Silesian language

</noinclude>

thumb|upright 1.2|<div class="legend">Range of Silesian on a map of [[East-Central Europe (marked as <span class="legend-color" style="display:inline-block; width:1.5em; height:1.5em; margin:1px 0; border:1px solid black; background:#8ec700; text-align:center;">G1</span> and <span class="legend-color" style="display:inline-block; width:1.5em; height:1.5em; margin:1px 0; border:1px solid black; background:#aee800; text-align:center;">G2</span>, in southern Poland and the eastern Czech Republic).</div>]]

thumb|Distribution area of the Silesian language

thumb|% of population in [[Opole Voivodeship|Opole and Silesian Voivodeships using Silesian on daily basis according to 2021 Polish census]]

thumb|A Silesian speaker, recorded in Poland

Silesian, occasionally called Upper Silesian, is an ethnolect of the Lechitic group spoken in Upper Silesia. While having secured some international recognition as a language, Its vocabulary was significantly influenced by Central German due to the existence of numerous Silesian German speakers in the area prior to World War II and after. The first mentions of Silesian as a distinct lect date back to the 16th century, and the first literature with Silesian characteristics to the 17th century.

Linguistic distinctiveness of Silesian has long been a topic of discussion among Poland's linguists, especially after all of Upper Silesia was included within the Polish borders following World War II. Some regard it as one of the four major dialects of Polish, while others classify it as a separate regional language, distinct from Polish. The dispute over the status of Silesian is considered to be of purely political character. According to the official data from the 2021 Polish census, 467 145 people use Silesian on daily basis. Referring to Silesian as an ethnolect (which could be either a dialect or a language) has been recommended as a neutral term. Internationally, Silesian has been fully recognized as a language since 2007, when it was accorded the ISO 639-3 registration code szl.

Several efforts have been made for Silesian to gain recognition as an official regional language in Poland. Shortly before the 2007 election, the MPs of Samoobrona, LPR, RLN and PSL submitted a bill recognizing Silesian as a regional language in Poland, but the Sejm was dissolved before it could have been passed. Subsequent stillborn attempts were made in 2010 and 2012. In 2011, the ECRML recommended that Poland recognizes Silesian as a language. In January 2026, the Sejm again once passed the bill recognizing it as such,

Distribution

Silesian speakers currently live in the region of Upper Silesia, which is split between southwestern Poland and the northeastern Czech Republic. At present Silesian is commonly spoken in the area between the historical border of Silesia on the east and a line from Syców to Prudnik on the west as well as in the Rawicz area.

Until 1945, Silesian was also spoken in enclaves in Lower Silesia, where the majority spoke Lower Silesian, a variety of Central German. The German-speaking population was either evacuated en masse by German forces towards the end of the war or deported by the new administration upon the Polish annexation of the Silesian Recovered Territories after its end. Before World War II, most Slavic-language speakers also knew German and, at least in eastern Upper Silesia, many German speakers were acquainted with Slavic Silesian.

According to the last official census in Poland in 2021, about 460,000 In the censuses in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, nearly 527,000 people declared Silesian nationality; Upper Silesia has almost five million inhabitants, with the vast majority speaking Polish in the Polish part and declaring themselves to be Poles and the vast majority speaking Czech in the Czech part and declaring themselves to be Czechs.

Grammar

Although the morphological differences between Silesian and Polish have been researched extensively, other grammatical differences have not been studied in depth.

A notable difference is in question-forming. In standard Polish, questions which do not contain interrogative words are formed either by using intonation or the interrogative particle . In Silesian, questions which do not contain interrogative words are formed by using intonation (with a markedly different intonation pattern than in Polish) or inversion (e.g. ); there is no interrogative particle.

