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98-483: Osowiec Fortress ( Polish : Twierdza Osowiec ; Russian : Крепость Осовец , romanized :  Krepost' Osovets ) is a 19th-century fortress built by the Russian Empire , located in what is now north-eastern Poland . It saw heavy fighting during World War I when it was defended for several months by its Russian garrison against German attacks. The fortress was built in the years 1882–1892 as one of

196-675: A POW camp for Red Army soldiers. Kaunas's Jewish population numbered between 35,000 and 40,000; few would survive the Holocaust in Lithuania . The Nazis, aided by Lithuanian auxiliaries , began massacring the Jewish population. On July 6, acting under orders of the SS , Lithuanian auxiliary police units shot nearly 3,000 Jews at the Seventh Fort. On August 18, in what came to be known as

294-468: A Soviet Socialist Republic until 1990. In 1948, the headquarters of the 7th Guards Airborne Division was established in the fortress' commandant's headquarters. The barracks were used by the 108th Guards Parachute Regiment and the Fifth Fort served the air defense regiment. Most of the forts, however, served as depots or housed farming organizations. During the postwar expansion and development of

392-584: A garrison . During World War II , parts of the fortress complex were used by the Nazi Germany for detention, interrogation, and execution. About 50,000 people were executed there, including more than 60,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust . Some sections have since been restored; the Ninth Fort houses a museum and memorial devoted to the Jewish victims of Holocaust mass executions. The complex

490-499: A / (spelled a ), / ɔ / (spelled o ) and / u / (spelled u and ó as separate letters). The nasal vowels are / ɛ w̃ / (spelled ę ) and / ɔ w̃ / (spelled ą ). Unlike Czech or Slovak, Polish does not retain phonemic vowel length — the letter ó , which formerly represented lengthened /ɔː/ in older forms of the language, is now vestigial and instead corresponds to /u/. The Polish consonant system shows more complexity: its characteristic features include

588-771: A dialect of Polish. Many Silesians consider themselves a separate ethnicity and have been advocating for the recognition of Silesian as a regional language in Poland . The law recognizing it as such was passed by the Sejm and Senate in April 2024, but has been vetoed by President Andrzej Duda in late May of 2024. According to the last official census in Poland in 2011, over half a million people declared Silesian as their native language. Many sociolinguists (e.g. Tomasz Kamusella , Agnieszka Pianka, Alfred F. Majewicz, Tomasz Wicherkiewicz ) assume that extralinguistic criteria decide whether

686-669: A few culturally and linguistically related tribes from the basins of the Vistula and Oder before eventually accepting baptism in 966. With Western Christianity , Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet , which made it possible to write down Polish, which until then had existed only as a spoken language . The closest relatives of Polish are the Elbe and Baltic Sea Lechitic dialects ( Polabian and Pomeranian varieties). All of them, except Kashubian , are extinct. The precursor to modern Polish

784-523: A formidable challenge to its attackers. Lithuania regained its independence on February 16, 1918 and the old fortress was placed under engineering staff supervision. Those materials that had not been taken by the Germans were used to resupply Lithuanian military needs, and for the construction of the armored train Gediminas , named after the 14th century Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas . In 1920,

882-601: A full frontal offensive on the fortress at the beginning of July; the attack included 14 battalions of infantry, one battalion of sappers, 24–30 heavy siege guns, and 30 batteries of artillery equipped with poison gases led by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg . Russian defences were manned by 500 soldiers of the 226th Infantry Regiment Zemlyansky, and 400 militia. The Germans knew the Russians did not have any gas masks so they chose to use chlorine gas. The Germans waited until 04:00 on 6 August for favourable wind conditions, when

980-520: A large number of branches in all of these areas) offers services available in Polish at all of their cash machines in addition to English and Spanish . According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England and Wales who consider Polish to be their "main" language. In Canada , there is a significant Polish Canadian population : There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to

1078-543: A large number of loanwords and similar grammatical structures. Extensive usage of nonstandard dialects has also shaped the standard language ; considerable colloquialisms and expressions were directly borrowed from German or Yiddish and subsequently adopted into the vernacular of Polish which is in everyday use. Historically, Polish was a lingua franca , important both diplomatically and academically in Central and part of Eastern Europe . In addition to being

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1176-543: A lect is an independent language or a dialect: speakers of the speech variety or/and political decisions, and this is dynamic (i.e. it changes over time). Also, research organizations such as SIL International and resources for the academic field of linguistics such as Ethnologue , Linguist List and others, for example the Ministry of Administration and Digitization recognized the Silesian language. In July 2007,

