132-544: The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( Polish : Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu , abbreviated IPN ) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecution service components exercising investigative, prosecution and lustration powers. The IPN
264-482: A Sejm resolution, by either an envoy or a senator, automatically caused the rejection of other, previously approved resolutions. This was because all resolutions passed by a given session of the Sejm formed a whole resolution, and, as such, was published as the annual "constituent act" of the Sejm , e.g. the " Anno Domini 1667" act. In the 16th century, no single person or small group dared to hold up proceedings, but, from
396-499: 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
528-467: A critical approach to history, one that asks its own questions and is methodologically pluralistic." He added that in recent years that problem is being ameliorated as the IPN's work "has somewhat diversified as its administration has taken note of criticism on the part of academics." According to Robert Traba, "under the ... IPN, tasks related to the 'national politics of memory' were – unfortunately – merged with
660-713: 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
792-656: 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
924-528: A given reality, but also to understand the background of events, the circumstances in which people acted. It is easy to condemn, but difficult to understand a complicated past. ... [Meanwhile, in the IPN] thick volumes are being produced, into which are being thrown, with no real consideration, further evidence in criminating various persons now deceased (and therefore not able to defend themselves), and elderly people still alive – known and unknown." Traba posits that "there
1056-511: 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
1188-533: 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,
1320-855: A major controversy. The book's premise was that in the 1970s the Solidarity leader and later president of Poland Lech Wałęsa was a secret informant of the Polish Communist Security Service . In 2018, the IPN hired Tomasz Greniuch , a historian who in his youth was associated with a far-right group . When he was promoted to a regional director of the Wrocław branch in February 2021, his past came to media attention and resulted in criticism of Greniuch and IPN. Greniuch issued an apology for his past behavior and resigned within weeks. Valentin Behr writes that
1452-454: 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
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#17328561321731584-434: A result of World War II and during the post-war totalitarian period. The IPN informs about the patriotic traditions of resistance against the occupational forces, and the Polish citizens' fight for sovereignty of the nation, including their efforts in defence of freedom and human dignity in general. According to the IPN, it is its duty to prosecute crimes against peace and humanity, as much as war crimes. Its mission includes
1716-649: A return of politics to the IPN. On 23 July 2021 Karol Nawrocki was appointed to head IPN. Two components of the IPN are specialized parts of the Public Prosecution Service of Poland, namely the Main Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation and the Lustration Bureau. Each of these two components exercises its activities autonomically from other components of the Institute and
1848-402: 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
1980-491: 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,
2112-405: 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
2244-478: 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
2376-495: A wide range of activities. Researchers at the IPN conduct not only research but are required to take part in public outreach. BEP has published music CDs, DVDs, and serials. It has founded "historical clubs" for debates and lectures. It has also organized outdoor historical fairs, picnic, and games. The IPN Bulletin [ pl ] ( Polish : Biuletyn IPN ) is a high circulation popular-scientific journal, intended for lay readers and youth. Some 12,000 of 15,000 copies of
2508-456: Is ... a need for genuine debate that does not revolve around [the files] in the IPN archives, 'lustration,' or short-term and politically inspired discussions designed to establish the 'only real' truth", and suggests that adopting varied perspectives and diverse methodologies might contribute to such debate. During PiS's control of the government between 2005 and 2007, the IPN was the focus of heated public controversies, in particular in regard to
2640-684: 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
2772-504: Is a founding member of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience . Since 2020, the IPN headquarters have been located at Postępu 18 Street in Warsaw . The IPN has eleven branches in other cities and seven delegation offices. The IPN's main areas of activity, in line with its original mission statement , include researching and documenting the losses which were suffered by the Polish Nation as
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#17328561321732904-419: 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 ,
3036-645: Is headed by a director who is ex officio Deputy Public Prosecutor General of Poland , while role of the IPN Director is in their case purely accessory and includes no powers regarding conducted investigations, being limited only to providing supporting apparatus and, when vacated, presenting candidates for the offices of the two directors to the Prosecutor General who as their superior has the discretionary power to appoint or reject them. The Main Commission for
3168-427: 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