Example

{| class="wikitable"

!Silesian – Central dialect

!Silesian – Cieszyn dialect

!Polish

!Czech

!Slovak

!English

Dialects of Silesian

thumb|upright 1.2|Map showing the distribution of the Silesian dialects

The Silesian language consists of a number of dialects, broadly classified into three groups; northern, central and southern. Per Alfred Zaręba, these dialects are further divided as follows:

Northern dialects:
Kluczbork (1)
Opole (2)
Niemodlin (3)
Central dialects:
Prudnik (4)
Gliwice (5)
Borderland Silesian-Lesser Polish dialects (6):
Gliwice-Opole-Lesser Poland Borderland (a)
Silesian-Lesser Polish Borderland (b)
Southern dialects:
Cieszyn (7)
Jablunkov (8)
Borderland Silesian-Lach (9)

Historically, the dialectal distribution also included the Chwalim dialect, part of the Lower Silesian dialect group. This dialect formed the northernmost boundary of the Silesian language and influenced nearby new mixed dialects until its extinction in the 20th century.

Some, like Óndra Łysohorsky (a poet and author in Czechoslovakia), saw the Silesians as their own distinct people, which culminated in his effort to create a literary standard which he called the "Lachian language". Silesian inhabitants supporting the cause of each of these ethnic groups had their own robust network of supporters across Silesia's political borders which shifted over the course of the 20th century prior to the large-scale ethnic cleansing in the aftermath of World War II.

In 2009, Wojciech Janicki argued that the issue is centred around political considerations, and linguistic arguments represent a post-hoc rationalization for political stances. He stated that the arguments given by linguists who oppose recognizing Silesian a language often "support the thesis of the presence of a separate Silesian language quite unintentionally and accidentally". Janicki brings up the examples of Polish ethnologist Krzysztof Kwaśniewski who stated that "national language is what people speaking it claim and not what linguists judge", and linguist Bogusław Wyderka, who "demonstrates that for 95 per cent of Silesians, their dialect is their primary code, so it exists as a means of identification".

In 2016, Kamusella argued that the reason for politicization of the Silesian debate is that a part of the Polish national myth is ethnolinguistic homogeneity, one which recognizing Silesians and/or their language as separate from Polish endangers:

Views

Some linguists from Poland, such as Jolanta Tambor, Juan Lajo, Tomasz Wicherkiewicz, philosopher Jerzy Dadaczyński, sociologist Elżbieta Anna Sekuła, and sociolinguist Tomasz Kamusella, support its status as a language. According to Stanisław Rospond, it is impossible to classify Silesian as a dialect of the contemporary Polish language because he considers it to be descended from Old Polish. Although often, this view is contested with the fact that during the time of Old Polish, the West Slavic regions didn't classify as separate languages, and rather fell into a dialect continuum such as Serbo-Croatian, with Silesian still being different from other dialect regions of the time. According to Kamusella, "between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, several popular Silesian-Polish dictionaries were published, some of which were quite extensive. Initially, they referred to Silesian as a gwara (dialect) but then increasingly termed it a language." Kamusella also wrote: "During the first decade of the 21st century Silesian was accepted as a language by most of its speakers in Poland, and also by linguists and IT specialists outside Poland."

Other Polish linguists, such as Jan Miodek and Edward Polański, do not support its status as a language. Jan Miodek and Dorota Simonides, prefer to see the preservation of the entire range of Silesian dialects rather than standardization, stating due to its connection with Old Polish, it should not be classified separately. However, with such classification as Jan Miodek uses, taking into account the first "Polish" sentence was found in Silesia, this argument can also be used to call Polish a dialect of Silesian, and even easier with this criteria, viewing Spanish a dialect of Catalan.

The German linguist Reinhold Olesch was greatly interested in the "Polish vernaculars" of Upper Silesia and other Slavic varieties such as Kashubian and Polabian. Miodek argues that "there is no major grammatical feature within Silesian, which would not function simultaneously in the dialects of Lesser Poland or Greater Poland, Mazovian or Kashubian". In their respective surveys of Slavic languages, linguists writing in English such as Alexander M. Schenker, and Robert A. Rothstein, and Roland Sussex and Paul Cubberley listed Silesian as a dialect of Polish in 1993, as did Encyclopædia Britannica. On the question of whether Silesian is a separate Slavic language, Gerd Hentschel wrote in 2001 that "Silesian ... can thus ... without doubt be described as a dialect of Polish" (""). Since late 2000s, international classifications towards Silesian shifted - in 2007, the US Library of Congress recognized Silesian as a regional language, and SIL International codified it as a new language. In 2011, the European Charter for Minority or Regional Languages recommended that Poland recognizes Silesian as a language.

