Domen
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Why does the Polish language use such strange letter combinations to create the same sounds we have in other Latin alphabets?
Because certain Jakub Parkoszowic (Latin: Jacobus Parcossius) - author of the oldest known treatise about Polish ortography titled "Obiecado" ("Abecadło" in modern Polish), published in year 1440 (see: "Jacobi Parkossii de Zorawice de orthographia polonica libellus") - invented the ch and dz and ą. Later in year 1513 certain Stanisław Zaborowski in his "Ortographia seu modus recte scribendi et legendi polonicum idioma quam utilissimus" invented the letter ł and laid first foundations for the development of letters ś, ć and ź. For the later developments, check "the history of Polish ortography" wikipedia articles:
Wikipedia article about the letter Ł - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ł#Polish
The Polish Ł sounds similar to the English American "w", and to an extent the Arabic "ll" in "Allah".
In 1440 Jakub Parkoszowic proposed a letter resemblingto represent clear L. For dark L he suggested l with a stroke running in the opposite direction as the modern version. The latter was introduced in 1514–1515 [written in 1513, published in 1514 and 2nd edition in 1515] by Stanisław Zaborowski in his Orthographia seu modus recte scribendi et legendi Polonicum idioma quam utilissimus. L with stroke originally represented a velarized alveolar lateral approximant [ɫ],[1] a pronunciation which is preserved in the eastern part of Poland[2] and among the Polish minority in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. This pronunciation is similar to Russian unpalatalised <Л> in native words and grammar forms.![]()
In modern Polish, Ł is normally pronounced /w/ (almost exactly as w in English as a consonant, as in were, will, wall but not as in new or straw).[3] This pronunciation first appeared among Polish lower classes in the 16th century. It was considered an uncultured accent by the upper classes (who pronounced Ł almost exactly as: л in East Slavic languages or L in English pull) until the mid-20th century when this distinction gradually began to fade. Polish final Ł also often corresponds to Ukrainian word-final <В> (Cyrillic) and Belarusian <Ў> (Cyrillic). Thus, "he gave" is "dał" in Polish, "дав" in Ukrainian, "даў" in Belarusian (all pronounced [daw]), but "дал" [daɫ] in Russian. The old pronunciation [ɫ] of Ł is still fully understandable but is considered theatrical in most regions.
Articles about the history of Polish ortography in general:
http://translate.google.com/transla...kipedia.org/wiki/Historia_ortografii_polskiej
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Polish_orthography
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_ortografii_polskiej
warpus said:*Shrug* Every european language has its own quirks
But in the Early Middle Ages most of the writing in continental Europe was being done in a "dead language" - Latin - while "living languages" (those actually spoken by the masses) were only in use as spoken languages and as languages of customary law. In Charlemagne's Empire the only official written language was Latin - courts, administration, acts of written law and schools used exclusively Latin. But during the High and Late Middle Ages, living languages were increasingly becoming present in literature, law, schols, etc., gradually displacing Latin - at first French language, later (widespread use in writing since the 13th century) German, later (widespread use in writing since the 14th century) Czech language and - finally - Polish (widespread use in writing since the 15th century).