1274-676: A limited network of western Russian railways. Russia's western borders needed support, and fortresses existed or were being built in Latvia , Ukraine , and Belarus . The concept of building a fortress in Lithuania was discussed without result in 1796, but became a critical concern after the French invasion of Russia in 1812 led by Napoleon . The Grande Armée managed to cross the Nemunas near Kaunas on its drive towards Moscow without major difficulties. An increasingly unified Germany troubled

1372-454: A nasal consonant, rather than a nasal vowel. For example, ą in dąb ("oak") is pronounced [ɔm] , and ę in tęcza ("rainbow") is pronounced [ɛn] (the nasal assimilates to the following consonant). When followed by l or ł (for example przyjęli , przyjęły ), ę is pronounced as just e . When ę is at the end of the word it is often pronounced as just [ɛ] . Depending on

1470-491: 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'), prze ze mnie ('because of me'), all stressed on the bolded syllable. The Polish alphabet derives from the Latin script but includes certain additional letters formed using diacritics . The Polish alphabet was one of three major forms of Latin-based orthography developed for Western and some South Slavic languages,

1568-685: A small settlement located within the boundaries of the fortress. Other parts of the fortress still belong to the Polish Army and access is restricted. In September 1914, Russian field defenses surrounding the fortress were attacked by 40 infantry battalions of the German 8th Army; the attackers enjoyed significant numerical superiority. By 21 September, the German advance brought the fortress proper within range of German artillery; further reinforced with 60 additional guns of calibres up to 203mm, but these could only be brought into action on 26 September. On

1666-405: A verse by Jan Brzechwa ) is W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie [fʂt͡ʂɛbʐɛˈʂɨɲɛ ˈxʂɔw̃ʂt͡ʂ ˈbʐmi fˈtʂt͡ɕiɲɛ] ('In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed'). Unlike languages such as Czech, Polish does not have syllabic consonants – the nucleus of a syllable is always a vowel. The consonant /j/ is restricted to positions adjacent to a vowel. It also cannot precede

1764-478: A vowel when it precedes another vowel (it represents /j/ , palatalization of the preceding consonant, or both depending on analysis). Also the letters u and i sometimes represent only semivowels when they follow another vowel, as in autor /ˈawtɔr/ ('author'), mostly in loanwords (so not in native nauka /naˈu.ka/ 'science, the act of learning', for example, nor in nativized Mateusz /maˈte.uʂ/ 'Matthew'). Some loanwords , particularly from

1862-447: Is possible to say ko goście zoba czy li? – 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. These stress patterns are considered part of a "usable" norm of standard Polish - in contrast to the "model" ("high") norm. Some common word combinations are stressed as if they were

1960-770: Is primarily spoken in Poland and serves as the official language of the country, as well as the language of the Polish diaspora around the world. In 2024, there were over 39.7 million Polish native speakers. It ranks as the sixth most-spoken among languages of the European Union . Polish is subdivided into regional dialects and maintains strict T–V distinction pronouns, honorifics , and various forms of formalities when addressing individuals. The traditional 32-letter Polish alphabet has nine additions ( ą , ć , ę , ł , ń , ó , ś , ź , ż ) to

2058-524: Is the Old Polish language . Ultimately, Polish descends from the unattested Proto-Slavic language. The Book of Henryków (Polish: Księga henrykowska , Latin : Liber fundationis claustri Sanctae Mariae Virginis in Heinrichau ), contains the earliest known sentence written in the Polish language: Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai (in modern orthography: Daj, uć ja pobrusza, a ti pocziwaj ;

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2156-722: Is the most complete remaining example of a Russian Empire fortress. The city of Kaunas is located at the confluence of two rivers, the Neman and Neris , which link Lithuania's interior and its capital, Vilnius , to the Baltic Sea . The Baltic peoples had created significant domains by the 1st century, and came into conflict with the Scandinavians and the Slavs ; the Teutonic Order began targeting Lithuanian lands at

2254-472: Is the most widely-used minority language in Lithuania's Vilnius County , by 26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results, as Vilnius was part of Poland from 1922 until 1939. Polish is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. In Ukraine, it is most common in the western parts of Lviv and Volyn Oblasts , while in West Belarus it is used by the significant Polish minority, especially in

