Based on the substratum of the Lesser Polish dialect,[1] it was heavily influenced by borrowings (mostly lexical) from other languages spoken in Galicia, notably Ukrainian (Ruthenian), German and Yiddish.
[5] Despite that, the best known form of the Lwów dialect was the bałak, a sociolect of the lower class (batiars), street hooligans and youngsters.
The dialect is one of the two main sources of galicisms (galicyzmy – words originating from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria) in standard Polish.
Differing musical rhythms could change which syllable of a word was stressed, which is why, for example, one could hear both policaj and pulicaj ("police") in the same song.
Unlike today's Standard Polish, however, the older articulation as a denti-alveolar (ɫ) was preserved before vowels (in words like pudełeczko ("box", diminutive) and łuk "bow").