Polish language

Polish
Polski
Pronunciation	[ˈpɔlski]
Native to	Poland
Region	Mainly in Poland, but there are minorities in Ukraine, Belarus, Czechia, Slovakia, Germany and Lithuania
Ethnicity	Poles
Native speakers	[1]
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic West Slavic Lechitic Polish
Early forms	Old Polish Middle Polish
Dialects	Kashubian , though it is often called a separate language Silesian Greater Polish Lesser Polish Masovian
Writing system	Latin (Polish alphabet) Cyrillic (Cyrillization of Polish) Polish Braille
Official status
Official language in	Poland  European Union
Recognised minority language in	Czech Republic  Slovakia  Hungary  Lithuania  Ukraine
Regulated by	Polish Language Council
Language codes
ISO 639-1	pl
ISO 639-2	pol
ISO 639-3	pol
Linguasphere	53-AAA-cc < 53-AAA-b...-d (varieties: 53-AAA-cca to 53-AAA-ccu)
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Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) is the official language of Poland. It is the most common Western Slavic language and the second Slavic language, after Russian.

Polish has been an important language in Central and Eastern Europe. Polish is now spoken by over 43.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a Second language in western parts of Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine. Because of emigration during different times, millions of Polish-speakers can be found in Australia, Ireland, Brazil, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and elsewhere. There are over 50 million speakers around the world.

1. ↑ Nationalencyklopedin "Världens 100 största språk 2007" The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007