U.S. English Foundation Research

POLAND

General Information

Warsaw 1,638,300 (1995 est.)

312, 683 sq km (120,725 sq mi)

Republic

Purchasing power parity-$7,200 (1999 est.)

38,608,929 (July 1999 est.)

Polish - 97.6%

Ukrainian - 0.6%

Other - 1.8%

(German, Belarusian, Lithuanian, Jew, Roma, Russian, Slovak, Czech)

Updated (January 2004)

BELARUSIAN

According to the rough estimates, there are between 100,000 and 300,000 Belarusians in Poland. These data are usually based on the number of people belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church in the Podlasian province in northeastern Poland. Most of the Belarusian-speakers live in rural areas.

The linguistic identity of this group is relatively weak. Although the main factor consolidating this community is the religion, the Russian and Old Church Slavonic languages are used in religious ceremonies in Orthodox churches and parishes instead of Belarusian. Belarusian is used only in one Orthodox church, in the town of Bialystok.

Due to economic under-development of the region, predominantly rural character of the population, and mass migrations of the younger generations to urban centers, Belarusian in Poland is on the decline.

GERMAN

The number of Germans in Poland varies extremely. Polish researchers estimate that between 300,000 and 400,000 Germans live in the country, German minority organizations inform about 400,000 to 800,000 while the organizations of deported Germans in the F.R.G. speak about 1,100,000 people.

The German minority in Poland inhabits predominantly Silesia and Varmia-Masuria provinces. Since the beginning of 1990s, the German organizations have explicitly demanded the introduction of official bilingualism in the areas inhabited by German communities.

The current problems are connected with the fact that instead of German historical place names, those introduced by the Nazis in 1938 have been in quasi-official use.

The German language, although not commonly used in everyday life, plays a key role in preservation and development of the German identity. Unlike the other linguistic minority groups, the Polish Germans do not use any dialectal form of their language anymore, as practically all the German dialects in Poland ceased to exist after the World War II.

KASHUBIAN

Between 330,000 and 550,000 people (according to various sociological criteria) regard themselves as Kashubs. Some 100,000 consider Kashubian to be their mother tongue and speak it to various degrees.

Kashubian is not officially recognized as a minority language, as the Kashubs do not consider themselves a national minority. It can; however, rightly be classified as a regional language. The distinctiveness of Kashubs is based mainly on the cultural, territorial and linguistic awareness. Originally they used to inhabit mostly rural areas in eastern Pomerania, but recently a group of Kashubian intelligentsia has created a local lobby-group in Gdansk in order to promote their language and culture.

As a result the Kashubian Institute was established in 1998. In the early 1990s, Kashubian was introduced to schools, to the Gdansk University, teachers' training and the mass media. Recently, the relatively low status of Kashubian has upgraded significantly.

LITHUANIAN

Some 20,000 to 30,000 members of the Lithuanian-speaking minority live in the northeastern counties, along the border with the Republic of Lithuania. It is one of the most emancipated; best organized and least assimilated minority communities in the country, the linguistic factor playing a crucial role in maintaining their regional and national identity.

Nearly all Lithuanians are bi- or actually trilingual, with a Lithuanian dialect as their mother tongue and good knowledge of standard Lithuanian and Polish.

ROMANY

Several sub-ethnic Roma groups (e.g. nomadic Polish Lowlands and Hungarian Roma, or settled Polish Highlands and Russian Roma) live in actually all regions of Poland and total around 20,000 to 25,000 people. Most of them are bilingual with a dialect of Romany as a mother tongue and some knowledge of Polish. Romany monolinguals are not infrequent.

The dialectal, social and ethnic diversity hinders communication between the sub-groups. Standard Romany remains unknown, though it is now being taught at some schools.

RUTHENIAN

The sociolinguistic situation of Ruthenians (known also as Lemkos or Rusyns) is very similar to that of Ukrainians. They used to be treated not as a separate national minority, but as a part of the Ukrainian ethnos, together with the other groups of East-Carpathian highlanders (i.e. the Boykos and the Hutsuls). There are several different versions of their origin. The Polish historiographers consider the Lemkos to be descendants of Wallachian tribes who arrived from the Balkans and got Ruthenized. These belong to the Russian-Orthodox Church.

The other group has a regional Ukrainian sub-ethnic identity and belongs to the Greek-Catholic Church.

The number of Ruthenians living in Poland is estimated at some 60,000. Nowadays they inhabit more or less the same areas as Ukrainians. After 1956 some of them managed to settle back in their ethnic territory of the Lower Beskid Mountains. Recently several attempts have been made to form a literary standard of Ruthenian and use it in education and publications.

The conflict between the two Lemkos groups weakens the chances of Ruthenian ethnic culture to survive.

SLOVAK

Some 20,000 members of the Slovak minority in Poland live in the south, along the border with the Slovak Republic. Nearly all Polish Slovaks are bilingual, a transitional Slovak-Polish dialect being their mother tongue, and standard Slovak and Polish being used in other domains. The status of Slovak in the area is generally lower than that of Polish.

UKRAINIAN

The Ukrainians are one of the largest, and at the same time, the most dispersed minority communities in Poland. According to the estimates, between 150,000 and 300,000 of them are living in the country.