3300-483: Is now composed of 460 deputies elected by proportional representation every four years. Between 7 and 20 deputies are elected from each constituency using the d'Hondt method (with one exception, in 2001, when the Sainte-Laguë method was used), their number being proportional to their constituency's population. Additionally, a threshold is used, so that candidates are chosen only from parties that gained at least 5% of
3432-447: 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
3564-595: 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
3696-512: 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 ;
3828-518: 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
3960-430: 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
4092-401: 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
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4224-579: 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
4356-702: The Bulletin are distributed free of charge to secondary schools in Poland, and the rest are sold in bookstores. The Bulletin contains: popular-scientific and academic articles, polemics, manifestos, appeals to readers, promotional material on the IPN and BEP, denials and commentary on reports in the news, as well as multimedia supplements. The IPN also publishes the Remembrance and Justice [ pl ] ( Polish : Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość ) scientific journal. The IPN has issued several board games to help educate people about recent Polish history, including: In 2008,
4488-633: The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as one single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , and thus the Sejm was supplemented with new envoys from among the Lithuanian nobility . The Commonwealth ensured that the state of affairs surrounding the three-estates system continued, with the Sejm , Senate and King forming the estates and supreme deliberating body of the state. In
4620-622: The Kingdom of Poland , the term Sejm referred to an entire two- chamber parliament, comprising the Chamber of Deputies ( Izba Poselska ), the Senate and the King. It was thus a three-estate parliament. The 1573 Henrician Articles strengthened the assembly's jurisdiction, making Poland a constitutional elective monarchy . Since the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939), Sejm has referred only to
4752-587: The Ombudsman (the last three bodies of which were created in the 1980s). When the Sejm was not in session, the State Council had the power to issue decrees that had the force of law. However, those decrees had to be approved by the Sejm at its next session. In practice, the principles of democratic centralism meant that such approval was only a formality. The Senate was abolished by the referendum in 1946, after which
4884-575: 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
5016-502: The Sejm became the sole legislative body in Poland. Even though the Sejm was largely subservient to the Communist party, one deputy, Romuald Bukowski (an independent) voted against the imposition of martial law in 1982. After the end of communism in 1989, the Senate was reinstated as the second house of a bicameral national assembly , while the Sejm remained the first house. The Sejm
5148-463: The Smolensk airplane crash on 10 April 2010. The elections were controversial, as during the elections a leak against Andrzej Przewoźnik accusing him of collaboration with Służba Bezpieczeństwa caused him to withdraw his candidacy. Przewoźnik was cleared of the accusations only after he had lost the election. In 2006, the IPN opened a "Lustration Bureau" that increased the director's power. The bureau
5280-536: The Soviet Union . The Polish government also asked UNESCO to officially change the name "Auschwitz Concentration Camp" to "Former Nazi German Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau", to clarify that the camp had been built and operated by Nazi Germany . In 2007, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee changed the camp's name to "Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940–1945)." Previously some German media, including Der Spiegel , had called
5412-511: 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
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5544-474: 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 ,
5676-569: 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
5808-404: 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
5940-431: The transition of government in 1989. Along with the upper house of parliament, the Senate , it forms the national legislature in Poland known as National Assembly (Polish: Zgromadzenie Narodowe ). The Sejm comprises 460 deputies (singular deputowany or poseł ) elected every four years by universal ballot . The Sejm is presided over by a speaker , the "Marshal of the Sejm" ( Marszałek Sejmu ). In
6072-402: The unanimity principle was re-introduced with the institution of the nobility's right of liberum veto ( Latin : "free veto "). Additionally, if the envoys were unable to reach a unanimous decision within six weeks (the time limit of a single session), deliberations were declared void and all previous acts passed by that Sejm were annulled. From the mid-17th century onward, any objection to
6204-660: The " Wildstein list ", a partial list of persons who allegedly worked for the communist-era Polish intelligence service, copied in 2004 from IPN archives (without IPN permission) by journalist Bronisław Wildstein and published on the Internet in 2005. The list gained much attention in Polish media and politics, and IPN security procedures and handling of the matter came under criticism. Polish language Polish ( endonym : język polski , [ˈjɛ̃zɘk ˈpɔlskʲi] , polszczyzna [pɔlˈʂt͡ʂɘzna] or simply polski , [ˈpɔlskʲi] )
6336-482: The "good name" of Poland. Initially conceived as a criminal offense (3 years of jail) with an exemption for arts and research, following an international outcry, the article was modified to a civil offense that may be tried in civil courts and the exemption was deleted. Defamation charges under the act may be made by the IPN as well as by accredited NGOs such as the Polish League Against Defamation . By