2352-487: Is the promotion of transnational scientific cooperation in monument protection, along with the creation of strategies to reconstruct and manage fortresses in the region. Kaunas Fortress is a part of this project. In 2007, Seventh fort was sold, new owners started the restoration process, since 2009 Seventh fort is open as a fortification and military museum and is the only brick fort in Kaunas suitable for safe visiting. In

2450-430: The kropka (superior dot) over the letter ż , and the ogonek ("little tail") under the letters ą, ę . The letters q, v, x are used only in foreign words and names. Polish orthography is largely phonemic —there is a consistent correspondence between letters (or digraphs and trigraphs ) and phonemes (for exceptions see below). The letters of the alphabet and their normal phonemic values are listed in

2548-401: The ś in święty ("holy") all represent the sound / ɕ / . 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 . In other loanwords

2646-596: The Brest and Grodno regions and in areas along the Lithuanian border. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries. In the United States , Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. According to the 2000 United States Census , 667,414 Americans of age five years and over reported Polish as

2744-612: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth 's influence gave Polish the status of lingua franca in Central and Eastern Europe . The process of standardization began in the 14th century and solidified in the 16th century during the Middle Polish era. Standard Polish was based on various dialectal features, with the Greater Poland dialect group serving as the base. After World War II , Standard Polish became

2842-522: The United Kingdom and the United States . Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. At the time, it was a collection of dialect groups with some mutual features, but much regional variation was present. Mieszko I , ruler of the Polans tribe from the Greater Poland region, united

2940-474: The classical languages , have the stress on the antepenultimate (third-from-last) syllable. For example, fizyka ( /ˈfizɨka/ ) ('physics') is stressed on the first syllable. This may lead to a rare phenomenon of minimal pairs differing only in stress placement, for example muzyka /ˈmuzɨka/ 'music' vs. muzyka /muˈzɨka/ – genitive singular of muzyk 'musician'. When additional syllables are added to such words through inflection or suffixation ,

3038-578: The flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50) , as well as the expulsion of Ukrainians and Operation Vistula , the 1947 migration of Ukrainian minorities in the Recovered Territories in the west of the country, contributed to the country's linguistic homogeneity. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak Polish somewhat differently, although the differences between modern-day vernacular varieties and standard Polish ( język ogólnopolski ) appear relatively slight. Most of

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3136-508: The partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century, Lithuania was incorporated into the Russian Empire . Two major 19th century projects contributed to the city's revival. The Augustów Canal , completed in 1832, linked the Neman to the Black Sea , and a rail line linking Saint Petersburg, Warsaw, and Germany via Kaunas was completed in 1862; it was part of

3234-699: The "intellectuals action", over 1,800 Jews were shot at the Fourth Fort. On October 28, the "Great Action" took place—the residents of the Kaunas Ghetto were summoned, and over 9,000 men, women and children were taken to the Ninth Fort and executed. During the later course of the occupation, over 5,000 Jewish deportees from Central Europe would be executed at this fort. About 60 escaped in December 1943; they had been assigned to excavate and burn

3332-416: The 16th century, which is also regarded as the " Golden Age of Polish literature". The orthography was modified in the 19th century and in 1936. Tomasz Kamusella notes that "Polish is the oldest, non-ecclesiastical, written Slavic language with a continuous tradition of literacy and official use, which has lasted unbroken from the 16th century to this day." Polish evolved into the main sociolect of

3430-457: The 1700s as the successor to the medieval Old Polish (10th–16th centuries) and Middle Polish (16th–18th centuries). Among the major languages, it is most closely related to Slovak and Czech but differs in terms of pronunciation and general grammar. Additionally, Polish was profoundly influenced by Latin and other Romance languages like Italian and French as well as Germanic languages (most notably German ), which contributed to

3528-596: The 2000s, a variety of entities owned parts of the complex: the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Defence, the State Property Fund, and the City of Kaunas. The site still contains unexploded ordnance, although a 1995 project removed about 1.9 tonnes of explosives. Other restoration issues include uncovered wells, poor drainage and ventilation, erosion, possible chemical contaminants, vegetative overgrowth, and

3626-486: The 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto (91,810 speakers) and Montreal . The geographical distribution of the Polish language was greatly affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II and Polish population transfers (1944–46) . Poles settled in the " Recovered Territories " in the west and north, which had previously been mostly German -speaking. Some Poles remained in

