81-583: The Sejny Uprising or Seinai Revolt ( Polish : Powstanie sejneńskie , Lithuanian : Seinų sukilimas ) refers to a Polish uprising against the Lithuanian authorities in August 1919 in the ethnically mixed area surrounding the town of Sejny ( Lithuanian : Seinai ). When German forces, which occupied the territory during World War I , retreated from the area in May 1919, they turned over administration to
162-499: 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
243-526: A Lithuanian counter-demonstration was staged. Its participants read aloud a recently issued recruiting proclamation of the Lithuanian volunteer army: "Citizens! Our nation is in danger! To arms! We shall leave not a single occupant on our lands!" On August 20, Prime Minister of Lithuania Mykolas Sleževičius visited Sejny and called on Lithuanians to defend their lands "to the end, however they can, with axes, pitchforks and scythes". According to Lesčius, at
324-592: A company of Germans volunteers, but Lithuanian sources assert that it was an excuse used by Rudnicki to explain his defeat. The Lithuanian forces recovered some important documents and property, freed Lithuanian prisoners and, according to Mańczuk, executed several of the PMO fighters they found wounded. On the evening of August 25, the first regular unit (41st Infantry Regiment) of the Polish Army received an order to advance towards Sejny. The Lithuanian forces retreated on
405-516: A coup d'état in Kaunas – discouraged the local PMO activists from carrying out the Sejny Uprising. Piłsudski reasoned that any hostilities could leave Lithuanians even more opposed to the proposed union with Poland (see Międzymorze ). The local PMO disregarded his recommendations and launched the uprising. While locally successful, it led to the failure of the nationwide coup. On August 17,
486-771: 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
567-669: 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
648-520: 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
729-543: 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,
810-454: 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
891-402: 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 the 1700s as the successor to the medieval Old Polish (10th–16th centuries) and Middle Polish (16th–18th centuries). Among the major languages, it
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#1732773241954972-491: 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,
1053-405: 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
1134-478: 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
1215-711: Is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group within the Indo-European language family written in the Latin script . It 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
1296-419: 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 ,
1377-427: 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 a large number of loanwords and similar grammatical structures. Extensive usage of nonstandard dialects has also shaped
1458-447: 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
1539-595: 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 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
1620-524: 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 ;
1701-529: 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
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#17327732419541782-572: Is the present-day Lithuania–Poland border . On July 26, the Foch Line was accepted by the Conference of Ambassadors as the provisional border between the two states. Lithuanians were not informed about this decision until August 3. Neither country was satisfied: both Lithuanian and Polish forces would have to retreat from the Suwałki and Vilnius regions, respectively. Those Germans still present in
1863-430: 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
1944-401: 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
2025-537: 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
2106-666: 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
2187-533: The Polish–Lithuanian War . Sejny changed hands frequently until the Suwałki Agreement of October 1920, which left Sejny on the Polish side. The uprising undermined the plans of Polish leader Józef Piłsudski who was planning a coup d'état in Lithuania to replace the Lithuanian government with a pro-Polish cabinet which would agree to a union with Poland (the proposed Międzymorze federation). Because
2268-587: The Sejny Priest Seminary relocated. According to the Lithuanians, the repressions were even more far-reaching, including a ban on public use of the Lithuanian language and the closing of Lithuanian organizations, which had a total of 1,300 members. The New York Times , reporting on renewed hostilities a year later, described the 1919 Sejny events as a violent occupation by the Poles, in which
2349-506: The Suwałki Governorate . It is generally agreed that Lithuanians formed the majority of the population in the northern Suwałki Governorate, while Poles were concentrated in the south. But Lithuanian and Polish historians and political scientists continued to disagree over the location of the line that separated the areas of Lithuanian and Polish majorities. Lithuanians claimed that Sejny and the surrounding area were inhabited primarily by
2430-522: 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
2511-474: 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 ,
