Language Research

The Constitution of Poland, adopted on April 2, 1997

Polish Language Act adopted on October 7, 1999, which came into force on May 9, 2000, establishes the obligation to use the Polish language in legal trade conducted on the territory of the Republic of Poland between Polish entities, as well as in cases where one of the parties is a Polish entity. In particular, the requirement applies to names describing goods and services, offers, advertisements and commercials, user manuals, information on the features of goods or services, warranty terms and conditions, invoices, bills and receipts (Article 7.1)

During the legislation process, the European Integration Committee (Komitet Integracji Europejskiej) drew the attention of MP's to the fact that the Act is contrary to European Union Law.

It was said that although the obligation to use the Polish language regarding mandatory information on (or attached to) products is reasonable and justified, the requirement to use the Polish language for other information and descriptions constitutes an infringement of EU rules on the free movement of goods.

Despite this opinion on the Act, it was adopted by Parliament and, if it is signed and published by the President, will become valid. It should be noted, however, that Poland is currently involved in negotiations for accession to the EU. The question arises whether the Act will have to be amended soon at the insistence of EU negotiators. This question remains open.

To sum up, the use of proper names and commonly used scientific and technical terminology, as well as foreign languages in trademarks, commercial names and specifications of the origin of goods or services without their translation into Polish, will be allowed in legal trade in Poland.

With respect to the exception concerning trademarks - the Act does not state that registration has to have been completed. It is sufficient that an application has been made to the Polish Patent Office. Therefore, foreign-language names which have at least been applied for in Poland, as trademarks will not have to be translated into Polish.

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Updated (June 2002)

Although minorities are permitted by law to establish schools and classes for maintaining their identity and culture, the Roma minority has not benefited from these provisions.

Article 13 (1) of the Polish Act of September 7, 1991 on the Educational System states that "public schools shall enable pupils to retain their sense of national, ethnic, linguistic and religious identity, and in particular, shall make it possible for them to learn their own language, history and culture." Minority classes and schools are supported in Article 13 (2) of the Act stipulating that "at the request of parents, the educational instruction may be conducted in separate groups, sections or schools." Classes may also be held with additional lessons on the history and culture of the respective minority.

A 1992 resolution of the Minister of Education stated that: "native instruction for minority pupils as well as other classes will be organized on a volunteer basis."

The minimum number of pupils required to form classes with minority language of instruction is 7 in primary schools and 14 at the secondary level (para.6). The resolution further establishes four types of minority schools: schools with non-Polish language of instruction; bilingual schools; schools with additional study of mother tongue of minorities; and inter-school groups of pupils from different schools with additional study of mother tongue.

In practice, none of these provisions has ever applied to the Roma minority. There is no tradition of teaching Romani languages, no trained teachers, and no textbooks. In addition, Polish authorities have never encouraged development in this area.

On the contrary, the fact that Roma children are fluent in the Romani language and have a poor command of Polish when they enter school is widely regarded as handicap. The variety of Romani dialects spoken by the Roma in Poland is considered an obstacle both to the teaching of the Romani language and to integrated education for Roma children.

MEDIA

The Act on Broadcasting does not guarantee airtime or length of broadcasts for minorities or funding for minority media, although it does call on public broadcasting programs to "take into consideration the needs of national minorities and ethnic groups."

Roma media have received a disproportionately low level of government funding compared to the other minorities, and the level of funding has been decreasing.

The Department of National Minorities Culture within the Ministry of Culture has provided grants for about 30 - 40 minority periodicals in recent years, but the figure is set to decrease in favor of increased funding of minority cultural events and activities. In 1998, the Department subsidized 33 minority periodicals, of which 20 were published in minority languages, and two were bilingual Romani/Polish (the monthly "Rrom-po-Drom" and the quarterly "Dialog-Pheniben").

Source: http://www.eumap.org/reports/content/10/616/minority_poland.pdf, The EU Accession Monitoring Program Report on Minority Protection, Open Society Institute 2001 on

http://www.eumap.org/reports/content/10

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Updated (September 2002)

CASHUBIANS

While the long expected Law on Ethnic and National Minorities is still being prepared in the parliament, the Cashubian-Pomeranian Association (founded in 1956) asked the Commission for National and Ethnic Minorities of the Polish parliament for the legal official recognition of this community as a national minority.