3724-570: The Empire during the second half of the century. A fortress in Kaunas would present an obstacle to attacks from the west, preventing further incursions towards Riga and Vilnius. In order to control the region, attackers would need to first neutralize Kaunas. Facing this possibility and evaluating the natural advantages of the city, Russian officials decided to construct a fortress there. After several delays, on July 7, 1879 Tsar Alexander II issued an edict ordering its construction. The first design

3822-592: The Germans and the Soviets. The museum, which holds over 65,000 artefacts, is sponsored by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture . Since the early 2000s, it has received about 100,000 visitors per year and hosted Holocaust education seminars and workshops. In 2005, the international project "Baltic Culture and Tourism Route Fortresses" was launched, with support from the European Union . Its goal

3920-609: The Germans attacked the Osowiec fortress, which was lightly defended by a few Russian battalions. Two days of heavy bombardment by the Germans commenced on 14 February, followed by a second bombardment during the last week of the month. However, German infantry attacks were repelled, and the situation devolved into positional warfare for the next several months. It is sometimes incorrectly claimed that Russian counter-battery fire destroyed two German heavy mortars ; these guns were withdrawn for operations elsewhere. The Germans launched

4018-490: The Germans subsequently retreating. The Russian garrison suffered heavy losses, but some soldiers survived even after the final charge, and chlorine gas barrage. This offensive by the remaining Russian troops was dubbed the "Attack of the Dead Men", as the near deceased soldiers resembled the undead, still charging despite being badly injured. The Russians did not hold Osowiec for much longer. The Germans threatened to encircle

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4116-583: The Henryków monastery, noted that "Hoc est in polonico" ("This is in Polish"). The earliest treatise on Polish orthography was written by Jakub Parkosz  [ pl ] around 1470. The first printed book in Polish appeared in either 1508 or 1513, while the oldest Polish newspaper was established in 1661. Starting in the 1520s, large numbers of books in the Polish language were published, contributing to increased homogeneity of grammar and orthography. The writing system achieved its overall form in

4214-478: The Kaunas Fortress Board was formed and charged with the task of administering the fortress. Due to the development of new military technologies, its reconstruction was seen as a vast and inappropriate expense. The fortress' armament was dismantled and the trenches were filled with scrap iron. Sections of the fortress were given to various civil institutions, while the army occupied the barracks of

4312-525: The Ninth, conformed with the new technological criteria, while the Tenth Fort was only partially built. The complex then covered about 65 km (25 sq mi) and contained a 30 km (19 mi) internal railway, power plant, water supply system, mill, bakery, brewery, food bank, and telegraph. Despite the fact that the fortress' renovations and new construction had not been finished, it presented

4410-535: The Osowiec garrison became part of the 2nd Regional Logistics Base. Polish language Polish ( endonym : język polski , [ˈjɛ̃zɘk ˈpɔlskʲi] , polszczyzna [pɔlˈʂt͡ʂɘzna] or simply polski , [ˈpɔlskʲi] ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group within the Indo-European language family written in the Latin script . It

4508-709: The Russian Army abandoned it in August 1915. In the interwar years the fortress was used by the Polish Army. During the German invasion of Poland in 1939 it was bypassed and did not see much fighting. Today, some parts of the fortress are accessible to tourists, especially the parts within the boundaries of Biebrza National Park . The visitor information center of the park is located in Osowiec-Twierdza ,

4606-671: The Silesian language was recognized by ISO , and was attributed an ISO code of szl. Some additional characteristic but less widespread regional dialects include: Polish linguistics has been characterized by a strong strive towards promoting prescriptive ideas of language intervention and usage uniformity, along with normatively-oriented notions of language "correctness" (unusual by Western standards). Polish has six oral vowels (seven oral vowels in written form), which are all monophthongs , and two nasal vowels . The oral vowels are / i / (spelled i ), / ɨ / (spelled y and also transcribed as /ɘ/ or /ɪ/), / ɛ / (spelled e ), /

4704-576: The attack opened with regular artillery bombardment combined with chlorine gas. The ensuing battle was known as the Attack of the Dead Men . The Russians put on wet rags on their faces to filter some of the gas. Most died but some survived the gas attack. Even while suffering severe chemical burns the Russians were able to repel the attack due to German forces panicking at the sight of the Russian men, covered in blisters and coughing up bits of their lungs, with

4802-473: The beginning of the 13th century. Since Lithuania was heavily wooded and its lands were often impassable, its interior was most approachable along its rivers when frozen and during the short dry harvest season in late summer. In response to this vulnerability, defensive structures, including a brick castle in Kaunas, were in place at various points on the Nemunas River by the 14th century. The city

