Old Polish language

The Old Polish language ( pl, język staropolski, staropolszczyzna) was a period in the history of the Polish language between the 10th and the 16th centuries. It was followed by the Middle Polish language.

The sources for the study of the Old Polish language are the data of the comparative-historical grammar of Slavic languages, the material of Polish dialects, several Latin manuscripts with Polish glosses, as well as – most importantly – monuments written in Old Polish: the Holy Cross Sermons ( pl, Kazania świętokrzyskie), the Florian Psalter (), Bogurodzica (), the Sharoshpatak Bible ( or ) and some others.

The Old Polish language was spoken mainly on the territory of modern Poland. It was the main vernacular of medieval Polish states under the Piasts and early Jagiellons, although it was not the state language (that being Latin).

History

The Polish language started to change after the baptism of Poland, which caused an influx of Latin words, such as ''kościół'' "church" (Latin ''castellum'', "castle"), ''anioł'' "angel" (Latin ''angelus''). Many of them were borrowed via Czech, which, too, influenced Polish in that era (hence e.g. ''wiesioły'' "happy, blithe" (cf. '' wiesiołek'') morphed into modern Polish ''wesoły'', with the original vowels and the consonants of Czech '' veselý''). Also, in later centuries, with the onset of cities founded on German law (namely, the so-called Magdeburg law), Middle High German urban and legal words filtered into Old Polish. Around the 14th or 15th centuries the aorist and imperfect became obsolete. In the 15th century the dual fell into disuse except for a few fixed expressions (adages, sayings). In relation to most other European languages, though, the differences between Old and Modern Polish are comparatively slight; the Polish language is somewhat conservative relative to other Slavic languages. That said, the relatively slight differences between Old and Modern Polish are unremarkable considering that the chronological stages of other European languages that Old Polish is contemporary with are generally not very different from the Modern stages and many of them already labelled "Early Modern"; Old Polish includes texts that were written as late as the Renaissance.

Earliest written sentence

The Book of Henryków ( pl, Księga henrykowska, la, Liber fundationis claustri Sancte Marie Virginis in Heinrichau), contains the earliest known sentence written in the Polish language: ''Day, ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai'' (pronounced originally as: ''Daj, uć ja pobrusza, a ti pocziwaj'', modern Polish: or , English: ''Let me grind, while you take a rest''), written around 1270.

The medieval recorder of this phrase, the Cistercian monk Peter of the Henryków monastery, noted that ("This is in Polish").

Spelling

The difficulty that medieval scribes had to face while attempting to codify the language was the inadequacy of the Latin alphabet to some features of Old Polish phonology, such as vowel length and nasalization, or the palatalization of consonants. Thus, Old Polish did not have a unified spelling. Polish glosses in Latin texts use romanized spelling, which often failed to distinguish between distinct phonemes. Already then, however, certain spellings of proper names become unified.

The spelling in the major works of Old Polish, such as the Holy Cross Sermons or the Sankt Florian Psalter is better developed. Their scribes tried to resolve the aforementioned issues in various ways, which led to each manuscript having separate spelling rules. Digraphs were commonly employed to write sounds not present in Latin, the letter ⟨ø⟩ or a sign similar to ⟨ɸ⟩ (see image on the right) was introduced to spell the nasal vowels, and the basic Latin letters were now used consistently for the same sounds. Nevertheless, many features were still only rarely marked, for example vowel length.

Parkoszowic

About 1440, , a professor of Jagiellonian University, was the first person to attempt a codification of Polish spelling. He wrote a tract on Polish orthographic rules (in Latin) and a short rhyme (in Polish) as an example of their use. The following rules were proposed:
* introduction of new letters of different shape to write hard ( unpalatalized) consonants, while soft ( palatalized) consonant letters were left unchanged,
* doubling of vowel letters to mark long sounds, for example: ⟨aa⟩ – /aː/ (but only if length decided the meaning of a word),
* use of the letter ⟨ø⟩ to write the short nasal vowel (⟨øø⟩ for the long nasal vowel),
* use of the letter ⟨g⟩ to write /j/, reserving ⟨q⟩ for /ɡ/ instead,
* use of digraphs and trigraphs to distinguish between the various coronal fricatives and affricates,
among others.

Parkoszowic's proposal was not adopted, as his conventions were judged to be impractical and cumbersome, and bore little resemblance to the spellings commonly used. However, his tract is of great importance to the history of the Polish language, as the first scientific work about the Polish language. It provides especially useful insight to contemporary phonology.

Phonology

Over the centuries, Old Polish pronunciation underwent several changes.

Consonants

The early Old Polish consonantal system consisted of the following phonemes. Since the precise realization of these sounds is unknown, the transcriptions used here are meant to be approximations.

