Polish

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Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) belongs to the group of West Slavic languages, alongside Czech, Slovak and Sorbian. The official language of Poland, it is also spoken well beyond its borders, by large Polish communities established in Europe, North America and elsewhere, as well as by a growing number of learners attracted by the history and culture of a country with a long-standing republican and parliamentary tradition.

The notions of Corona Regni Poloniae (formulated as early as the XIVᵉ century) and Rzeczpospolita in fact find their full institutional and theoretical elaboration during the Renaissance, when the political model of the Republic of Two Nations (Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów) stabilizes. It was then, in the XVᵉ and XVIᵉ centuries, that an original political reflection within Europe asserted itself, carried by thinkers such as Paweł Włodkowic - an early advocate of the right of nations and confessional coexistence -, Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski, theorist of a moral and legal reform of the state, or Wawrzyniec Goślicki, whose De optimo senatore circulated widely in Western Europe.

After more than a century of partitions (1795-1918), followed by the tragic experience of the two totalitarianisms of the XXᵉ century - Nazism and Communism - Poland today enjoys a sustained dynamic of economic development and occupies a strategic position in the recomposition of Central and Eastern Europe, notably through regional initiatives such as the Three Seas Initiative.

Polish is written in the Latin alphabet, enriched with diacritical marks for precise transcription of its specific phonemes. Its phonetic and morphological richness, developed flexion and flexible word order make it a particularly expressive language, at once demanding and nuanced.