As a result of 1944-47 deportations from their ethnic territories in eastern and southeastern Poland, at present they inhabit mainly the provinces of Lower Silesia, Pomerania, and Varmia-Masuria, as well as the urban centers (Warsaw, Cracow, Legnica, Przemysl). Thus they do not constitute a majority in any region, except for individual villages in the northern and western provinces.

All Ukrainians in Poland are bilingual, Ukrainian-Polish among the older generation and Polish-Ukrainian among the youth. The Ukrainian dialects, used in Poland before the World War II, are on the decline.

In spite of such an extreme dispersion, the Polish Ukrainians seem to be one of the most active and best-organized national and linguistic minorities in the country.

Official Language(s)

Polish

Minority Language(s)

German, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Hebrew, Romany

Updated (January 2004)

ARMENIAN

- Its Old-Armenian form (called Grabar) used by several thousand of Polish Armenians exclusively in the liturgy of the Armenian-Catholic church.

CZECH

- Used by several hundred Polish Czechs in a few villages in Lower Silesia and in the town of Zelów in central Poland.

- Predominantly a home and church language

KARAIM

- Spoken only by several hundred of Polish Karaims (people of Turkic descent) in the church services of the Karaimic church.

RUSSIAN

- A mother tongue of approximately 2,000 Old-Believers living in northeastern Poland. Due to their social and religious isolation, the perspectives of language maintenance are still relatively good.

TATAR

- The Tatar language died long time ago.

- The community has several thousand members.

YIDDISH AND HEBREW

- It is spoken by a vestigial group of the Polish Jews, Yiddish as a home language of the oldest generation and Hebrew as a sacral language.

WILAMOWICEAN

- It is probably the least-spoken ethnolect in Poland and the last remnant of Germanic linguistic enclaves in southern Poland. The town of Wilamowice (in southern Silesia) is inhabited predominantly by the descendants of settlers from the 13th Century. Its ethnolect is by Germanists categorized as a Middle High German dialect. The inhabitants of the town strive to maintain their separate ethnic identity and folk culture.

Source: Mercator News, Language Minorities in Old and New Europe by Tomasz Wicherkiewicz from Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, at the Mercator Conference: European Minority Languages and Research, Shaping an Agenda for a Global Age, Aberystwyth, April 8-10, 2003, http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/index-gb.htm

AUTOCHTHONOUS MINORITY LANGUAGES IN POLAND

Language/Dialect	Group	Population	District
Belarusian (Slavonic lang.)	Belarusians (NM)	200-300,000	Podlaskie
Czech (Slavonic lang.)	Czechs (NM)	3,000	Dolnośląskie (Zelów), Lubelskie, Łódzkie
German (German lang.)	Germans (NM)	300-500,000	Opolskie, Śląskie, Warmińsko-Mazurskie, Kujawsko-Pomorskie
Grabar (Old Armenian language)	Armenians (NM)	5-8,000	Dolnośląskie and Małopolskie, (Kraków, Warszawa, Wrocław, Bielsko-Biała, Gdańsk, Silesia region)
Gypsy/Romany	Gypsies (EG)	20-30,000	Małopolskie (mainly dispersed)
Karaim	Karaims (EG)	0-2,000	Dispersed-Warszawa, Kraków, Opole, Gdańsk, Wrocław
Kashubian (dialect of Polish, regarded by some as a separate Slavonic language)	Kashubs (EG)	350-500,000	Pomerania region, between Gdańska and Słupsk, with centers in Wejherowio, Kartuzy, Kościerzyna, Wiele
Lithuanian (Baltic language)	Lithuanians (NM)	20-25,000	Biała Podlaska Region, (Sejny region in northeasternmost corner of Poland, Warszawa, Wrocław
Lemkish (dialect of Ukrainian, regarded by some as a separate language)	Lemkos (EG)	60-70,000	Małopolskie, Podkarpackie, Dolnośląskie, Warmińsko-mazurskie, Lubuskie, Zachodniopomorskie
Russian Old Believers language (archaic Russian and Polish dialect)	Russian Old Believers (NM)	10-15,000	Podlaskie, Warmińsko-Mazurskie
Silesian (dialect of Polish)	Silesians (RG)	-	Silesia and OpoleSilesia regions
Slovak (Slavonic lang.)	Slovaks (NM)	10-20,000	Małopolskie (Spis and Orava regions)
Tatar (Arabic with Turkic)	Tatars (EG)	5,000	Podlaskie (villages Bohoniki, Kruszyniany)
Ukrainian (Slavonic lang.)	Ukrainians (NM)	200-300,000	Dolnośląskie, Lubelskie, Lubuskie, Małopolskie, Podkarpackie, Warmińsko-Mazurskie, Zachodniopomorskie
Yiddish	Jews (NM)	8-10,000	Dispersed, mainly in Warszawa, Kraków, Silesia region

NM – National Minority

EG – Ethnic Group

RG – Regional Group

Source: Mercator News, Policy on Minority and Regional Languages in Poland, by Marta Moskal, Jagiellonian University, Poland, http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/index-gb.htm

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