The sound ͡ʒonly occurred in the cluster �d͡ʒ therefore its phonemic status is doubtful.

The most important consonantal changes concerned the realization of the soft coronal consonants. Of these, /tʲ/, /dʲ/, /sʲ/ and /zʲ/ strengthened their palatalization and became alveolo-palatal, and the former two were affricated. The resultant sounds were similar to their modern Polish counterparts: /t͡ɕ/, /d͡ʑ/, /ɕ/ and /ʑ/. This change happened very early, starting already in the 13th century as evidenced by spelling.

Somewhere around the 13th to 14th century, the phoneme /rʲ/ came to be pronounced with considerable friction, probably resulting in a sound similar to Czech /r̝/ (but by then probably still palatalized: /r̝ʲ/).

The Proto-Slavic language did not have a /f/ phoneme. In the 12th and 13th century in the dialects of Lesser Poland and Masovia the initial clusters /xv/ and /xvʲ/ were simplified to /f/ and /fʲ/ (e.g. > , > , > ). This enlarged their consonantal inventory by two. This change did not make it to the literary language, and was ultimately reversed also in those dialects. But before that, in the 14th and 15th century these two sounds became firmly established in borrowings (in earlier loanwords foreign was replaced by either /b/ or /p/). Perhaps one of the oldest loanwords which keeps /f, fʲ/ unchanged is the word ("victim; offering"), loaned from Czech , since the pre-writing era change ''ě''>''a'' before a hard consonant () seemed to have operated in it. /f/ also appeared later from the reduction of the cluster /pv/ (chiefly in the word > and derivatives).

The very end of the Old Polish period (15th–16th century, so during the transition to Middle Polish) saw the palatalization of the velar prosives /k/ and /ɡ/ before front oral vowels to ʲand �ʲ named the so-called "fourth Slavic palatalization". This distinction was later phonemicized with the introduction of borrowings which had hard velars before front vowels, as well as the denasalization of word final /ɛ̃/. Note that this change did not affect the velar fricative /x/ or velars before the front nasal vowel /æ̃~ɛ̃/. Not all regional varieties handled this change in the way here described, most notably in Masovia.

After these alternations, the late Old Polish consonant system presented itself thus:

Vowels

The early Old Polish vocalic system consisted of the following phonemes. As mentioned, the sound qualities are approximations.

�and �ːwere in complementary distribution with and ːrespectively – the former occurred after hard consonants, the latter in all other positions. The pairs can therefore be regarded as allophones.

All vowel phonemes occurred in pairs, one short and one long. Long vowels emerged in Old Polish from four sources:
# compensatory lengthening of vowels in penultimate syllables followed by a voiced consonant and a word-final yer, which was deleted (see Havlík's law)
#* examples: PS ''*rogъ'' > OP ''rōg'', PS ''*gněvъ'' > OP ''gniēw'', PS ''*stalъ'' > OP ''stāł''
# from the contraction of various sequences of two vowels separated by /j/
#* examples: PS ''*sějati'' > OP ''siāć'', PS ''*dobrajego'' > OP ''dobrēgo'', PS ''*rybojǫ'' > OP ''rybǭ''
# inherited from Proto-Slavic neoacute accent
#* examples: PS ''*pъtákъ'' > OP ''ptāk'', PS ''*sǫ̃dъ'' > OP ''są̄d'', PS ''grě̃xъ'' > OP ''grzēch''
# inherited from Proto-Slavic pretonic long vowels in two-syllable words (so long vowels in the first syllable if the second syllable was final and stressed)
#* examples: PS ''*mǭkà'' > OP ''mą̄ka'', PS ''*dě̄žà'' > OP ''dziēża'', PS ''*dōltò'' > OP ''dłōto''

Due to the lengthening described in 1. short vowels could not occur in word-final syllables before a voiced consonant. The only exceptions was short /ɛ/ from an older strong yer.