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2592-578: 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
2673-404: 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 the official language of Poland, Polish
2754-416: 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
2835-486: 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
2916-646: The Germans retreated from Sejny, a Polish meeting in the town attracted over 100 delegates from neighboring Polish communities; the meeting passed a resolution that "only securing the area by Polish Army can solve the problem." The Sejny branch of the Polish Military Organization (PMO), led by Polish regular army officers Adam Rudnicki and Wacław Zawadzki, began preparing for the uprising on August 16. PMO members and local militia volunteers numbered some 900 or 1,200 men (sources vary). The uprising
2997-583: 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
3078-515: The June 18 line: first, the entire line was moved west to give extra protection to the strategic Warsaw – Saint Petersburg Railway and second, the Suwałki Region , including the towns of Sejny, Suwałki , Puńsk , was assigned to Poland. Despite assurances at the time that the line was just a temporary measure to normalize the situation before full negotiations could take place, the southern Foch Line
3159-586: The Lithuanian historian Lesčius, the first Polish assault of about 300 PMO members on August 22 was repelled, but the next day Lithuanians were forced to retreat towards Lazdijai . Over 100 Lithuanians were imprisoned in Sejny when their commander Bardauskas sided with the Poles. The Polish insurgents also attacked Lazdijai and Kapčiamiestis, towns on the Lithuanian side of the Foch Line. In early morning of August 25, Lithuanians counterattacked and recaptured Sejny. Polish sources claim that Lithuanians there were aided by
3240-499: The Lithuanian inhabitants, teachers, and religious ministers were maltreated and expelled. Polish historian Łossowski notes that both sides mistreated the civilian population and exaggerated reports to gain internal and foreign support. The uprising contributed to the deterioration of the Polish–Lithuanian relations and further discouraged the Lithuanians from joining the proposed Międzymorze federation. The Sejny Uprising doomed
3321-507: The Lithuanians, while the Poles claimed exactly the opposite. The German census of 1916 showed that 51% of Sejny population was Lithuanian. In the aftermath of World War I , the Conference of Ambassadors drew the first demarcation line between Poland and Lithuania on June 18, 1919. The line satisfied no one, and Polish troops continued to advance deeper into the Lithuanian-controlled territory. These attacks coincided with
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3402-606: The Lithuanians. Trying to prevent an armed conflict between Poland and Lithuania, the Entente drew a demarcation line, known as the Foch Line . The line assigned much of the disputed Suwałki (Suvalkai) Region to Poland and required the Lithuanian Army to retreat. While the Lithuanians retreated from some areas, they refused to leave Sejny (Seinai), because of its major Lithuanian population. Polish irregular forces began
3483-414: The Polish plan to overthrow the Lithuanian government in a coup d'état . After the uprising, the Lithuanian police and intelligence intensified their investigation of Polish sympathizers and soon uncovered the planned coup. They made mass arrests of Polish activists from August 27 to the end of September 1919. During the investigations, lists of PMO supporters were found; law enforcement completely suppressed
3564-399: The Sejny Uprising had prompted the Lithuanian intelligence to intensify its investigations of Polish activities in Lithuania, they discovered plans for the coup and prevented it, arresting Polish sympathizers. These hostilities in Sejny further strained the Polish–Lithuanian relations . Eventually, Poland and Lithuania reached an agreement on a new border that left Sejny on the Polish side of
3645-671: 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 ), /
3726-617: The area into its province of East Prussia . After the German defeat, the victorious Entente was willing to assign the territory to either the newly independent Poland or Lithuania. The future of the region was discussed at the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919. The Germans, whose former Ober-Ost administration was preparing to evacuate, initially supported leaving the area to a Polish administration. However, as Poland
3807-747: The border. The Polish–Lithuanian border in the Suwałki Region has remained the same since then (with the exception of the World War II period). During the ages, the lands surrounding the town of Suwałki were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania until 1795. Sejny itself was property of Vilnius ' Dominican friars from 1603 until 1805. During the Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795,
3888-485: 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
3969-713: 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
4050-479: 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
4131-430: 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 ,
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#17327732419544212-531: 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 ;
4293-420: 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
4374-476: 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.
