Kilka kart z historii języka polskiego
Catalog / Poles about Italians – Italians about Poles. Language, literature, culture Selected Chapters in the History of the Polish Language

Author(s): Magdalena Pietrzak
Subject(s): Language studies, Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: slavic languages; polish language; periodization; loanwords; historical texts of Polish
Summary/Abstract: The lecture addresses several issues concerning the origins of the Polish language, particularly its pre-literary stage. It begins by presenting the two most important linguistic contexts of Polish: the Indo-European and Proto-Slavic backgrounds. The role of Old Church Slavonic is discussed, as well as the contemporary division of the Slavic languages into groups. Selected examples illustrate linguistic similarities within the Slavic language family. The next part focuses on phenomena related to the periodization of the history of Polish. Subsequent sections describe the circumstances in which the Polish state emerged and the significance of Mieszko I’s baptism, which brought Poland into the orbit of Latin culture. The following parts present the earliest phonetic processes and phenomena that are still visible in modern Polish. The oldest lexical layer of the Polish language is also discussed—both the inherited Proto-Slavic vocabulary and the earliest borrowings. The lecture concludes with an overview of the most important monuments of the Polish language.

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