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83-523: The Augustów Canal ( Polish : Kanał Augustowski , [ˈkanau̯ au̯ɡusˈtɔfski] , Belarusian : Аўгустоўскі канал , romanized :  Aŭhustoŭski kanal ) is a cross-border canal built by the Congress Kingdom of Poland in 19th century in the Augustów Voivodeship (present-day Podlaskie Voivodeship of northeastern Poland and Grodno Oblast of western Belarus). From the time it

166-499: 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

249-490: A General Quartermaster, Chief of Engineering Corps and de facto chief of staff of the army. After the Battle of Iganie , in which he achieved a brilliant victory, he was nominated by the government for the post of the commander in chief of the uprising, Prądzyński was forced to resign by Jan Krukowiecki and Henryk Dembiński . Instead, on August 19, 1831, he was promoted to the rank of General of Division . In September he prepared

332-759: 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

415-656: 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

498-511: 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

581-533: 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,

664-777: A link with the Black Sea to the south through the Oginski Canal , Daugava River , Berezina Canal and Dnieper River . It uses a post-glacial channel depression, forming the chain of Augustów lakes, and the river valleys of the Biebrza, the Netta, the Czarna Hancza and the Neman, which made it possible to perfectly integrate the Canal with the surrounding elements of the natural environment. The reasons behind

747-676: A monument of technology Class I. Then, on 9 Feb 1979, by the Voivode's decision the entire length of the Suwalki Augustów Canal was entered in the register of monuments. On 8 June 2005, based on Council of Ministers Resolution No. 125/2005 of 22 May 2005 concluded the "Agreement between the Government of the Polish Republic and the Government of the Republic of Belarus on the reconstruction of

830-454: 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

913-505: A number of locks and weirs of the canal. During the Second World War, German troops blew up three locks, about a dozen bridges and eight weirs. After World War II the Polish part of the canal has been restored. The post-war redrawing of the eastern Polish border, see Curzon Line had a significant impact upon the canal. The Border Agreement between Poland and the USSR of 16 August 1945 drew

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996-402: 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

1079-621: A segment of the Polish - Belorussian SSR border along the axis of the Kurzyniec Lock and further along the axis of the canal for an additional 3.5 kilometres (2.2 miles). During the 1950s the People's Republic of Poland rebuilt the canal from the start on the Bezbra to Tartak Lock the remaining portion in Poland was left inactive after the damage incurred from World War II. The USSR performed no repairs on

1162-491: 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,

1245-637: A tributary of the Narew River , and the Neman River through its tributary – the Czarna Hancza River , and it provided a link with the Black Sea to the south through the Oginski Canal , Daugava River , Berezina Canal and Dnieper River . From the time it was first built, the canal was described by experts as a technological marvel, with numerous sluices contributing to its aesthetic appeal. The Augustów Canal, consisting of 18 locks and 22 sluices,

1328-405: 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

1411-478: 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

1494-641: A waterway was constructed, bypassing the Prussian territory, intended eventually to link, via the Windawski Canal , the center of the Russian-controlled Congress Poland with the Baltic seaport of Ventspils in the province of Kurland . This goal was relinquished due to unrest caused by the 1830–1831 November Uprising against Russia and revised trade agreements with Prussia. The completed part of

1577-636: 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

1660-419: 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 ,

1743-581: Is currently a conservation protection zone proposed by Poland and Belarus for inscription onto the World Heritage List of UNESCO . The canal utilizes a postglacial depression and numerous valleys in the Masurian Lake District that were shaped by the Pleistocene ice age . Many of the surrounding hills are parts of moraines and many of its lakes are moraine-dammed lakes . It is based in

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1826-551: Is divided into two major sections: the West ;— from the merger of the Biebrza lock Augusta (0.0 – 32.50 km); and the East section — from lock to lock Niemnowo Augusta Belarus (32.50 – 101.20 km). Biebrza River to Augustów Lock (0.0 – 32.50 km) Augustów Lock to Neman River (32.50 km – 101.20 km) The canal is currently a conservation protection zone proposed by Poland and Belarus for inscription onto

1909-427: 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

1992-447: 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

2075-595: 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

2158-512: 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 ;

2241-518: 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

2324-430: 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

2407-401: 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

2490-648: The Augustów Primeval Forest from west to east. The biggest attraction is to navigate the waterway in a kayak, canoe, fishing boat or a motorboat. It is also possible to visit part of the canal and the Augustów lakes in a passenger ship. The Augustów Canal was the first summit level canal in Central Europe to provide a direct link between the two major rivers, Vistula River through the Biebrza River  –