According to the report on the realization of the provisions of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities submitted by the Polish government to the Secretary of the Council of Europe, Belorussians, Czechs, Karaits, Lithuanians, Lemks, Germans, Armenians, Gypsies, Slovaks, Tatars, Ukrainians and Jews are the officially recognized national or ethnic groups in the country. The Cashubian community was left aside. Estimates concerning the overall number of Cashubians range between 200,000 - 500,000 people, though knowledge of the Cashubian language is rather low.

Source: Mercator News, September 2002,

http://www.troc.es/ciemen/mercator/index-gb.htm

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Updated (January 2004)

The legal system before 1989 had protected neither national minorities nor their cultural values and education in their language. The only document dealing with the language politics at all, in a strictly negative way, was the 1945 Decree on the State Language. It secured the absolute domination of the Polish language in all domains and at all levels of the public life. The 1952 Soviet-like Constitution also did not mentioned protection of any minorities. According to the official and common opinion, Poland was a fully monoethnic and monolingual country.

The Law on the Polish Language of October 1999 (put in force in May 2000) finally replaced the above-mentioned 1945 Decree on the State Language. From the sociolinguistic point of view this Law seems to be extremely unrealistic, since most of its prescriptions, formulated in a very unclear and wishing mood, result from the fear of Anglicization and "globalization" of the Polish language and thus also of the Polish national and cultural identity. However, an attitude towards minority languages is relatively liberal...

Article 2

"The Law shall not limit the rights of national minorities and ethnic groups."

Consequently, for the first time in the post-War Polish history, using personal or place names in minority languages is not considered to be a criminal offense against the State. The Germans in Silesia, Kashubs and Lithuanians take advantage of this new freedom to a various extent.

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

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Updated (December 2004)

THE LAW ON NATIONAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES AND ON THE REGIONAL LANGUAGE PASSED IN POLAND

On November 4, 2004 the lower chamber of Parliament (Sejm) passed the Law on National and Ethnic Minorities and the Regional Language (the term "regional language" applies to Kashubian only). However, the law is not yet in force, as it must be also passed by the Senate¹. In fact, the Senate may still introduce some significant amendments to the law.

As reported by the newspaper "Schlesisches Wochenblatt", certain provisions granting wider linguistic rights to minorities were not included in the final text. For instance, a proposal to amend the bill, which introduced the obligation of local councils to communicate with minorities in their mother tongue if they asked for it (in municipalities where they live), was turned down during the parliamentary debate. Moreover, the final text introduced the use of minority languages in place and street signage only in those municipalities where a minority constitutes at least 50 percent of the total population, while the bill proposed a much lower threshold (8 percent).

Source: Mercator News, December 2004, http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/index-gb.htm

¹ Only then, and once it is signed by the President and published in the Journal of Laws, it will become a universally binding law.

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Updated (February 2005)

POLISH PARLIAMENT AGREES ON THE LIMITED USE OF BILINGUAL PLACE-NAMES

At the beginning of January 2005, Polish parliament (the Sejm) decided that only communities where more than 20 percent of the population belong to a language minority will be entitled to have bilingual place-name signage.

Based on this decision out of 50 local communities, which can erect bilingual signs, 28 are home to the German minority in Silesia, 12 to Belarusians in the northwest of Poland and 10 to the Kashjubian minority in Pomerania.

According to the Polish daily, "Rzeczpospolita", names given by leaders of the Third Reich or the Soviet Union cannot be used anymore.

Source: Eurolang News, Brigitte Alfter, Brussels, January 10, 2005, http://www.eurolang.net/

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Updated (July 2005)

ACT ON NATIONAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES AND ON REGIONAL LANGUAGE

This law from May 1, 2005 defines the terms "national minority" and "ethnic minority"¹. Following these definitions it recognizes nine national minorities (Belarusians, Czechs, Lithuanians, Germans, Armenians, Russians, Slovaks, Ukrainians and Jews) and four ethnic minorities (Karaites (Karaimi), Lemkos (Lemkowie), Romas and Tatars) in Poland.

The law stipulates that minority members have the right to spell their names and surnames according to the orthography of their language, to study their language and to use it freely in public and private life.

In the communes (the lowest local administrative territorial unit) where a minority comprises more than 20 percent of the population, its language may be used as a supplementary language in public offices and in names of localities, sites and streets (with the exception of those names which were given by the Third Reich or the USSR between 1933 and 1945).

Public authorities are obliged to support cultural, publishing and educational activities of minorities.

Source: Minelres News, June 9, 2005, http://lists.delfi.lv/pipermail/minelres/2005-June/004035.html

1. The Act also introduces a separate category, i.e. a regional language that in the meaning of this Act is the Kashubian (Kaszubski) language.

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