Krajna dialect

The Krajna dialect (Polish: gwara krajeńska) belongs to the Greater Poland dialect group and is located in the north-western part of Poland. It borders the Bory Tucholskie dialect to the northeast, the Northern Greater Polish dialect to the south, and the Kashubian language to the north. Due to its position, it is a transitional dialect and shares many features with neighboring dialects and languages, and is very diverse.

Atypical of Greater Polish dialects, Krajna generally devoices consonants at the ends of words before vowels and semivowels as a result of Kashubian influence, except for a small part in the south. Typical of dialects of Greater Polish, Krajna does not have mazuration.

Like other Greater Polish dialects, Krajna historically had a tendency to break monophthongs into diphthongs, or occasionally tripthtongs, but this is irregular, and occurs more in the north-west. Generally the final component of these diphthongs is non-syllabic u̯, or sometimes e̯ and i̯. Breaking vowels include slanted á (>au̯, ou̯), o (> ᵘ̯o, oe̯, ᵘ̯oe̯), slanted ó (> ᵘ̯ó, oy̯), and y (>yi̯ after sz ż rz cz c dz, or in the south after all hard consonants), and not a or u. Nowadays it's more common to use monophthongal pronunciation. y in Krajna has a tendency to be fronted, phonemically merging with i (but phonetically approaching it), and only the hardness of the consonant remains the deciding factor within a word. In the past there the group eł often shifted to oł, kiołbasa, wołna, which now only occurs in a few words and small regions of Krajna. The groups ił and ył had a tendency to lower, giving éł, or to uł in Sępolno. The common northern changes of ra- > re-, ja- > je- and -ar->-er- can only be found in certain words here.

Western Krajna raises old slanted é to y, whereas Eastern Krajna maintains it, but sometimes raises it to y after hard consonants and to i after soft consonants. Slanted á can either raise to o, or merge with a. Slanted ó tends to diphthongize.

Historically, Krajna had a tendency to lower nasal ę and the group eN to ą (nasal a) and aN word-internally, except in the north-west. In modern times keeping nasal ę and eN is preferred, or they are raised to yN/iN (after soft consonants), and ą is often raised to uN. Hypercorrection of aN to eN sporadically occurs: kolano (koleno). Word-finally, -ę denasalizes and -ą becomes -óm, -um in the south, whereas in the north nasality is retained.

Often initial o- labializes wo- or ô-, and some words starting with wo- etymologically may be pronounced with łô-: ôda (woda).

In the past there was a Kashubian-like tendency to palatalize k’, g’ > ć, dź or even cz, dż which is now uncommon. srz, zrz > chrz- (krz-) in the northwest and śr, źr in the south-east. ł may be weakened or lost word-initially at the end of a consonant cluster. Krajna also typically degeminizes doubled consonants, changes rs, rrz, rrz > rz, strz, zdrz, trz, drz > szcz, żdż, cz, dż, and simplifies other clusters as well. The verb iść when prefixed is generally pronounced with -ń-: dońde.

Krajna shows features typical of northern dialects, Greater Polish dialects, as well as some influence from Kashubian in inflection.