The Lazy Man's Guide To Trigger

Polish Roman Catholic Parishes in the Archdiocese of St Louis, MO

Latin was known to a larger or smaller degree by most of the numerous szlachta in the 16th to 18th centuries . Apart from dozens of loanwords, its influence can also be seen in a number of verbatim Latin phrases in polish literature . During the 12th and 13th centuries, Mongolian words were brought to the Polish language during wars with the armies of Genghis Khan and his descendants, e.g. dzida and szereg . Polish is a highly fusional language with relatively free word order, although the dominant arrangement is subject–verb–object . There are no articles, and subject pronouns are often dropped. There are certain clusters where a written consonant would not be pronounced.

In addition, word endings are liberally applied to almost any word to produce verbs, nouns, adjectives, as well as adding the appropriate endings for cases of nouns, adjectives, diminutives, double-diminutives, augmentatives, etc. Passive-type constructions can be made using the auxiliary być or zostać ("become") with the passive participle. There is also an impersonal construction where the active verb is used with no subject, but with the reflexive pronoun się present to indicate a general, unspecified subject (as in pije się wódkę "vodka is being drunk"—note that wódka appears in the accusative). A similar sentence type in the past tense uses the passive participle with the ending -o, as in widziano ludzi ("people were seen").

Most Polish speakers, however, do not consider palatalization of k, g, h or l as creating new sounds. The exceptions to the above rule are certain loanwords from Latin, Italian, French, Russian or English—where s before i is pronounced as s, e.g. sinus, sinologia, do re mi fa sol la si do, Saint-Simon i saint-simoniści, Sierioża, Siergiej, Singapur, singiel. Voiced consonant letters frequently come to represent voiceless sounds ; this occurs at the end of words and in certain clusters, due to the neutralization mentioned in the Phonology section above.

In addition, Turkish and Tatar have exerted influence upon the vocabulary of war, names of oriental costumes etc. Russian borrowings began to make their way into Polish from the second half of the 19th century on. Thieves' slang includes such words as kimać or majcher of Greek origin, considered then unknown to the outside world. In 1518, the Polish king Sigismund I the Old married Bona Sforza, the niece of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian, who introduced Italian cuisine to Poland, especially vegetables. Hence, words from Italian include pomidor from "pomodoro" , kalafior from "cavolfiore" , and pomarańcza, a portmanteau from Italian "pomo" plus "arancio" . A later word of Italian origin is autostrada (from Italian "autostrada", highway).

Kashubian , often classified as a Polish dialect, is, historically, a separate language. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article .