Silesian language

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, there is a debate on whether Silesian is either a dialect of Polish or a distinct language, and if Silesians are either a regional ethnic group within the Polish nation or a distinct ethnic minority that historically emerged, but later diverged from, the Polish people. Some Silesians identify as a regional ethnic group within the Polish nation, while others view themselves as a distinct ethnic minority. 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 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 to gain recognition for Silesian 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 European Charter for Minority or Regional Languages recommended that Poland recognizes Silesian as a language. In 2014, a citizens' bill signed by 140,000 citizens was submitted to the Sejm, but was rejected; similar bills were voted down in 2018 and 2020. In 2023, another bill was prepared but was not voted upon because the Sejm's term ended and the election was called. In April 2024, the Sejm took a significant step by passing a bill recognizing Silesian as a regional language, but the bill was vetoed by President Andrzej Duda on 29 May 2024. In January 2026, the Sejm once again passed the bill recognizing it as such, but its fate is to be decided by President Karol Nawrocki.

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 people declared Silesian as their native language, whereas in the country's census of 2011, the figure was about 510,000. 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 czy. In Silesian, questions which do not contain interrogative words are formed by using intonation or inversion ; there is no interrogative particle.

Example

According to Jan Miodek, Polish has always been used by Upper Silesians as a language of prayers, citing the 15th-century text of prayers from Silesia which appeared to be written in Old Polish. In contrast, Grzegorz Kulik states that Silesian had a religious usage, noting that the 15th-century text of prayers was not written in Old Polish literary language. The Lord's Prayer in Silesian, Polish, Czech, and English:

Silesian	Polish	Czech	Slovak	English
Uojćec nań, keryř je w ńebjy, bydź pořwjyncůne mjano Twojy. Pŗidź krůlestwo Twojy. Bydź wola Twoja, kjej we ńebje, tak tyņ na źymjy. Chlyb nań kaņdodźynny dej nům dźřoj. A uodpuřć nům nańe winy, kjej my uodpuńĉůmy nańym winńikům. A ńe wůdź nos na pokuńyńi, nale zbow nos uod zuego. Amyn.	Ojcze nasz, któryś jest w niebie, święć się imię Twoje, Przyjdź królestwo Twoje, Bądź wola Twoja jako w niebie tak i na ziemi. Chleba naszego powszedniego daj nam dzisiaj. I odpuść nam nasze winy, jako i my odpuszczamy naszym winowajcom. I nie wódź nas na pokuszenie, ale nas zbaw od złego. Amen.	Otče náš, jenž jsi na nebesích, posvěť se jméno Tvé Přijď království Tvé. Buď vůle Tvá, jako v nebi, tak i na zemi. Chléb náš vezdejší dej nám dnes A odpusť nám naše viny, jako i my odpouštíme naším viníkům A neuveď nás v pokušení, ale zbav nás od zlého. Amen.	Otče náš, ktorý si na nebesiach, posväť sa meno tvoje, Príď kráľovstvo tvoje, Buď vôľa tvoja ako v nebi, tak i na zemi. Chlieb náš každodenný daj nám dnes A odpusť nám naše viny, ako aj my odpúšťame svojim vinníkom, A neuveď nás do pokušenia, ale zbav nás zlého. Amen.	Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Dialects of Silesian

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
* Opole
* Niemodlin
Central dialects:
* Prudnik
* Gliwice
* Borderland Silesian-Lesser Polish dialects :
** Gliwice-Opole-Lesser Poland Borderland
** Silesian-Lesser Polish Borderland
Southern dialects:
* Cieszyn
* Jablunkov
* Borderland Silesian-Lach

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.