4900-532: The bodies of earlier victims, as part of Aktion 1005 . Thirteen of these escapees were able to document the Aktion's attempt to hide the evidence of the mass murders. When Germany began losing the war and the battlefront approached Lithuania, the German defense began to prepare a defense in Kaunas, including the use of the fortress. The Nemunas River was labelled "the line of catastrophe", and Adolf Hitler called for its defense at any price. On August 1, 1944 Kaunas

4998-485: The cases mentioned above, the letter i if followed by another vowel in the same word usually represents / j / , yet a palatalization of the previous consonant is always assumed. The reverse case, where the consonant remains unpalatalized but is followed by a palatalized consonant, is written by using j instead of i : for example, zjeść , "to eat up". The letters ą and ę , when followed by plosives and affricates, represent an oral vowel followed by

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5096-462: The city, parts of the fortress were dismantled; as part of the construction of Kaunas Polytechnic Institute the ground-level entrenchments of one defensive sector were destroyed. In 1958, the Ninth Fort was dedicated as a museum. During 1959, its first exhibition was opened, memorializing the crimes that had taken place there. The museum later expanded its scope to cover the fortress' entire history. A 32 m (105 ft)  tall memorial to

5194-473: The complete enclosure of the city center between the Rivers Nemunas and Neris . By 1890, seven forts had been completed, supporting roads had been constructed, and a railroad bridge over the Nemunas had been adapted for military transport. By now, expenditures on the fortress had amounted to over nine million rubles . The first bricks for a church that would serve the garrison were laid in 1891; it

5292-483: The complex was the largest defensive structure in the entire state, occupying 65 km (25 sq mi). The fortress was battle-tested in 1915 when Germany attacked the Russian Empire, and withstood eleven days of assault before capture. After World War I, the fortress' military importance declined as advances in weaponry rendered it increasingly obsolete. It was used by various civil institutions and as

5390-713: The corresponding sentence in modern Polish: Daj, niech ja pomielę, a ty odpoczywaj or Pozwól, że ja będę mełł, a ty odpocznij ; and in English: Come, let me grind, and you take a rest ), written around 1280. The book is exhibited in the Archdiocesal Museum in Wrocław, and as of 2015 has been added to UNESCO 's " Memory of the World " list. The medieval recorder of this phrase, the Cistercian monk Peter of

5488-411: The defensive works to protect the western borders of Russia against Germany , and continuously modernised afterwards to cope with advances in heavy siege artillery. In 1889–1893, military engineer Nestor Buinitsky took an important part in the creation of the fortress. It was located on the river Biebrza about 50 km from the border with the German province of East Prussia , in the one place where

5586-479: The disappearance of yers . Polish can have word-initial and word-medial clusters of up to four consonants, whereas word-final clusters can have up to five consonants. Examples of such clusters can be found in words such as bezwzględny [bɛzˈvzɡlɛndnɨ] ('absolute' or 'heartless', 'ruthless'), źdźbło [ˈʑd͡ʑbwɔ] ('blade of grass'), wstrząs [ˈfstʂɔw̃s] ('shock'), and krnąbrność [ˈkrnɔmbrnɔɕt͡ɕ] ('disobedience'). A popular Polish tongue-twister (from

5684-430: The distinction between regular penultimate and exceptional antepenultimate 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, zro biłbym ('I would do') is stressed on the first syllable, and zro bi libyśmy ('we would do') on the second. According to prescriptive authorities ,

5782-531: The eastern parts of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth wrote Polish in the Arabic alphabet. The Cyrillic script is used to a certain extent today by Polish speakers in Western Belarus , especially for religious texts. The diacritics used in the Polish alphabet are the kreska (graphically similar to the acute accent ) over the letters ć, ń, ó, ś, ź and through the letter in ł ;

5880-420: The end of words (where devoicing occurs) and in certain consonant clusters (where assimilation occurs). For details, see Voicing and devoicing in the article on Polish phonology. Most Polish words are paroxytones (that is, the stress falls on the second-to-last syllable of a polysyllabic word), although there are exceptions. Polish permits complex consonant clusters, which historically often arose from

5978-476: The entire country. Polish has traditionally been described as consisting of three to five main regional dialects: Silesian and Kashubian , spoken in Upper Silesia and Pomerania respectively, are thought of as either Polish dialects or distinct languages , depending on the criteria used. Kashubian contains a number of features not found elsewhere in Poland, e.g. nine distinct oral vowels (vs.

