Polish alphabet

The Polish alphabet (Polish: alfabet polski, abecadło) is the script of the Polish language, the basis for the Polish system of orthography. It is based on the Latin alphabet but includes certain letters (9) with diacritics: the stroke (acute accent or bar) – kreska: ⟨ć, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź⟩; the overdot – kropka: ⟨ż⟩; and the tail or ogonek – ⟨ą, ę⟩. The letters ⟨q⟩, ⟨v⟩, and ⟨x⟩, which are used only in foreign words, are usually absent from the Polish alphabet. Additionally, before the standardization of Polish spelling, ⟨qu⟩ was sometimes used in place of ⟨kw⟩, and ⟨x⟩ in place of ⟨ks⟩.

Modified variations of the Polish alphabet are used for writing Silesian and Kashubian, whereas the Sorbian languages use a mixture of Polish and Czech orthography.

There are 32 letters in the Polish alphabet: 9 vowels and 23 consonants.

⟨q⟩, ⟨v⟩, and ⟨x⟩ are not used in any native Polish words and are mostly found in foreign words (such as place names) and commercial names. In loanwords they are usually replaced by ⟨k⟩, ⟨w⟩, and ⟨ks⟩, respectively (as in nikab 'niqab', kwark 'quark', weranda 'veranda', sawanna 'savanna', ekstra 'extra', oksymoron 'oxymoron'), although some loanwords retain their original spelling (e.g., quiz, virga), and in a few cases both spellings are accepted (such as veto or weto, volt or wolt). In addition, they can occasionally be found in common abbreviations (e.g., ksiądz 'priest' can be abbreviated as either ⟨ks.⟩ or ⟨x.⟩). As a result, they are sometimes included in the Polish alphabet (bringing the total number of letters in the alphabet to 35); when included, they take their usual positions from the Latin alphabet (⟨q⟩ after ⟨p⟩; ⟨v⟩ and ⟨x⟩ either side of ⟨w⟩).

The following table lists the letters of the alphabet, their Polish names (see also Names of letters below), the Polish spelling alphabet name, the Polish phonemes which they usually represent (and rough equivalents for them), other possible pronunciations, and letter frequencies. Diacritics are shown for the sake of clarity. For more information about the sounds, see Polish phonology.

⟨é⟩ was historically used in native words prior to the 1891 spelling reform by the Academy of Learning, e.g., cztéry, papiéż (now cztery 'four', papież 'pope'). Now it is used in some loanwords, e.g., attaché, exposé, chargé d’affaires.

For digraphs and other rules about spelling and the corresponding pronunciations, see Polish orthography.

The spoken Polish names of the letters are given in the table under Letters above.