Old Polish language

Old Polish
ięzyk Polſki
Pronunciation
Region	Central and Eastern Europe
Era	developed into Middle Polish by the 16th century
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic West Slavic Lechitic Old Polish
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Linguist list	`0gi`

Old Polish (referred in Polish as język staropolski in contrast to modern Polish – język polski) is the period in the history of the Polish language between the 9th and the 16th centuries.

1 History
2 The alphabet
- 2.1 Parkoszowic
3 Literature
4 Example
5 See also

History

The Polish language started to change after the Baptism of Poland, bringing in words from Latin such as kościół ("church", from L. castellum, meaning "castle"), often via the Czech language, which also influenced Polish in that era (hence Lechitic "wiesiełyj" yielded modern Polish "wesoły" and "wesele"). 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 alphabet

Parkoszowic

About 1440 Jagiellonian University professor and rector Jakub Parkoszowic tried to codify the Polish alphabet. He wrote the first tract on Polish orthographic rules (in Latin) and rhyme Obiecado (in Polish). Parkoszowic wanted to differentiate:

long and short vowels by doubling long ones,
palatal and non-palatal consonants with letters of different shapes (round and edged).

His ideas were not popular, and did not become obligatory.

Literature

The Gniezno Bull (Polish: Bulla gnieźnieńska) a papal bull containing 410 Polish names, published 7 July 1136 (This document in polish wikisource)
Mother of God (Polish: Bogurodzica) 10th–13th centuries, the oldest known Polish hymn
The Book of Henryków (Polish: Księga henrykowska, Latin: Liber fundationis) – contains the earliest known sentence written in the Polish language.
The Holy Cross Sermons (Polish: Kazania świętokrzyskie) 14th century
St. Florian's Psalter (Polish: Psałterz floriański) 14th century – a psalmody; consists of parallel Latin, Polish and German texts
Master Polikarp's Dialog with Death (Polish: Rozmowa Mistrza Polikarpa ze Śmiercią, Latin: De morte prologus, Dialogus inter Mortem et Magistrum Polikarpum) verse poetry
Lament of the Holy Cross (Polish: Lament świętokrzyski, also known as: Żale Matki Boskiej pod krzyżem or Posłuchajcie Bracia Miła)
Bible of Queen Sophia (Polish: Biblia królowej Zofii'), first Polish Bible translation, 15th century

Example

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 Alexander (15th century)

This article was sourced from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. World Heritage Encyclopedia content is assembled from numerous content providers, Open Access Publishing, and in compliance with The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Public Library of Science, The Encyclopedia of Life, Open Book Publishers (OBP), PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and USA.gov, which sources content from all federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government publication portals (.gov, .mil, .edu). Funding for USA.gov and content contributors is made possible from the U.S. Congress, E-Government Act of 2002.

Crowd sourced content that is contributed to World Heritage Encyclopedia is peer reviewed and edited by our editorial staff to ensure quality scholarly research articles.

By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. World Heritage Encyclopedia™ is a registered trademark of the World Public Library Association, a non-profit organization.

Old Polish language