Prostheses

Similarly to some other Slavic languages and dialects, there existed a tendency to constrain the occurrence of vowels in word onset. A prosthetic or was often introduced to words beginning with a vowel:
* Earlier ''*e'', ''*ě'' received a prosthetic already in Late Common Slavic: PS ''*edinъ'' > OP ''jeden'', PS ''*ěsti'' > OP ''jeść''. An exception was the dialectal conjunction ''eż'', ''eże''.
* Earlier ''*ę'', ''*ǫ'' were also preceded by a prosthesis since the oldest records, and respectively: PS ''*ęzykъ'' > OP ''język'', PS ''*ędro'' > OP ''jądro'', PS ''*ǫtroba'' > OP ''wątroba'', PS ''*ǫgľь'' > OP ''węgiel''. To this day nasal vowels cannot begin a word in Polish.
* Earlier ''*a'' received a prosthetic similarly to front vowels: PS ''*agoda'' > OP ''jagoda''. Once again, an exception to this was a conjunction – ''a'', very common to this day, as well as its derivatives: ''ale'', ''aż'', ''ani'' etc.
* Old Polish rounded vowels /ɔ, ɔː/ probably had a labial prosthesis as is universal in dialects (e.g. ɔkɔ– /ɔkɔ/ – "oko"), but it was seldom marked in writing. Sometimes the spelling points to a prosthetic instead, for both /ɔ, ɔː/ as well as /u, uː/ (''a hon'' – "a on"; ''hupana Jana'' – "u pana Jana").
* Old Polish /i, iː/ seemed to have had a rather strong prosthetic often made evident in spelling (np. ''gymyenyu'' imʲɛɲu– "imieniu"). More rarely also occurred.
* Loanwords were also vulnerable, e.g. ''Jadam'' instead of "Adam", ''Jewa'' instead of "Ewa", ''Helska'' as a shortened form of "Elżbieta" ("Elizabeth").

Loss of vowel length

During the Old Polish period, vowel length ceased to be a feature distinguishing phonemes. The long high vowels /iː/, �ːand /uː/ merged with their short counterparts, with no change in quality. The fate of the remaining long oral vowels was different; they also lost their length, but their articulation became more closed and so they remained distinct from their old short counterparts. Thus, /ɛː/ changed to /e/ and /ɔː/ changed to /o/. The earlier long /aː/ also gained roundedness and became /ɒ/. This process was long and only complete by the late 15th century. The higher vowels are traditionally called ("skewed") in Polish.

The nasal vowels developed differently. Old Polish continued to have four nasal vowels until the 14th century, when they merged in respect to quality, but retained the length distinction. Therefore, the new system had only two nasal vowels: short /ã/ (from earlier /æ̃/ and /ɑ̃/) and long /ãː/ (from earlier /æ̃ː/ and /ɑ̃ː/). In the 15th century when vowel length was disappearing the two nasals retained the old length distinction through changes in quality, like the other non-high vowels. The short nasal was fronted to /æ̃~ɛ̃/ and the long backed to /ɒ̃~ɔ̃/ and lost its length (both with differing dialectal realizations).

The described changes led to the creation of the late Old Polish vocalic system:

Accent

Although stress was never marked in writing, its development in Old Polish can be partially inferred from certain other phonetic changes.

In older works, the verbal suffix ''-i''/''-y'' of the 2nd & 3rd ps. sg. imp. is dropped in some verbs, but retained in others. A comparison with East Slavic languages shows that the suffix remained when it was stressed in Proto-Slavic. Examples:
* Bogurodzica – Russian
* Bogurodzica – Russian
* Bogurodzica – Russian
* Sankt Florian Psalter – Russian
* Holy Cross Sermons – Russian

Because of this and other evidence, it is thought that early Old Polish had free, lexical stress inherited from Proto-Slavic.

Occasional ellipsis of the second vowel in commonly used trisyllabic words and phrases in the 14th and 15th century ( > , > , > , > ) point to the conclusion that by that time fixed initial stress had developed. The initial stress in the peripheral Podhale and southern Kashubian dialects (now considered a separate language but still part of the Lechitic dialect continuum) are taken to be remnants of earlier widespread initial stress. In the case of Podhale, Slovak influence is usually ruled out, because Slovak dialects bordering Podhale have penultimate rather than initial stress.

Morphology

In this section, Old Polish sounds are spelled the same as their primary reflexes using modern Polish orthography, except that non-high long vowels are marked with a macron: ''ā'', ''ē'', ''ō''. The represented state of the nasal vowels is that of the 14th century – two nasal vowels differing in length. This is represented by letters from modern Polish orthography; for example, ''ę'' for /ã/ and ''ą'' for /ãː/, for the sake of easier comparison with modern forms and proper display.

Nouns

Old Polish nouns declined for seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative; three numbers: singular, dual, plural; and had one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine or neuter.

The following is a simplified table of Old Polish noun declension:

Notes:
:Forms in parentheses are encountered sporadically, or begin appearing at the very end of Old Polish period (during the transition to Middle Polish). Variants of one ending are separated by a slash (see below). The vocative of the dual and plural was identical to the nominative.

Although Old Polish inherited all of the inflectional categories of Proto-Slavic, the whole system was subject to a fundamental reorganization. The Proto-Slavic inflection paradigms were applied based on the shape of the stem, but this had been obscured by many phonetic changes. Consequently, the endings began being assigned based primarily on the lexical gender of nouns, which previously was not the primary consideration (although stem shape still played a role in certain cases), and the old declension classes gradually merged. Many endings were lost from Proto-Slavic and others, often those which were more distinct, took their place.