6468-461: The "thematic monotony ... of micro-historical studies ... of no real scientific interest" of its research; its focus on " martyrology "; and various criticisms of methodology and ethics. Some of these criticisms have been addressed by Director Łukasz Kamiński during his tenure and who according to Mink "has made significant changes"; however, Minsk, writing in 2017, was also concerned with the recent administrative and personnel changes in IPN, including
6600-416: 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
6732-481: 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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#17328561321736864-483: The 300-year Polish parliamentary traditions established before the time of the partitions. Maciej Rataj emphatically paid tribute to this with the phrase: "There is Poland there, and so is the Sejm ". During the interwar period of Poland's independence, the first Legislative Sejm of 1919 , a Constituent Assembly, passed the Small Constitution of 1919 , which introduced a parliamentary republic and proclaimed
6996-571: The August Amendment) proved too limited and largely failed in helping avoid legislative grid-lock which had ensued as a result of too-great parliamentary power in a state which had numerous diametrically-opposed political parties sitting in its legislature. In 1935, the parliamentary republic was weakened further when, by way of, Józef Piłsudski 's May Coup , the president was forced to sign the April Constitution of 1935 , an act through which
7128-604: The Austrian State Council (from 1867), and from 1906 were also elected to the Russian Imperial State Duma (lower chamber) and to the State Council (upper chamber). After the First World War and re-establishment of Polish independence, the convocation of parliament, under the democratic electoral law of 1918, became an enduring symbol of the new state's wish to demonstrate and establish continuity with
7260-559: The Communist-backed Provisional Government of National Unity , the Second Polish Republic legally ceased to exist. The Sejm in the Polish People's Republic had 460 deputies throughout most of its history. At first, this number was declared to represent one deputy per 60,000 citizens (425 were elected in 1952), but, in 1960, as the population grew, the declaration was changed: The constitution then stated that
7392-578: 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
7524-499: The IPN faced a wide array of criticism calling for an overhaul or even replacement. Critics founds fault in the IPN being a state institution, the lack of historical knowledge of its prosecutors, a relatively high number of microhistories with a debatable methodology, overuse of the martyrology motif, research methodology, and isolationism from the wider research community. In response, Kamiński implemented several changes, including organizing public debates with outside historians to counter
7656-402: The IPN is most "concerned with the production of an official narrative about Poland's recent past" and therefore lacks innovation in its research, while noting that situation is being remedied under recent leadership. He writes that the IPN "has mainly taken in historians from the fringes of the academic field" who were either unable to obtain a prominent academic position or ideologically drawn to
7788-418: The IPN is very bureaucratic in nature, comparing it to a "regular continental European bureaucracy, with usual deficiencies of its kind", and posits that in this aspect the IPN resembles the former Communist institutions it is supposed to deal with, equally "bureaucratic, centralist, heavy, inclined to extensive growth and quantity rather than quality of production". An incident which caused controversy involved
7920-405: The IPN's approach, and that "in the academic field, being an 'IPN historian' can be a stigma"; Behr explains this by pointing to a generational divide in Polish academia, visible when comparing IPN to other Polish research outlets, and claims: "Hiring young historians was done deliberately to give the IPN greater autonomy from the academic world, considered as too leftist to describe the dark sides of
8052-560: The IPN's lustration power was still wider than under the original 1997 law. These powers include loss of position for those who submitted false lustration declarations as well as a lustration process of candidates for senior office. The research conducted by IPN from December 2000 falls into four main topic areas: The IPN's Public Education Office (BEP) vaguely defined role in the IPN act is to inform society of Communist and Nazi crimes and institutions. This vaguely defined role allowed Paweł Machcewicz , BEP's director in 2000, freedom to create
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#17328561321738184-527: The Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland by Jan T. Gross , proved to be a lifeline for the IPN as Polish president Aleksander Kwaśniewski intervened to save the IPN since he deemed the IPN's research to be important as part of Jewish-Polish reconciliation and "apology diplomacy". The second director was Janusz Kurtyka , elected on 9 December 2005 with a term that started 29 December 2005 until his death in
8316-633: The Land . It is recognised today as having played a major and overwhelming positive role in the development of Polish national institutions. In the second half of the 19th century, Poles were able to become members of the parliaments of Austria, Prussia and Russia, where they formed Polish Clubs. Deputies of Polish nationality were elected to the Prussian Landtag from 1848, and then to the German Empire 's Reichstag from 1871. Polish Deputies were members of
