The Babia Góra dialect belongs to the

Lesser Poland dialect group The Lesser Polish dialect group () is a of dialect group of the Polish language used in Lesser Poland. The exact area is difficult to delineate due to the expansion of its features and the existence of transitional subdialects. The common tra ...

and is located in the southern part of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. It is in part one of the dialects that belongs to the

Goral ethnolect Goral, less frequently called Highlander or Highland Polish, is an ethnolect An ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that marks speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. A ...

Phonology

Typical of Lesser Polish dialects (as well as Greater Polish dialects), voicing of word-final consonants before vowels and liquids is present here. Also typical of Lesser Polish dialects is the presence of mazuration.

Vowels

The Lechitic ablaut is often absent before hard dental consonants.

Slanted vowels

Slanted á is retained as á or raises to o. Slanted é raises to y hard consonants and can be y, i, or é after soft consonants. Slanted ó is raised to u.

Nasal vowels

The Babia Góra dialect displays features common of dialects with a single nasal vowel. ęC and ąC shift to áC. Word finally they generally shift to -á, except in some inflections. Similarly instances of eN shift to oN.

Prothesis

Labialization of o to ô is common in all positions. Prothesis of other initial vowels is sporadic.

Consonants

Final -ch shifts to -k mostly in inflections and certain grammatical particles such as niek < niech.

Inflection

Typical Goral inflectional patters are present here.

Nouns

The feminine accusative singular is -á, and the feminine instrumental singular is -óm. The archaic -e of feminine genitive singular of soft stems is preserved.

Adjectives and adverbs

The feminine instrumental singular is -óm.

Verbs

Verbs whose past tense end in -ął, -ęl- shift to -on(V). The third person plural present tense is almost exclusively realized as -á, rarely -óm. The first person present tense is -á.

Prepositions and prefixes

The prefix roz- is usually realized as ôz-.

References

Polish dialects {{improve categories, date=November 2024