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6076-467: The following table. The following digraphs and trigraphs are used: Voiced consonant letters frequently come to represent voiceless sounds (as shown in the tables); this occurs at the end of words and in certain clusters, due to the neutralization mentioned in the Phonology section above. Occasionally also voiceless consonant letters can represent voiced sounds in clusters. The spelling rule for

6174-713: The former 28th Division. The Sixth and Ninth forts were used as prisons and the Central Archive was located in the Seventh Fort ; the Republic's official radio station was based in the fortress; a gas chamber was installed in the gunpowder depot of the First Fort and used to execute condemned prisoners. Some sections were used as housing for the poor. As the city of Kaunas expanded near the complex, its roads became public streets. The structures and layouts of

6272-679: The fortress with the capture of Kovno and Novogeorgiesk . The Russians demolished much of Osowiec and withdrew on 18 August. After the First World War, the Second Polish Republic refurbished parts of Osowiec and used it to house Polish army units, including the Central School of Non-Commissioned Officers of the Border Protection Corps . The 135th Reserve Infantry Regiment was formed from

6370-440: The fortress' civil buildings was restricted. During 1890 work began on the Eighth fort , known as Linkuva; new construction techniques were introduced, particularly reinforced concrete . The Linkuva fort became the most modern entrenchment, equipped with electricity, sewerage, and casemates for a garrison of 1,000 personnel. At the same time, massive groundworks were laid along with additional defensive structures, effecting

6468-406: The fortress' outer lines and usually erected on the hills. The first construction phase was completed in 1887. The fortress was designated first-class in that year, marking its importance and defensive capabilities, and Otto Klem was named its first commandant. At the same time, administrative rules were established to manage the fortress' impact on the city and its surrounding areas; the height of

6566-435: The language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of people who speak languages other than English , 0.25% of the US population, and 6% of the Polish-American population. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census (over 50%) were found in three states: Illinois (185,749), New York (111,740), and New Jersey (74,663). Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services (which has

6664-439: The letter y . 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

6762-537: The letters of the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet , while removing three (x, q, v). Those three letters are at times included in an extended 35-letter alphabet. The traditional set comprises 23 consonants and 9 written vowels , including two nasal vowels ( ę , ą ) defined by a reversed diacritic hook called an ogonek . Polish is a synthetic and fusional language which has seven grammatical cases . It has fixed penultimate stress and an abundance of palatal consonants . Contemporary Polish developed in

6860-408: The marshlands of the river could be crossed, hence controlling a vital chokepoint. The extensive marshlands and bogs that surrounded it made attacks upon it difficult. The strategic Belostok – Lyck – Königsberg rail line also ran through the fortress and crossed the Biebrza river there. The fortress saw heavy fighting during the beginning of World War I in the eastern front from September 1914 until

6958-431: The middle aged and young speak vernaculars close to standard Polish, while the traditional dialects are preserved among older people in rural areas. First-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty recognizing the regional and social differences. The modern standard dialect , often termed as "correct Polish", is spoken or at least understood throughout

7056-460: The most widely spoken variant of Polish across the country, and most dialects stopped being the form of Polish spoken in villages. Poland is one of the most linguistically homogeneous European countries; nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their first language . Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in areas which were once administered or occupied by Poland, notably in neighboring Lithuania , Belarus , and Ukraine . Polish

7154-465: The name Tarzan . Kaunas Fortress Kaunas Fortress ( Lithuanian : Kauno tvirtovė , Russian : Кοвенская крепость , German : Festung Kowno ) is the remains of a fortress complex in Kaunas , Lithuania . It was constructed and renovated between 1882 and 1915 to protect the Russian Empire 's western borders, and was designated a "first-class" fortress in 1887. During World War I ,

7252-617: The new sections were influenced by the presence of the fortress. Adjustments to the secret protocols of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact assigned Lithuania to the Soviet sphere of influence, and it was occupied by the USSR in June 1940. The fortress was then used to conduct interrogations and house political prisoners. The pact was broken when Germany invaded USSR on June 22, 1941. German forces entered Kaunas on June 24. The Sixth Fort became

7350-586: The nobles in Poland–Lithuania in the 15th century. The history of Polish as a language of state governance begins in the 16th century in the Kingdom of Poland . Over the later centuries, Polish served as the official language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , Congress Poland , the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria , and as the administrative language in the Russian Empire 's Western Krai . The growth of