Dialectologist Jadwiga Wronicz argued that Silesian is a dialect of Polish as this status had been attributed to it at the beginning of the 20th century during research to determine the area of the Polish language. She wrote: "The boundaries between Polish dialects and the dialects of neighbouring languages were defined at the beginning of the 20th century on the basis of intralinguistic features, based on research into the speech of the indigenous population." A similar argument was advanced by the linguist Andrzej Markowski, who stated that the conclusions reached by the 19th-century linguists Jerzy Samuel Bandtkie and Lucjan Malinowski who described Silesian as a variety of Polish should be maintained.

According to Tomasz Kamusella, arguments against recognizing Silesian as a language are political and contradict modern linguistics, as the standards they base themselves on would entail classifying multiple universally recognized as languages as dialects. He wrote: "It is politics (that is, ethnolinguistic nationalism) only which prevents the recognition of Silesian as a language in Poland. To take at the face value the Polish administration’s claims that Silesian cannot be recognized as a language, due to its underdevelopment in the sphere of grammar standardization and writing, this stance entails a proposal that in the world there are not more than about 200 languages meriting status as ‘a language’. Perhaps, the Polish authorities would rather not stand by this logical – though highly paradoxical – conclusion of their line of thinking on the issue of the Silesian language."

Polish linguist Kazimierz Polański wrote: "The problem of distinguishing languages from dialects is not a purely linguistic problem, it is rather a sociological, psychological problem. To a certain extent, it is also political. It is not possible to establish linguistic criteria to distinguish between a language and a dialect. The main issue here is linguistic awareness, which causes a linguistic community to mature at a certain point and decide to become independent: it develops a dictionary of its language, codifies the rules of its use, its spelling, choice of alphabet, etc. From this point onwards, it is possible to speak of a separate language. From this point onwards, it is possible to speak of a distinct language."

Dialectologist Karol Dejna argued that Polish dialects "are not a derivative of a national language, but partially the opposite – the nationwide language has elevated some of the features that distinguish Polish dialects to the rank of binding norms". He wrote:

Among the linguists who argue that Silesian is a language, Witold Mańczak wrote that "the defining feature between ethnolects is lexical, not grammatical, convergence". In this context, 53% of the lexemes characteristic of Silesian also appear in, Lesser Polish, Greater Polish and Masovian dialects, as well as in the Kashubian language, which is referred to as a dialect in the study. This result was interpreted as evidence both for and against Silesian being an independent language.

Polish linguist Bogusław Wyderka proposed to recognize Silesian as a microlanguage, writing: "Due to its origins and systemic-lexical properties, the Silesian ethnolect is a dialect of the Polish language, but one which in terms of functional development has transcended the boundaries of a dialect, at least in the industrial subregion. Standardisation efforts indicate that it is moving towards a form that I have termed a microlanguage." He argues that because Silesian had expanded into film, theatre, television, radio and computer games, and had also become "the material for a variety of literary genres, including high literature such as Letters from Rome () by Zbigniew Kadłubek", it is necessary to speak of "new linguistic formations that have transcended the definitional boundaries of dialect".

In Czechia, disagreement exists concerning the Lach dialects which rose to prominence thanks to Óndra Łysohorsky and his translator Ewald Osers. While some have considered it a separate language, most now view Lach as a dialect of Czech.

Comparison to other Slavic languages

{| class="wikitable"

