Dialects of Polish

As a result of 19th century measures taken by occupying powers, expulsions plus other displacements of Poles during and after World War II, as well as language policy in the Polish People's Republic, supplemented by broadcast media, the Polish language has become extremely homogeneous.

Namely, they are:[9][10][11] Although traditional linguistic divisions continue to be cited, especially in Polish sources, the current linguistic consensus tends to consider Kashubian a separate language, or at least as a distinct lect that cannot be grouped at the same level as the four major modern Polish dialects.

Kashubian contains a number of features not found in other Polish dialects, e.g. nine distinct oral vowels (vs. the six of standard Polish), evolution of the Proto-Slavic TorT group to TarT (a feature not found in any other Slavic language) and (in the northern dialects) phonemic word stress, an archaic feature preserved from Common Slavic times and not found anywhere else among the West Slavic languages.

[citation needed] Both dialect groups have been in decline since World War II as a result of expulsions of millions of Poles from Kresy.

[citation needed] Poles living in Lithuania (particularly in the Vilnius region), in Belarus (particularly in the northwest), and in northeast Poland continue to speak the Northern Kresy dialect, which sounds (in Polish described as zaciąganie z ruska) as if speaking with a Russian drawl, and is quite distinctive.

[citation needed] The majority of Poles expelled from Kresy were settled in newly annexed regions in northern and western Poland, and thereby their manner of speech evolved into so-called new mixed dialects.

However, among the declining older generation there are still traces of Kresy dialect with its characteristic Ukrainian or Rusyn sounds, especially in the use of the East Slavic velarised L where standard Polish has it already vocalised (/w/) and of elongated vowels.

[28][29] Often considered a derivative of a mixture of Old Polish and Old Ruthenian, as was spoken in Red Ruthenia in the Middle Ages.

[45] Another important factor is the pressence of contracted forms of bać and similar verbs (regionally and originally bojeć).