regular morphological changes in Polish grammar, such as in noun declensions.

Dialectal variation of consonants
In some Polish dialects (found in the eastern borderlands and in Upper Silesia) there is an additional voiced glottal fricative, used for the letter h (which in standard Polish is pronounced , the same as ch).

Some eastern dialects also preserve the velarized dental lateral approximant,, as the pronunciation of the letter <ł> (which is now in standard Polish). These dialects also can palatalize  in every position, whereas standard Polish does so only allophonically before  and. and are also common realizations in Polish native speakers from Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.

notes that students of Polish philology were hostile towards the lateral variant of <ł>, saying that it sounds "unnatural" and "awful". Some of these students also said that they "perceive the lateral <ł> as a variant of ", which, he further notes, along with the necessity of deciding from context whether the meant sound was or  is what makes people hostile towards this sound.

In the Masurian dialect and some neighbouring dialects, the phenomenon of mazurzenie occurs, whereby the retroflex consonants sz, ż, cz, dż are replaced by the corresponding dentals s, z, c, dz, except when they derive from palatized r (i.e. the digraph rz is still pronounced as in standard Polish).

More on clusters
Clusters are much different in Polish than English. Polish can have word-initial and word-medial clusters of up to four consonants, whereas word-final clusters can have up to five consonants. English, on the other hand, does not allow such complex clusters to exist word-initially or word-finally because the rules are much stricter. For example, for a three-consonant cluster to exist word-initially in English, it must have the fricative followed by a voiceless stop and a liquid or glide, for example, spr, spl, skr, str, skw as in spring, splash, scream, string, squash. Clusters can also occur between two or more words in Polish. The name Anna in Polish exemplifies how consonants are also not syllabic in Polish—it is pronounced compared to English. Consonant clusters do have rules in Polish as well, they are just not as strict as English. For example, a two-consonant cluster can be an obstruent followed by a sonorant, an obstruent followed by an obstruent, or m followed by another sonorant. However, it is impossible to have a sonorant (other than m) followed by a sonorant or a sonorant followed by an obstruent, except in a special condition. The larger the consonant cluster, however, the more complex the rules become.

Stress
The predominant stress pattern in Polish is penultimate stress – in a word of more than one syllable, the next-to-last syllable is stressed. Alternating preceding syllables carry secondary stress, e.g. in a four-syllable word, where the primary stress is on the third syllable, there will be secondary stress on the first.

Each vowel represents one syllable, although the letter i normally does not represent a vowel when it precedes another vowel (it represents or palatization of the preceding consonant; see Polish orthography). Also the letters u and i sometimes represent only semivowels when they follow another vowel, as in autor ('author')

Some loanwords, particularly from the Classical languages, have the stress on the antepenultimate (third-from-last) syllable. For example, fizyka ('physics') is stressed on the first syllable. When additional syllables are added to such words through inflection or suffixation, the stress normally becomes regular. For example, uniwersytet (/uɲiˈvɛrs̪ɨt̪ɛt̪/, 'university') has irregular stress on the third (or antepenultimate) syllable, but the genitive uniwersytetu and derived adjective uniwersytecki have regular stress on the penultimate syllables. Over time, loanwords become nativized to have penultimate stress.

Another class of exceptions is verbs with the conditional endings by, bym, byśmy, etc. These endings are not counted in determining the position of the stress; for example, zrobiłbym ('I would do') is stressed on the first syllable, and zrobilibyśmy ('we would do') on the second. According to prescriptive grammars, the same applies to the first and second person plural past tense endings -śmy, -ście, although this rule is often ignored in colloquial speech (so zrobiliśmy ('we did') is said to be correctly stressed on the second syllable, although in practice it is commonly stressed on the third). These irregular stress patterns are explained by the fact that these endings are detachable clitics rather than true verbal inflections: for example, instead of kogo zobaczyliście? ('whom did you see?') it is possible to say kogoście zobaczyli? – here kogo retains its usual stress (first syllable) in spite of the attachment of the clitic. Reanalysis of the endings as inflections when attached to verbs causes the different colloquial stress patterns.

Some common word combinations are stressed as if they were a single word. This applies in particular to many combinations of preposition plus a personal pronoun, such as do niej ('to her'), na nas ('on us'), przeze mnie ('because of me'), all stressed on the bolded syllable.