8448-427: The Polish law regulating the IPN (enacted on 18 December 2006) came into effect. The change gave the IPN new lustration powers and expanded IPN's file access. The change was enacted by Law and Justice government in a series of legislative amendments during 2006 and the beginning of 2007. However, several articles of the 2006-7 amendments were held unconstitutional by Poland's Constitutional Court on 11 May 2007, though
8580-464: The Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( Główna Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni Przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu ) is the oldest component of the IPN tracing its origins to 1945. It investigates and prosecutes crimes committed on Polish soil against Polish citizens as well as people of other citizenships wronged in the country. War crimes which are not affected by statute of limitations according to Polish law include: On 15 March 2007, an amendment to
8712-671: 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 ), /
8844-568: The camp "Polish". Since 2019, the Institute publishes the Institute of National Remembrance Review ( ISSN 2658-1566 ), a yearly peer-reviewed academic journal in English, with Anna Karolina Piekarska as editor-in-chief .. According to Georges Mink [ fr ] , common criticisms of the IPN include its dominance in the Polish research field, which is guaranteed by a budget that far supersedes that of any similar academic institution;
8976-497: The candidates, with a required supermajority (60%). The director has a 5-year term of office . Following 2016 legislation in the PiS controlled parliament, the former pluralist Collegium was replaced with a nine-member Collegium composed of PiS supporters, and the Sejm appoints the director after consulting with the College without an election between candidates. The first director of the IPN
9108-485: 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
9240-512: The chairman of the IPN wrote to local administrations, calling for the addition of the word "German" before "Nazi" to all monuments and tablets commemorating Germany's victims, stating that "Nazis" is not always understood to relate specifically to Germans. Several scenes of atrocities conducted by Germany were duly updated with commemorative plaques clearly indicating the nationality of the perpetrators. The IPN also requested better documentation and commemoration of crimes that had been perpetrated by
9372-607: The charge of isolationism and has suggested refocusing on victims as opposed to agents. On 22 July 2016 Jarosław Szarek was appointed to head IPN. He dismissed Krzysztof Persak, co-author of the 2002 two-volume IPN study on the Jedwabne pogrom . In subsequent months, IPN featured in media headlines for releasing controversial documents, including some relating to Lech Wałęsa , for memory politics conducted in schools, for efforts to change Communist street names, and for legislation efforts. According to historian Idesbald Goddeeris, this marks
9504-431: The communist regime." He says that the IPN has created opportunities for many history specialists who can carry dedicated research there without the need for an appointment at another institution, and for training young historians, noting that "the IPN is now the leading employer of young PhD students and PhDs in history specialized in contemporary history, ahead of Polish universities". Historian Dariusz Stola states that
9636-637: 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
9768-412: The deputies were representative of the people and could be recalled by the people, but this article was never used, and, instead of the " five-point electoral law ", a non-proportional, "four-point" version was used. Legislation was passed with majority voting . Under the 1952 Constitution , the Sejm was defined as "the highest organ of State authority" in Poland, as well as "the highest spokesman of
9900-546: The director, who has a sovereign position that is independent of the Polish state hierarchy. The director may not be dismissed during his term unless he commits a harmful act. Prior to 2016, the election of the director was a complex procedure, which involves the selection of a panel of candidates by the IPN Collegium (members appointed by the Polish Parliament and judiciary). The Polish Parliament ( Sejm ) then elects one of
10032-479: 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
10164-430: 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 ,
10296-602: The early 19th century, many Poles simply gave up trying to attain a degree of independence from their foreign master-states. In the Austrian partition , a relatively powerless Sejm of the Estates operated until the time of the Spring of Nations . After this, in the mid to late 19th century, only in autonomous Galicia (1861–1914) was there a unicameral and functional National Sejm , the Sejm of
10428-520: 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 ;
10560-444: The election of Jarosław Szarek as director, which he posits are likely to result in further the politicization of the IPN. According to Valentin Behr, IPN research into the Communist era is valuable, positing that "the resources at its disposal have made it unrivalled as a research centre in the academic world"; at the same time, he said that the research is mostly focused on the era's negative aspects, and that it "is far from producing
10692-852: The end of the Second World War; this, however, never happened. During wartime, the National Council (1939–1945) was established to represent the legislature as part of the Polish Government in Exile . Meanwhile, in Nazi-occupied Poland , the Council of National Unity was set up; this body functioned from 1944 to 1945 as the parliament of the Polish Underground State . With the cessation of hostilities in 1945, and subsequent rise to power of
10824-420: 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
10956-469: 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.