!English

!Belarusian

!Czech

!Kashubian

!Polish

!Silesian

!Slovak

!Russian

|я

|já

|jô

|ja

|jŏ

|ja

|я

|also

|таксама

|také

|téż

|też

|tyż

|tiež

|также

|which

|якія

|která

|chtëré

|które

|kere

|ktoré

|которое

|not

|не

|ne

|nie

|niy

|nie

|не

|or

|або

|nebo

|abò

|albo

|abo/lebo

|alebo

|или

|is

|ёсць

|je

|jest

|je

|есть

|every

|кожны

|každý

|kòżdi

|każdy

|kŏżdy

|každý

|каждый

|knows

|ведае

|ví

|wié

|wie

|wiy/znŏ

|vie

|знает

|always

|заўсёды

|vždy

|zawdë

|zawsze

|wdycki/zŏwdy

|vždy

|всегда

|except

|акрамя

|kromě

|króm

|(o)prócz

|(ô)krōm

|okrem

|кроме

|why

|чаму

|proč

|czemù

|dlaczego/czemu

|pōjakimu/czamu

|prečo

|почему

|(reflexive pronoun)

|ца

|se

|sã

|się

|siã

|sa

|ся

|(infinitive suffix)

| -ць

| -t

| -c

| -ć

| -ť

| -ть

|I can

|магу

|můžu

|mògã

|mogę

|mogã

|môžem

|могу

|will be

|будзе

|bude

|bãdze

|będzie

|baje/bydzie

|bude

|будет

Phonology

Vowels

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center"

|+Oral Vowels

!Front

!Central

!Back

!Close

!Close-mid

!Mid

!Open-mid

!Open

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center"

|+Nasal Vowels (only in Western dialects) as is some of the Silesian Wikipedia, although some of it is in Steuer's alphabet. It is used in a few books, including the Silesian alphabet book.

: Letters: A, Ã, B, C, Ć, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, Ł, M, N, Ń, O, Ŏ, Ō, Ô, Õ, P, R, S, Ś, T, U, W, Y, Z, Ź, Ż.

YouTube personalities such as Niklaus Pieron
TV and radio stations (for example: TV Silesia, Sfera TV, TVP3 Katowice, Slonsky Radio, Radio Piekary, Radio Silesia, Radio Fest);
Music groups (for example: , Krzysztof Hanke, Hasiok, , FEET);
Theatre (for example: Polterabend in Silesian Theatre);
Plays
Film (for example: ' ("Grzeszny żywot Franciszka Buły"))
Books (for example, the so-called ; poetry: "Myśli ukryte" by Karol Gwóźdź)
Teaching aides (for example, a Silesian basal reader)

Recognition

thumb|Examples of books in Silesian, e.g. translations of [[The Hobbit, The Little Prince or A Christmas Carol]]

thumb|left|Bilingual sign in [[Katowice (Katowicy): Polish Kwiaciarnia ("florist") and Silesian Blumy i Geszynki ("flowers and gifts"). The latter also exemplifies the Germanisms in Silesian (cf. German Blumen und Geschenke).]]

In 2003, the National Publishing Company of Silesia () commenced operations. This publisher was founded by the Alliance of the People of the Silesian Nation () and it prints books about Silesia and books in Silesian language.

In July 2007, the Slavic Silesian language was given the ISO 639-3 code <code>szl</code>.

On 6 September 2007, 23 politicians of the Polish parliament made a statement about a new law to give Silesian the official status of a regional language.

On 7 September 2007, the MPs of Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland, League of Polish Families, People's National Movement and the Polish People's Party submitted a bill recognizing Silesian as a regional language in Poland.

On 30 January 2008 and in June 2008, two organizations promoting Silesian language were established: Pro Loquela Silesiana and .

On 26 May 2008, the Silesian Wikipedia was founded.

On 30 June 2008 in the edifice of the Silesian Parliament in Katowice, a conference took place on the status of the Silesian language. This conference was a forum for politicians, linguists, representatives of interested organizations and persons who deal with the Silesian language. The conference was titled "Silesian – Still a Dialect or Already a Language?" ().

In 2012, the Ministry of Administration and Digitization registered the Silesian language in Annex 1 to the Regulation on the state register of geographical names; however, in a November 2013 amendment to the regulation, Silesian is not included.

On 26 April 2024, the Sejm voted 236–186 with five abstentions to recognise Silesian as a regional language. On 29 May 2024, President Andrzej Duda vetoed the bill.

On 26 June 2024, Silesian was added to the languages offered in the Google Translate service.

