Polish

Polish belongs to the west Slavic group of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Its closest living relatives are Czech, Slovak, and Serbian.

It is spoken in Poland by over 38 million people. It is also spoken in Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and the USA. The worldwide population of speakers of Polish is estimated at around 42 million people (Ethnologue).

Polish is the national language of Poland, one of the most linguistically homogeneous countries in Europe with 97% of its population claiming Polish as their first language. It is used in all official, social, and personal communications.

Dialects
Polish has a number of mutually intelligible dialects. The main ones include:

•   Wielkopolski (Greater Polish), spoken in western Poland, including the city of Poznan;

•   Malopolski (Lesser Polish), spoken in southern and southeastern Poland, including the cities of Lodz, Lublin, and Krakow;

•   Silesian, spoken in south central Poland;

•   Mazovian (Mazur), spoken in northeastern Poland, including the capital of Warsaw, which shares some features with Kashubian;

•   Kashubian, spoken in the region west of Gdansk on the Baltic sea is closely related to Polish. It is considered by some to be a dialect of Polish but is not readily intelligible to Polish speakers.

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