2573-579: 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

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2656-464: The Kingdom of Poland was granted commercial autonomy from Russian Empire's customs area. The idea of Polish Minister of Economy, Franciszek Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki , was to make the new trade route independent of the Prussian seaport of Danzig (Gdańsk). In August 1822, Drucki-Lubecki made the order of planning a waterway from Narew and Biebrza rivers to Neman river and then to the mouth of Windau river at

2739-647: 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

2822-511: 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

2905-864: The World Heritage List of UNESCO . This site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on 30 January 2004, in the Cultural category. The canal was also named one of Poland's official national Historic Monuments ( Pomnik historii ), as designated 16 May 2007. Its listing is maintained by the National Heritage Board of Poland . 53°52′N 22°58′E  /  53.867°N 22.967°E  / 53.867; 22.967 Polish language Polish ( endonym : język polski , [ˈjɛ̃zɘk ˈpɔlskʲi] , polszczyzna [pɔlˈʂt͡ʂɘzna] or simply polski , [ˈpɔlskʲi] )

2988-474: 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 ,

3071-569: 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

3154-404: 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

3237-416: 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

3320-479: The 1830–1831 November Uprising against Russia and revised trade agreements with Prussia. During the latter half of the 19th century the rail network, such as nearby the Saint Petersburg ;– Warsaw Railway , started to replace the canal as the primary means of transporting goods. The channel gradually began to decline, from 1852 on it floated only forest products and from the mid-1860s the canal channel

3403-481: 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

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3486-649: The Augustów Canal remained an inland waterway of local significance used for commercial shipping and to transport wood to and from the Vistula and Neman Rivers until rendered obsolete by the regional railway network. The reasons behind the construction of the Augustów Canal were both political and economic. In 1821, Prussia introduced repressively high customs duties for transit of Russian Empire goods through its territory, in effect hindering access to their seaports for traders operating outside of Prussian territory. In 1822,

3569-532: The Augustów Canal section of the border." The aim of the project was to restore the canal to operable condition for tourists, provide rational water management in the Black Hańcza river valley and restore the natural ecosystem of the waterway. Another event is the recognition of the Augustów Canal as a Monument of History — Regulation of the Polish President of 15 April 2007 (Dz. U. Nr 86 poz. 572). The canal

3652-794: The Baltic Sea. The field surveys to link the basins of the Neman and Vistula were begun with the permissions of the Russian Ministry of Communications in 1823. The Russian field party was led by lieutenant-colonel Reeze from the Corps of Transport Engineers and lieutenant-colonel Ignacy Prądzyński from the General Quartermasters' Office of the Polish Army. Reeze and Pradzynski met in Grodno on 28 June 1823. Lieutenant-colonel Pradzynski and four officers from

3735-578: 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

3818-678: The Russian police in 1826, he spent 3 years in prisons. Upon his release, he started working as an engineer. Among the most notable of his projects was the Augustów Canal , linking Vistula with the Baltic Sea through the basin of the Neman River . After the outbreak of the November Uprising he again joined the Polish Army. Initially an advisor to Gen. Michał Gedeon Radziwiłł , he also served as

3901-671: 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 ), /

3984-517: The canal bank and a system of roads, bridges and buildings. A water reserve feeding the canal is provided from outside the buffer zone by the Sajno, Serwy and Wigry lakes, all within the boundaries of the protected area. Six historic sluices , Przewięź, Paniewo, Perkuć, Sosnówek, Tartak and Kudrynki, are easy to access from the green trail used by hikers and cyclists. The Augustów Canal remained, after completion, an inland waterway of local significance that

4067-485: 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

4150-516: The construction of the Augustów Canal were both political and economic. In 1821, Prussia introduced repressively high customs duties for the transit of Russian Empire goods through its territory, which hindered access of traders to the Baltic seaports through the Vistula River. In 1822, Congress Poland was granted measures of commercial autonomy from Russian Empire's customs area. In the years 1823–1839

4233-687: 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

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4316-479: 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

4399-430: 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 ,

4482-520: 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 ;

4565-420: 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

4648-500: The engineering corps carried out the topographical survey on Polish territory concentrating mainly on the lakes near to Augustow and the river Chorna Gancha. At the same time, the Reeze's group worked on the Biebrza river and the smaller rivers of Lososna, Tatarka and Polilia. In the years 1823–1839 a waterway designed by General Ignacy Prądzyński , French General and engineer Jan Chrzciciel de Grandville Malletski and General Jan Paweł Lelewel

4731-469: 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.