On 9 January 2026, the Sejm voted 224–196 with twenty abstentions to recognize Silesian as regional language in Poland. The bill also postulated "an increase in the representation of the Silesian community in state consultative bodies". Linguist from the University of Wrocław Henryk Jaroszewicz prepared an open letter requesting President Nawrocki to sign the bill. Together with the professors of University of Silesia, Jaroszewicz collected signatures of language scientists such as Tadeusz Sławek, Sławomir Łodziński, Lech Nijakowski, Katarzyna Kłosińska, and Michał Rusinek. The letter argued that although Silesian "is historically linked to the Polish dialect area, the functional changes that Silesian has undergone in recent decades no longer allow it to be treated as a dialect".

Review: Mark Brüggemann. 2013. Ślōnsko godka. The Silesian language
Review: Michael Moser (uk). 2013. Zeitschrift für Slawistik (pp 118–119). Vol 58, No 1. Potsdam: Universität Potsdam.
Tomasz Kamusella. 2014. Warszawa wie lepiej Ślązaków nie ma. O dyskryminacji i języku śląskim [Warsaw Knows Better – The Silesians Don't Exist: On Discrimination and the Silesian Language]. Zabrze, Poland: NOS, 174 pp. .
Review: . 2013. Zeitschrift für Slawistik (pp 118–119). Vol 58, No 1. Potsdam: Universität Potsdam.
Tomasz Kamusella. 2013. The Silesian Language in the Early 21st Century: A Speech Community on the Rollercoaster of Politics (pp 1–35). Die Welt der Slaven. Vol 58, No 1.
Tomasz Kamusella. 2011. Silesian in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: A Language Caught in the Net of Conflicting Nationalisms, Politics, and Identities (pp 769–789). 2011. Nationalities Papers. No 5.
Tomasz Kamusella. 2009. Échanges de paroles ou de coups en Haute-Silésie: la langue comme 'lieu' de contacts et de luttes interculturels [Exchange of Words or Blows in Upper Silesia: Language as a "Place" of Contacts and Intercultural Struggles] (pp 133–152). Cultures d'Europe centrale. No 8: Lieux communs de la multiculturalité urbaine en Europe centrale, ed by Delphine Bechtel and Xavier Galmiche. Paris: CIRCE.
Tomasz Kamusella. 2007. Uwag kilka o dyskryminacji Ślązaków i Niemców górnośląskich w postkomunistycznej Polsce [A Few Remarks on the Discrimination of the Silesians and Upper Silesia's Germans in Postcommunist Poland]. Zabrze, Poland: NOS, 28 pp. .
Tomasz Kamusella. 2006. Schlonzsko: Horní Slezsko, Oberschlesien, Górny Śląsk. Esej o regionie i jego mieszkańcach [Schlonzsko: Upper Silesia. An Essay on the Region and Its Inhabitants] (2nd, corrected and enlarged edition). Zabrze, Poland: NOS, 148 pp. .
Review: Anon. 2010. The Sarmatian Review. Sept. (p 1530).
Review: Svetlana Antova. 2007. Bulgarian Ethnology / Bulgarska etnologiia. No 4 (pp 120–121).
Tomasz Kamusella. 2009. Codzienność komunikacyjno-językowa na obszarze historycznego Górnego Śląska [The Everyday Language Use in Historical Upper Silesia] (pp 126–156). In: Robert Traba, ed. Akulturacja/asymilacja na pograniczach kulturowych Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej w XIX i XX wieku [Acculturation/Assimilation in the Cultural Borderlands of East-Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries] (vol 1: Stereotypy i pamięć [Stereotypes and memory]). Warsaw: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN and Niemiecki Instytut Historyczny.
Tomasz Kamusella. 2009. Czy śląszczyzna jest językiem? Spojrzenie socjolingwistyczne [Is Silesian a Language? A Sociolinguistic View] (pp 27–35). In: Andrzej Roczniok, ed. Śląsko godka – jeszcze gwara czy jednak już język? / Ślōnsko godko – mundart jeszcze eli już jednak szpracha. Zabrze: NOŚ.