11088-671: The fall of the Duchy of Warsaw , which existed as a Napoleonic client state between 1807 and 1815, and its short-lived Sejm of the Duchy of Warsaw , the Sejm of Congress Poland was established in Congress Poland of the Russian Empire; it was composed of the king (the Russian emperor), the upper house (Senate), and the lower house (Chamber of Deputies). Overall, during the period from 1795 until
11220-454: The first few decades of the 16th century, the Senate had established its precedence over the Sejm ; however, from the mid-1500s onwards, the Sejm became a very powerful representative body of the szlachta ("middle nobility"). Its chambers reserved the final decisions in legislation, taxation, budget , and treasury matters (including military funding), foreign policy , and the confirment of nobility . The 1573 Warsaw Confederation saw
11352-462: 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
11484-420: The government formulated in 2016 a new IPN law. The 2016 law stipulated that the IPN should oppose publications of false information that dishonors or harms the Polish nation. It also called for popularizing history as part of "an element of patriotic education". The new law also removed the influence of academia and the judiciary on the IPN. A 2018 amendment to the law , added article 55a that attempts to defend
11616-509: The head of state assumed the dominant position in legislating for the state and the Senate increased its power at the expense of the Sejm . On 2 September 1939, the Sejm held its final pre-war session, during which it declared Poland's readiness to defend itself against invading German forces. On 2 November 1939, the President dissolved the Sejm and the Senate, which were then, according to plan, to resume their activity within two months after
11748-453: The heart of debate today is a confrontation between those who support traditional methods and categories of research, and those who support newly defined methods and categories. ... Broadening the research perspective means the enrichment of the historian's instrumentarium.'" He puts the IPN research, in a broad sense, in the former; he states that "[a] solid, workshop-oriented, traditional, and positivist historiography ... which defends itself by
11880-426: The hereditary nobility, but also of 51 deputies , elected by the non-noble population. All deputies were covered by Parliamentary immunity , with each individual serving for a term of office of six years, with third of the deputies being elected every two years. Candidates for deputy had to be able to read and write , and have a certain amount of wealth. The legal voting age was 21, except for those citizens serving in
12012-443: The integrity of its analysis and its diversified source base" but criticizes its approach for leading to a "falsely conceived mission to find 'objective truth' at the expense of 'serious study of event history', and a 'simplified claim that only 'secret' sources, not accessible to ordinary mortals', can lead to that objective truth." Traba quotes historian Wiktoria Śliwowska , who wrote: "The historian must strive not only to reconstruct
12144-462: The king, it could also vote on matters related to the fiscal policy and the military. It had the right to exercise control over government officials, and to file petitions . The 64-member Senate on the other hand, was composed of voivodes and kasztelans (both types of provincial governors), Russian envoys, diplomats or princes, and nine bishops. It acted as the Parliamentary Court, had
12276-538: 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
12408-439: 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
12540-440: The lower house of parliament. During the existence of the Polish People's Republic , the Sejm, then a unicameral parliament, was the supreme organ of state power in the country. It was the only government branch in the state, and per the principle of unified power , all state organs were subservient to it. However, in practice it was widely considered to be a rubber stamp legislature which existed to approve decisions made by
12672-431: 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
12804-482: The military, the personnel of which were not allowed to vote. Parliamentary sessions were initially convened every two years, and lasted for (at least) 30 days. However, after many clashes between liberal deputies and conservative government officials, sessions were later called only four times (1818, 1820, 1826, and 1830, with the last two sessions being secret). The Sejm had the right to call for votes on civil and administrative legal issues, and, with permission from
12936-404: The mission of independent academic research. In the public mind, there could be only one message flowing from the institute's name: memory and history as a science are one. The problem is that nothing could be further from the truth, and nothing could be more misleading. What the IPN's message presents, in fact, is the danger that Polish history will be grossly over-simplified." Traba states that "at
13068-460: 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