Dialect vs. language

Politicization

Opinions are divided among linguists regarding whether Silesian is a distinct language, a dialect of Polish, or, in the case of Lach, a variety of Czech. The issue can be contentious, because some Silesians consider themselves to be a distinct nationality within Poland. When Czechs, Poles, and Germans each made claims to substantial parts of Silesia as constituting an integral part of their respective nation-states in the 19th and 20th centuries, the language of Slavic-speaking Silesians became politicized.
Slavicist of Upper Silesian extraction, Rudolf Abicht, who worked at the University of Breslau and proposed an early standardization of the Belarusian language, clearly recognized that standardizing and making Silesian into a language is a socio-political process. In 1920, he expressed his opinion on the subject in an extensive essay on the 'Upper Silesian language question.'
Some, like Óndra Łysohorsky, 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 2011, Tomasz Kamusella and Andrzej Roczniok published a Silesian-language article on the standardization of the Silesian language.
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 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".
The United States Immigration Commission in 1911 classified it as one of the dialects of Polish. 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.
Silesian linguist Henryk Jaroszewicz, who codified Silesian, argues that Silesian constitutes a separate language, and bases his view on the need to prioritize extralinguistic factors of the intralinguistic ones:
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 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. Comparison of Silesian to the Lesser Polish dialects shows a marginally different ratio, with 56% of lexemes being shared and 44% being unique to Silesian. This result was interpreted as evidence both for and against Silesian being an independent language. In contrast, Jaroszewicz argued that linguistic proximity is not relevant in determining the status of an ethnolect:
Polish linguist Magdalena Bartkowiak-Lerch cautioned against judging Silesian as a dialect on the basis of its mutual intelligibility with Polish. Bartkowiak-Lerch states that such arguments are "groundless", as this measure is irrelevant in determining whether a lect is a language or a dialect from a lingustic point of view. She notes that the relevance of mutual intelligibility between Polish and Silesian is successfully challenged "by showing quite consistent intelligibility between many Slavic languages", and that "the similarities to Polish, its dialects, and other Slavic languages do not prove Silesian’s genetic dependence on Polish, but simply its systemic and genetic relationship with this 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.

Phonology

Vowels

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Writing system

There have been a number of attempts at codifying the language spoken by Slavophones in Silesia. Probably the most well-known was undertaken by Óndra Łysohorsky when codifying the Lachian dialects in creating the Lachian literary language in the early 20th century.
Ślabikŏrzowy szrajbōnek is the relatively new alphabet created by the Pro Loquela Silesiana organization to reflect the sounds of all Silesian dialects. It was approved by Silesian organizations affiliated in Rada Górnośląska. Ubuntu translation is in this alphabet 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.
One of the first alphabets created specifically for Silesian was Steuer's Silesian alphabet, created in the Interwar period and used by Feliks Steuer for his poems in Silesian. The alphabet consists of 30 graphemes and eight digraphs:
Based on the Steuer alphabet, in 2006 the was proposed:
Silesian's phonetic alphabet replaces the digraphs with single letters and does not include the letter Ł, whose sound can be represented phonetically with U. It is therefore the alphabet that contains the fewest letters. Although it is the most phonetically logical, it did not become popular with Silesian organizations, with the argument that it contains too many caron diacritics and hence resembles the Czech alphabet. Large parts of the Silesian Wikipedia, however, are written in Silesian's phonetic alphabet.
Sometimes other alphabets are also used, such as the "Tadzikowy muster" or the Polish alphabet, but writing in this alphabet is problematic as it does not allow for the differentiation and representation of all Silesian sounds.

Culture

Silesian has recently seen an increased use in culture, for example:

, online news and information platform
YouTube personalities such as Niklaus Pieron
TV and radio stations ;
Music groups ;
Theatre ;
Plays
Film
Books
Teaching aides

Recognition

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 szl.
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. The bill did not pass because the Sejm was dissolved before it could be voted on, triggering a snap election.
The first official National Dictation Contest of the Silesian language took place in August 2007. In dictation as many as 10 forms of writing systems and orthography have been accepted.
On 30 January 2008 and in June 2008, two organizations promoting Silesian language were established: Pro Loquela Silesiana and Tôwarzistwo Piastowaniô Ślónskij Môwy "Danga".
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 24 May 2024, the book "Myśli ukryte" by Karol Gwóźdź was translated from the original Silesian language into Ukrainian, a landmark event for Silesian culture as the first translation of a Silesian-language publication into a foreign language.
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 postulates "an increase in the representation of the Silesian community in state consultative bodies". The bill is yet to be either approved or vetoed by President Karol Nawrocki. Previously in 2025, Nawrocki vetoed a bill recognizing the endangered Wymysorys language spoken by Vilamovians as a regional language in Poland.