4455-467: 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
4536-548: 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
4617-439: 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
4698-431: 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
4779-460: 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
4860-590: 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
4941-588: The organisation in Lithuania. Hostilities over the Suwałki Region resumed in summer 1920. When the Polish Army began to retreat during the course of the Polish–Soviet War , the Lithuanians moved to secure what they claimed to be their new borders, set by the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty of July 1920. The Peace Treaty granted Sejny and surrounding area to Lithuania. Poland did not recognize this bilateral treaty. Ensuing tensions heightened until
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#17327732419545022-673: 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
5103-506: The outbreak of the Polish–Lithuanian War . Sejny changed hands frequently until it was controlled by Polish forces on September 22, 1920. The situation was legalized by the Suwałki Agreement of October 7, 1920, which effectively returned the town to the Polish side of the border. Polish language Polish ( endonym : język polski , [ˈjɛ̃zɘk ˈpɔlskʲi] , polszczyzna [pɔlˈʂt͡ʂɘzna] or simply polski , [ˈpɔlskʲi] )
5184-401: 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
5265-520: 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,
5346-498: The region also objected to the boundary of the line. The Lithuanian forces (about 350 strong) left the town of Suwałki by August 7, but stopped in Sejny and formed a line at the Czarna Hańcza river – Wigry Lake , thus effectively violating the demarcation line. Lithuanians believed that the Foch Line was not the final decision, and that they had the duty to protect Lithuanian outposts in the region. On August 12, 1919, two days after
5427-645: The region became part of the Kingdom of Prussia as New East Prussia until 1807, from then until 1815, it was part of the Duchy of Warsaw which Napoleon had created. For a century after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars , the town was in Congress Poland , a part of the Russian Empire . During World War I , the region was captured by the German Empire , which intended to incorporate
5508-540: 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
5589-575: The same day when they learned about the approaching Polish reinforcements. According to Mańczuk, they based their retreat on an erroneous report about a "large Polish cavalry unit" operating to their rear; only small groups of Polish partisans operated there. Later the next day, during the afternoon of August 26, the PMO forces in Sejny were joined by the 41st Infantry Regiment. On August 26, a large anti-Polish protest took place in Lazdijai , with cries to march on Sejny. The last Lithuanian attempt to retake
5670-410: 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
5751-560: The signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, which eliminated any danger from Germany. Attempting to halt further hostilities, Marshal of France Ferdinand Foch proposed a new line, known as the Foch Line , on July 18, 1919. The Foch Line was negotiated with the Polish war mission, led by General Tadeusz Jordan-Rozwadowski in Paris, while Lithuanian representatives were not invited. The Foch Line had two major modifications compared to
5832-506: 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
5913-494: 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
5994-418: The time the Lithuanian command in Sejny had only 260 infantry and 70 cavalry personnel, stretched along the long line of defense. There were only 10 Lithuanian guards and 20 clerical staff in the town itself. Mańczuk and Buchowski note that the Polish insurgents estimated the Lithuanian forces at 1,200 infantry (Mańczuk also adds an estimate of 120 cavalry), including a 400-strong garrison in Sejny. According to
6075-409: The town was made on August 28. The Lithuanians (about 650 men) were defeated by the combined forces of the Polish Army (800 men) and PMO volunteers (500 men). On August 27, the Poles officially demanded that Lithuanians retreat behind the Foch Line. On September 1, Rudnicki announced incorporation of PMO volunteers into the 41st Infantry Regiment. During the negotiations on September 5, representatives of
6156-568: The two groups agreed to settle on a detailed demarcation line; Lithuanians agreed to retreat by September 7. The Polish regular army units did not cross the Foch Line, and refused to aid the PMO insurgents still operating on the Lithuanian side. Polish sources give total Polish casualties for the Sejny Uprising as 37 killed in action and 70 wounded. After the uprising, Poland repressed Lithuanian cultural life in Sejny. Lithuanian schools in Sejny (which had some 300 pupils) and surrounding villages were closed. The local Lithuanian clergy were evicted, and
6237-461: The uprising on August 23, 1919, and soon received support from the regular Polish Army . After several military skirmishes, Polish forces secured Sejny and the Lithuanians retreated behind the Foch Line. The uprising did not solve the larger border conflict between Poland and Lithuania over the ethnically mixed Suwałki Region . Both sides complained about each other's repressive measures. The conflict intensified in 1920, causing military skirmishes of
6318-563: 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
6399-443: 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
6480-477: Was becoming an ally of France , German support gradually shifted towards Lithuania. In July 1919, when the German troops began their slow retreat from the area, they delegated the administration to local Lithuanian authorities. Lithuanian officers and troops, who first arrived in the region in May, began to organize military units in the pre-war Sejny county . According to Russian statistics from 1889, there were 57.8% Lithuanians, 19.1% Poles, and 3.5% Belarusians in
6561-406: Was scheduled for the night of August 22 to 23, 1919. The date was chosen to coincide with the withdrawal of German troops from the town of Suwałki. The Poles hoped to capture the territory up to the Foch Line and advance further to take control of the towns of Seirijai , Lazdijai , Kapčiamiestis as far as Simnas . According to the Polish historian Tadeusz Mańczuk , Piłsudski – who was planning
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