Why does Polish use Latin?

As Latin was the official language of the Church (and, later, the official language of Law), it led eventually to adopting Roman alphabet as a mean to write Polish. It is so, because Poland was baptised in year 966 by Roman-Catolic church, not by Byzantine Church.

When did Poland switch to Latin alphabet?

12th century
Poles adopted the Latin alphabet in the 12th century. This alphabet, however, was ill-equipped to deal with Polish phonology, particularly the palatal consonants (now written as ś, ź, ć, dź), the retroflex group (now sz, ż, and cz) as well as the nasal vowels (now written as ą, ę).

Why there is no V in Polish?

The Polish version of the Latin alphabet was inspired by the German one, and even in old German dialects, W also represents the same labio-dental consonant represented by V in English. At the time, Polish used V extensively, and it represented an English U or W sound (just like in Latin).

What is the official language of Poland?

Despite the many languages spoken, the vast majority of the Polish population (98\%) speak Polish as their first language. Polish is a West Slavic language, or more precisely a “ Lechitic” language.

Is Polish written with Cyrillic alphabet?

These are languages such as Czech and Slovak. While Polish is a Slavic language, it isn’t written with the Cyrillic alphabet like Ukrainian and Russian and many of the other similar languages, but rather, it uses a variant of the Latin alphabet which has been adapted to fit Polish pronunciation. Read also: “ How To Learn Polish By Yourself “.

Is Polish a Slavic language?

Polish is a West Slavic language, or more precisely a “ Lechitic” language. The Lechitic group consists mainly of smaller languages such as Silesian and Kashubian besides Polish, and the major languages that are related to Polish are found in other West Slavic branches.

How did the Latin language influence the Polish language?

The Latin language, for a very long time the only official language of the Polish state, has had a great influence on Polish. Many Polish words were direct borrowings or calques (e.g. rzeczpospolita from res publica) from Latin.