7448-459: The official language of Poland, Polish is also spoken as a second language in eastern Germany , northern Czech Republic and Slovakia , western parts of Belarus and Ukraine as well as in southeast Lithuania and Latvia . Because of the emigration from Poland during different time periods, most notably after World War II , millions of Polish speakers can also be found in countries such as Canada , Argentina , Brazil , Israel , Australia ,

7546-673: The others being Czech orthography and Croatian orthography , the last of these being a 19th-century invention trying to make a compromise between the first two. Kashubian uses a Polish-based system, Slovak uses a Czech-based system, and Slovene follows the Croatian one; the Sorbian languages blend the Polish and the Czech ones. Historically, Poland's once diverse and multi-ethnic population utilized many forms of scripture to write Polish. For instance, Lipka Tatars and Muslims inhabiting

7644-401: The palatal sounds / ɕ / , / ʑ / , / tɕ / , / dʑ / and / ɲ / is as follows: before the vowel i the plain letters s, z, c, dz, n are used; before other vowels the combinations si, zi, ci, dzi, ni are used; when not followed by a vowel the diacritic forms ś, ź, ć, dź, ń are used. For example, the s in siwy ("grey-haired"), the si in siarka ("sulfur") and

7742-470: The previously Polish-ruled territories in the east that were annexed by the USSR , resulting in the present-day Polish-speaking communities in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, although many Poles were expelled from those areas to areas within Poland's new borders. To the east of Poland, the most significant Polish minority lives in a long strip along either side of the Lithuania - Belarus border. Meanwhile,

7840-626: The project. The principal structures were concentrated in Freda , Panemunė , Aleksotas , and the new section of the city. The project significantly affected the daily life of Kaunas residents, and there were plans to detach the fortress into an independent administrative unit governed by a military board; its commandant wrote that "There is no city of Kaunas, there is only the Fortress of Kaunas." The first forts were built using bricks reinforced with thick ramparts of earth, which were incorporated into

7938-510: The right bank of the Neris to the left bank of the Nemunas, comprising two forts, including the newest – the Ninth Fort. As new building and weapons technologies developed, the fortress was repeatedly renovated in order to maintain its military effectiveness. In 1912 an expansion and reconstruction initiative was launched. This project called for twelve new forts along with batteries, support buildings, and defensive structures. Its completion

8036-540: 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 zro bi liśmy 'we did' should be prescriptively stressed on the second syllable, although in practice it is commonly stressed on the third as zrobi li śmy ). These irregular stress patterns are explained by the fact that these endings are detachable clitics rather than true verbal inflections: for example, instead of ko go zoba czy liście? ('whom did you see?') it

8134-434: The same day, the city was attacked, 8,000 garrison repelled the attack of 12,000 German army, losing 139 people, German losses up to 6,000. Two days later, a German frontal assault was repelled by Russian artillery. The day afterwards, two Russian flanking counter-attacks forced German artillery to relocate, taking the fortress outside of German artillery range. Attempting to cut the railway line between Białystok and Warsaw,

8232-529: The school after Germany invaded Poland at the beginning of the Second World War . The Poles abandoned the fortress on 13 September. The Germans captured it and passed it to the Soviet 20th Motor Rifle and Machine Gun Brigade on 25 September. Osowiec was subsequently garrisoned by the Soviet 10th Army . The Germans recaptured Osowiec on 27 June 1941 during Operation Barbarossa ; one use of the fortress

8330-410: The series of affricate and palatal consonants that resulted from four Proto-Slavic palatalizations and two further palatalizations that took place in Polish. The full set of consonants, together with their most common spellings, can be presented as follows (although other phonological analyses exist): Neutralization occurs between voiced – voiceless consonant pairs in certain environments, at

8428-506: The six of standard Polish) and (in the northern dialects) phonemic word stress, an archaic feature preserved from Common Slavic times and not found anywhere else among the West Slavic languages . However, it was described by some linguists as lacking most of the linguistic and social determinants of language-hood. Many linguistic sources categorize Silesian as a regional language separate from Polish, while some consider Silesian to be

8526-494: The stress normally becomes regular. For example, uniwersytet ( /uɲiˈvɛrsɨtɛt/ , 'university') has irregular stress on the third (or antepenultimate) syllable, but the genitive uniwersytetu ( /uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛtu/ ) and derived adjective uniwersytecki ( /uɲivɛrsɨˈtɛt͡skʲi/ ) have regular stress on the penultimate syllables. Loanwords generally become nativized to have penultimate stress. In psycholinguistic experiments, speakers of Polish have been demonstrated to be sensitive to