13200-546: The name Tarzan . Sejm Confidence and supply (1) Opposition (217) The Sejm ( English: / s eɪ m / , Polish: [sɛjm] ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland ( Polish : Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej ), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland . The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since
13332-567: The name of " Sejm " was from then on applied) and the Senate. In 1919, Roza Pomerantz-Meltzer , a member of the Zionist party, became the first woman ever elected to the Sejm . The legal content of the March Constitution allowed for Sejm supremacy in the system of state institutions at the expense of the executive powers, thus creating a parliamentary republic out of the Polish state. An attempt to strengthen executive powers in 1926 (through
13464-507: The need to compensate for damages which were suffered by the repressed and harmed people at a time when human rights were disobeyed by the state, and educate the public about recent history of Poland . IPN collects, organises and archives all documents about the Polish Communist security apparatus active from 22 July 1944 to 31 December 1989. Following the election of the Law and Justice party,
13596-529: 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
13728-536: The nobles of the Sejm officially sanction and guarantee religious tolerance in Commonwealth territory, ensuring a refuge for those fleeing the ongoing Reformation and Counter-Reformation wars in Europe. Until the end of the 16th century, unanimity was not required, and the majority-voting process was the most commonly used system for voting. Later, with the rise of the Polish magnates and their increasing power,
13860-659: 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
13992-401: 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
14124-462: The pasts of Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa and PZPR secretary Wojciech Jaruzelski . As a result, the IPN has been referred to as "a political institution at the centre of 'memory games'". In 2008, two IPN employees, Sławomir Cenckiewicz and Piotr Gontarczyk , published a book, SB a Lech Wałęsa [ pl ] (The Security Service and Lech Wałęsa: A Contribution to a Biography) which caused
14256-480: The possible long-term consequences it may have had, is arguably the reason that the powers of Habsburg Austria , Russia and Prussia then decided to partition the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , thus putting an end to over 300 years of Polish parliamentary continuity. It is estimated that between 1493 and 1793, a Sejm was held 240 times, the total debate-time sum of which was 44 years. After
14388-511: 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,
14520-467: The principle of the Sejm' s sovereignty . This was then strengthened, in 1921, by the March Constitution , one of the most democratic European constitutions enacted after the end of World War I. The constitution established a political system which was based on Montesquieu 's doctrine of separation of powers, and which restored the bicameral Sejm consisting of a chamber of deputies (to which alone
14652-402: The re-establishment of Poland's sovereignty in 1918, little power was actually held by any Polish legislative body and the occupying powers of Russia, Prussia (later united Germany ) and Austria propagated legislation for their own respective formerly-Polish territories at a national level. The Chamber of Deputies, despite its name, consisted not only of 77 envoys (sent by local assemblies) from
14784-584: The right to control "citizens' books", and had similar legislative rights as did the Chamber of Deputies. In the Free City of Cracow (1815–1846), a unicameral Assembly of Representatives was established, and from 1827, a unicameral provincial sejm existed in the Grand Duchy of Poznań . Poles were elected to and represented the majority in both of these legislatures; however, they were largely powerless institutions and exercised only very limited power. After numerous failures in securing legislative sovereignty in
14916-467: The ruling party, the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) as a formality, and which had little or no real power of its own. Sejm (an ancient Proto-Lechitic word meaning "gathering" or "meeting") traces its roots to the King's Councils – wiece – which gained authority during the time of Poland's fragmentation (1146-1295). The 1180 Sejm in Łęczyca (known as the 'First Polish parliament')
15048-540: 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
15180-406: The same law, the institution's mission statement was changed to include "protecting the reputation of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Nation". IPN was created by special legislation on 18 December 1998. The IPN is divided into: On 29 April 2010, acting president Bronislaw Komorowski signed into law a parliamentary act that reformed the Institute of National Remembrance. IPN is governed by
15312-468: The second half of the 17th century, the liberum veto was used to virtually paralyze the Sejm , and brought the Commonwealth to the brink of collapse. The liberum veto was abolished with the adoption of the Constitution of 3 May 1791 , a piece of legislation which was passed as the "Government Act", and for which the Sejm required four years to propagate and adopt . The constitution's acceptance, and