Although many of the above endings are the same as modern Polish, they did not necessarily have the same distribution. In classes which had a choice of two or more endings, these were commonly interchangeable, while in modern Polish, some words stabilized and only accept one.

Detailed description of some endings and categories

The modern Polish distinction in animacy in masculine declension was only beginning to appear in Old Polish. The most visible symptom of this trend was the use of the genitive of masculine animate nouns in the singular in place of the accusative. This was directly caused by the fact that the accusative of all masculine nouns used to be identical with the nominative, causing confusion as to which of two animate nouns was the subject and which the direct object due to free word order: pl, Ociec kocha syn, label=none – "The father loves the son" or "The son loves the father". The use of the genitive for the direct object solves this issue: pl, Ociec kocha syna, label=none – unambiguously "The father loves the son". Such forms are ubiquitous already in the oldest monuments of the language, although exceptions still happen occasionally.

The Proto-Slavic language had a variant cluster ''-ev-''/''-ov-'', which occurred in some suffixes, such as the dative singular, nominative plural and genitive plural of masculine nouns. While in the proto-language ''-ev-'' regularly occurred after soft consonants, and the equivalent ''-ov-'' – after hard consonants, in Old Polish this variance was disrupted. There came a tendency to regularize one of them, and so southern Poland: Lesser Poland and Silesia, generalize ''-ow-'' to all positions, while Greater Poland generalizes ''-ew-''. Masovia until the 15th century used ''-ew-'' as in Greater Poland, but a subsequent rapid expansion of ''-ow-'' almost completely replaces ''-ew-'' in the next century. Eventually the forms with ''-ow-'' have made their way to the literary language: Modern Polish , and .

Feminine endings of the dative and locative plural had two variants: older endings with a long vowel ''-ām'' and ''-āch'', and younger endings with a short vowel – ''-am'' i ''-ach''. The shortening might have been caused either by frequent usage, or by leveling of the suffix to the nominative singular ''-a''.

Verbs

Old Polish verbs conjugated for three persons; three numbers, singular, dual and plural; two moods, declarative and imperative; and had one of two lexical aspects, perfective or imperfective. There was also the analytical conditional mood, formed by the aorist of the verb ("to be") and an old participle form.

Significant changes from Proto-Slavic occurred in the usage of tenses. The ancient aorist and imperfect tenses were already in the process of disappearing when the language was first attested. In the oldest texts of the 14th and 15th century, only 26 existed, and neither tenses show the whole inflection paradigm. The only exception was the aorist of ''być'', which survived and came to be used to form the conditional mood.

The role of the past tense was taken up by a new analytical formation, composed of the present of and the old L-participle of a verb.

Literature

* The Gniezno Bull ( pl, Bulla gnieźnieńska) a papal bull containing 410 Polish names, published 7 July 1136 ( This document can be viewed in Polish wikisource)
* Mother of God ( pl, Bogurodzica, link=no) 10th–13th centuries, the oldest known Polish national anthem
* The Book of Henryków ( pl, Księga henrykowska, link=no, la, Liber fundationis) – contains the earliest known sentence written in the Polish language.
* The Holy Cross Sermons ( pl, Kazania świętokrzyskie, link=no) 14th century
* St. Florian's Psalter ( pl, Psałterz floriański, link=no) 14th century – a psalmody; consists of parallel Latin, Polish and German texts
* Master Polikarp's Dialog with Death ( pl, Rozmowa Mistrza Polikarpa ze Śmiercią, link=no, la, De morte prologus, Dialogus inter Mortem et Magistrum Polikarpum, link=no) verse poetry, early 15th century
* Lament of the Holy Cross ( pl, Lament świętokrzyski, link=no, also known as: pl, Żale Matki Boskiej pod krzyżem, label=none or pl, Posłuchajcie Bracia Miła, label=none), late 15th century
* Bible of Queen Sophia ( pl, Biblia królowej Zofii, link=no), first Polish Bible translation, 15th century

Sample text

: Ach, Królu wieliki nasz
: Coż Ci dzieją Maszyjasz,
: Przydaj rozumu k'mej rzeczy,
: Me sierce bostwem obleczy,
: Raczy mię mych grzechów pozbawić
: Bych mógł o Twych świętych prawić.
(The introduction to ''The Legend of Saint Alexius'' – 15th century)

See also

* Middle Polish
* Modern Polish
* History of Polish
* History of Polish orthography

Notes

References

Bibliography

*
*
*
*
*

{{Polish language

Polish language
Polish, Old
Languages attested from the 9th century