4814-462: 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

4897-435: 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

4980-415: The latter campaign he was awarded with the Golden Cross of the Virtuti Militari and the French Legion of Honour for his role in the Battle of Leipzig and the Battle of Waterloo . After the Russian takeover of Poland he remained in Warsaw, though he did not join the army. In 1815 he founded a secret anti-Russian Association of True Poles and later collaborated with the Patriotic Society . Arrested by

5063-415: The latter half of the 19th century the rail network, such as nearby the Saint Petersburg – Warsaw Railway , started to replace the canal as the primary means of transporting goods. The channel gradually began to decline, from 1852 on it floated only forest products and from the mid-1860s the canal channel was scored. Starting in the late 1920s the canal became a tourist attraction for the first time. It

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5146-439: 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

5229-777: The long natural chain of Augustów lakes and the adjoining rivers. The qualities of the landscape made it possible to perfectly integrate the canal with its environment over its 101.20 km length. The watershed area of the canal on the Polish side of the border is 74.25 km and on the Belarusian side, 8.42 km for a total of 82.67 km. The canal connects seven natural moraine-dammed lakes : Necko, Białe, Studzieniczne, Orle, Paniewo, Krzywe and Mikaszewo; and 11 rivers: Biebrza , Netta , Czarna Hańcza , Klonownica, Plaska (Sucha Rzeczka, Serwianka), Mikaszówka, Perkucia, Szlamica , Wolkuszanka, Ostaszanka and Neman. The natural waterways are interconnected by cuttings and hydraulic installations with locks and weirs , including towpaths along

5312-431: 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

5395-460: 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

5478-422: The name Tarzan . Ignacy Pr%C4%85dzy%C5%84ski Ignacy Prądzyński was born on July 20, 1792, in the village of Sanniki in Greater Poland . In November 1807 he joined the army of the Duchy of Warsaw and quickly advanced through its ranks. During the Napoleonic Wars he took part in the campaigns of 1809 ( Polish–Austrian War ) and the campaign against Russia between 1812 and 1814. For his bravery in

5561-415: 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

5644-511: 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

5727-401: 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

5810-494: The plans for the defense of Warsaw. However, the commanders of the Uprising lacked will to continue the fight and his plans were not accepted. Appointed to the Polish commission negotiating the capitulation, Prądzyński suffered from a nervous breakdown and surrendered to the Russians. Forcibly resettled to Viatka , in 1833 he was allowed to return to Poland, where he continued his work as a theoretician of military strategy and tactics. Author of roughly 60 works on theory of warfare, he

5893-528: The portion of the canal within the Belorussian SSR . The Belarusian part of the canal since the partition has become a unique ecosystem, in 1970 the Sapotskinsky Biological Reserve was created to help preserve the area. According to the decision of the Polish Minister of Culture and the Arts from 21 December 1968 the Augustów Canal on the section from Augustów to the state border with the infrastructure—locks, dams, bridges, housing banks, building maintenance services, environment, landscape and plant—was declared

5976-511: 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,

6059-540: 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

6142-410: 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

6225-500: 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

6308-494: 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

6391-563: 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

6474-443: 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

6557-430: Was a picturesque tourist route providing excellent sporting opportunities for canoeists, sailors and boaters. After World War II the Polish part of the canal has been restored. Currently the canal offers numerous sightseeing and tourist attractions. Its unsurpassed beauty comes from the natural qualities of the landscape with coniferous forests and lakes, especially around the Biebrza and Netta Rivers, and it runs through

6640-406: Was constructed, including buildings and hydraulic engineering structures, intended to bypass Prussian territory and link the center of the Kingdom of Poland with the Baltic seaport of Ventspils ( Polish : Windawa ). The building of the final "windawski" section of the waterway ( Windawski Canal ), which was to connect the new trading route to Ventspils, was relinquished due to unrest caused by

6723-432: Was first built, the canal was described by experts as a technological marvel, with numerous sluices contributing to its aesthetic appeal. It was the first summit level canal in Central Europe to provide a direct link between the two major rivers, Vistula River through the Biebrza River  – a tributary of the Narew River , and the Neman River through its tributary – the Czarna Hancza River , and it provided

6806-581: Was scored. The First World War and the Polish-Soviet War caused some damage to the canal, but it was rebuilt by the Second Polish Republic during the early 1920s. Between the World Wars, the canal became a tourist attraction for the first time. It was a picturesque tourist route providing excellent sporting opportunities for canoeists, sailors and boaters. World War II saw the destruction of

6889-491: Was used for commercial shipping and to transport wood to and from the Vistula River and Neman River . The canal was used to transport the flour, salt, grain, chalk, gypsum, etc. In Augustów a large port was built in addition to a number of tow paths for horses to pull barges upstream. The canal was designed for the passage of vessels up to 40 m long, up to 5 m in width and capable of carrying up to 10 tons of cargo. During

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