8624-609: The surrounding relief, making them harder to breach. They were symmetrical , usually having five faces, with positions for infantry and artillery . These forts were built according to the standard Russian brick fort design of the time. Therefore, the first seven forts were very similar; they differed only in the layout of their interiors, their integration into the surrounding relief, and in some construction details. They would also be renovated in slightly different ways. Batteries were built between adjacent forts; these were fortifications containing various types of artillery, located along

8722-409: The victims was constructed there in 1984. However, the Soviet military occupied most of the fortress until Lithuania re-established its independence . After the withdrawal of Soviet forces, completed in 1993, Lithuanian military bases were established at several forts. As of early 2007, only the Ninth Fort had been partly renovated. It is now devoted to the Holocaust and Lithuania's occupations by

8820-563: The vowel i is changed to y , e.g. Syria , Sybir , synchronizacja , Syrakuzy . The following table shows the correspondence between the sounds and spelling: Digraphs and trigraphs are used: Similar principles apply to / kʲ / , / ɡʲ / , / xʲ / and /lʲ/ , except that these can only occur before vowels, so the spellings are k, g, (c)h, l before i , and ki, gi, (c)hi, li otherwise. Most Polish speakers, however, do not consider palatalization of k, g, (c)h or l as creating new sounds. Except in

8918-443: The word, the phoneme / x / can be spelt h or ch , the phoneme / ʐ / can be spelt ż or rz , and / u / can be spelt u or ó . In several cases it determines the meaning, for example: może ("maybe") and morze ("sea"). In occasional words, letters that normally form a digraph are pronounced separately. For example, rz represents /rz/ , not / ʐ / , in words like zamarzać ("freeze") and in

9016-579: Was 850,000 rubles. The complex of forts and defensive structures was divided into four sectors. The first followed the left bank of the Nemunas to its confluence with the Jiesia River and included the three earliest forts. The second sector extended from the Jiesia to Pažaislis monastery and included two forts. The third extended from the right to the left bank of the Nemunas; this sector also contained two forts. The fourth and last sector stretched from

9114-574: Was as an ammunition dump there. On 14 August 1944, the Soviet 49th and 50th Armies captured three of the forts during the Osovets Offensive of Operation Bagration . Fort II remained in German hands until January 1945, when it was abandoned during the Vistula–Oder Offensive . In 1953, the fortress was regarrisoned by a Polish Air Force ammunition depot, which was absorbed into the 11th Regional Materiel Base in 1998. In 2011,

9212-587: Was captured by the Red Army. The remaining fortress structures were used for military needs and several of the original structures were demolished or redeveloped. The number of deaths at the fortress during World War II vary by source; the United States Holocaust Museum gives detailed descriptions of the deaths of about 18,500 Holocaust victims. Other sources mention 30,000 Jewish deaths, with total number 50,000. Lithuania remained

9310-430: Was completed in 1893. The following year construction began on a dedicated narrow gauge railway . The Ninth Fort, begun in 1903, was the first of its kind in the Empire. The structure was a trapezoid , encompassing one infantry rampart, and was equipped with two armored watchtowers, electricity, and ventilation. The walls of its cannon casemates were covered with cork to reduce firing noise. The cost of this single fort

9408-551: Was first mentioned in written sources in 1361; it received Magdeburg rights , regulating its autonomy and establishing trade protocols, from Vytautas the Great in 1408. An outpost of the Hanseatic League was created there in 1441. By the end of the 16th century Kaunas had become a major regional trade center, but plagues, fires, and wars adversely affected the country and city during the 17th and 18th centuries. Following

9506-459: Was overseen by Generals Nikolay Obruchev, Konstantin Zverev, and Ivan Volberg. As originally planned, the fortress encompassed a huge site, consisting of seven forts and nine defensive batteries arranged in concentric loops. The plan included support buildings and infrastructures, such as barracks, new roads, and an ammunition depot. Construction began in 1882; about 4,000 workers were mustered for

9604-481: Was scheduled for 1917. The older forts were to be completely encircled by the new construction, which was meant to employ the newest military technologies. During the early realization of the plan, new defensive entrenchments were built and the old forts were strengthened with concrete. However, when action began on the Eastern Front during World War I , work on the fortress was halted. In 1915 only one fort,

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