Tomasz Kamusella. 2006. Schlonzska mowa. Język, Górny Śląsk i nacjonalizm (Vol II) [Silesia and Language: Language, Upper Silesia and Nationalism, a collection of articles on various social, political and historical aspects of language use in Upper Silesia]. Zabrze, Poland: NOS, 151 pp. .
Tomasz Kamusella. 2005. Schlonzska mowa. Język, Górny Śląsk i nacjonalizm (Vol I) [Silesia and Language: Language, Upper Silesia and Nationalism, a collection of articles on various social, political and historical aspects of language use in Upper Silesia]. Zabrze, Poland: NOS, 187 pp. .
Review: Kai Struve. 2006. Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung. No 4. Marburg, Germany: Herder-Institut (pp 611–613).
Review: Kai Struve. 2007. Recenzyjo Instituta Herdera [Herder-Institute's Review] (pp 26–27). Ślůnsko Nacyjo. No 5, Jul. Zabrze: NOŚ.
Review: Jerzy Tomaszewski. 2007. Czy istnieje naród śląski? [Does the Silesian Nation Exist] (pp 280–283). Przegląd Historyczny. No 2. Warsaw: DiG and University of Warsaw.
Review: Jerzy Tomaszewski. 2007. Czy istnieje naród śląski? [Does the Silesian Nation Exist] (pp 8–12). 2007. Ślůnsko Nacyjo. No 12, Dec. Zabrze: NOŚ.
Tomasz Kamusella. 2004. The Szlonzokian Ethnolect in the Context of German and Polish Nationalisms (pp. 19–39). Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism. No 1. London: Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism. .
Tomasz Kamusella. 2001. Schlonzsko: Horní Slezsko, Oberschlesien, Górny Śląsk. Esej o regionie i jego mieszkańcach [Schlonzsko: Upper Silesia. An Essay on the Region and Its Inhabitants]. Elbląg, Poland: Elbląska Oficyna Wydawnicza, 108 pp. .
Review: Andreas R Hofmann. 2002. Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung. No 2. Marburg, Germany: Herder-Institut (p 311).
Review: Anon. 2002. Esej o naszym regionie [An Essay on Our region] (p 4). Głos Ludu. Gazeta Polaków w Republice Czeskiej. No 69, 11 June. Ostrava, Czech Republic: Vydavatelství OLZA.
Review: Walter Żelazny :eo:Walter Żelazny. 2003. Niech żyje śląski lud [Long Live the Silesian People] (pp 219–223). Sprawy Narodowościowe. No 22. Poznań, Poland: Zakład Badań Narodowościowych PAN.
Tomasz Kamusella. 1999. Język a Śląsk Opolski w kontekście integracji europejskiej [Language and Opole Silesia in the Context of European Integration] (pp 12–19). Śląsk Opolski. No 3. Opole, Poland: Instytut Śląski.
Tomasz Kamusella. 1998. Das oberschlesische Kreol: Sprache und Nationalismus in Oberschlesien im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert [The Upper Silesian Creole: Language and Nationalism in the 19th and 20th Centuries] (pp 142–161). In: Markus Krzoska und Peter Tokarski, eds. . Die Geschichte Polens und Deutschlands im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Ausgewählte Baiträge. Osnabrück, Germany: fibre.
Tomasz Kamusella. 1998. Kreol górnośląski [The Upper Silesian Creole] (pp 73–84). Kultura i Społeczeństwo. No 1. Warsaw, Poland: Komitet Socjologii ISP PAN.
Andrzej Roczniok and Tomasz Kamusella. 2011. Sztandaryzacyjo ślōnski godki / Standaryzacja języka śląskiego [The Standardization of the Silesian Language] (pp 288–294). In: I V Abisigomian, ed. Lingvokul’turnoe prostranstvo sovremennoi Evropy cherez prizmu malykh i bolshikh iazykov. K 70-letiiu professora Aleksandra Dimitrievicha Dulichenko (Ser: Slavica Tartuensis, Vol 9). Tartu: Tartu University.
Robert Semple. London 1814.  Observations made on a tour from Hamburg through Berlin, Gorlitz, and Breslau, to Silberberg; and thence to Gottenburg (pp. 122–123)

External links

[https://www.republikasilesia.com/jynzyk-szloonski/index.html ]