15444-410: 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
15576-500: 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
15708-494: 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
15840-563: 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
15972-551: The will of the people in town and country." On paper, it was vested with great lawmaking and oversight powers. For instance, it was empowered with control over "the functioning of other organs of State authority and administration," and ministers were required to answer questions posed by deputies within seven days. In practice, it did little more than rubber-stamp decisions already made by the Communist Polish United Workers Party and its executive bodies. This
16104-443: 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
16236-486: Was Leon Kieres , elected by the Sejm for five years on 8 June 2000 (term 30 June 2000 – 29 December 2005). The IPN granted some 6,500 people the "victim of communism" status and gathered significant archive material. The IPN faced difficulties since it was new and also since the Democratic Left Alliance (containing former communists) attempted to close the IPN. The publication of Neighbors: The Destruction of
16368-551: Was acting director 2010–2011, between the death of the IPN's second president, Janusz Kurtyka , in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash and the election of Łukasz Kamiński by the Polish Parliament as the third director. Łukasz Kamiński , was elected by the Sejm in 2011 following the death of his predecessor. Kamiński headed the Wroclaw Regional Bureau of Public Education prior to his election. During his term,
16500-547: Was also established; the Sejm then comprised two chambers: the Senat (Senate) of 81 bishops and other dignitaries ; and the Chamber of Deputies, made up of 54 envoys elected by smaller local sejmik ( assemblies of landed nobility ) in each of the Kingdom's provinces. At the time, Poland's nobility, which accounted for around 10% of the state's population (then the highest amount in Europe),
16632-551: Was amended by the controversial Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance to include "protecting the reputation of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Nation". The IPN investigates and prosecutes Nazi and Communist crimes committed between 1917 and 1990, documents its findings, and disseminates them to the public. Some scholars have criticized the IPN for politicization, especially under Law and Justice governments. The IPN began its activities on 1 July 2000. The IPN
16764-452: Was assigned the task of examining the past of all candidates to public office. Kurtyka widened archive access to the public and shifted focus from compensating victims to researching collaboration. Franciszek Gryciuk In 1999, historian Franciszek Gryciuk was appointed to the Collegium of the IPN, which he chaired 2003–2004. From June 2008 to June 2011, he was vice president of the IPN. He
16896-661: Was becoming particularly influential, and with the eventual development of the Golden Liberty , the Sejm' s powers increased dramatically. Over time, the envoys in the lower chamber grew in number and power as they pressed the king for more privileges. The Sejm eventually became even more active in supporting the goals of the privileged classes when the King ordered that the landed nobility and their estates (peasants) be drafted into military service . [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The Union of Lublin in 1569, united
17028-609: Was established by the Polish parliament by the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance of 18 December 1998 through reforming and expanding the earlier Main Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation of 1991, which itself had replaced the General Commission for Research on Fascist Crimes, a body established in 1945 focused on investigating Nazi crimes established in 1945. In 2018, IPN's mission statement
17160-766: Was headed by the speaker, or Marshal , who was always a member of the United People's Party . In its preliminary session, the Sejm also nominated the Prime Minister , the Council of Ministers of Poland , and members of the State Council. It also chose many other government officials, including the head of the Supreme Chamber of Control and members of the State Tribunal and the Constitutional Tribunal , as well as
17292-459: Was standard practice in nearly all Communist regimes due to the principle of democratic centralism . The Sejm voted on the budget and on the periodic national plans that were a fixture of communist economies. The Sejm deliberated in sessions that were ordered to convene by the State Council . The Sejm also chose a Prezydium ("presiding body") from among its members. The Prezydium
17424-477: Was the most notable, in that it established laws constraining the power of the ruler. It forbade arbitrary sequestration of supplies in the countryside and takeover of bishopric lands after the death of a bishop. These early Sejm s only convened at the King's behest. Following the 1493 Sejm in Piotrków , it became a regularly convening body, to which indirect elections were held every two years. The bicameral system
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