Talk:Polish alphabet

q, v & x in loanwords

I think it should be stated that the replacement of these letters in loan words is true in only a few of them and generally used only (and still not always) in official sources. Some words are used with no replacement - like "xero" or "taxi" or "express". Especially "taxi" is important, as this is the only form used officially to distinguish taxis, while some unofficial con-artists write "taksi" on their unofficial cabs, yet if someone reads this article before coming to Warsaw of Cracow he might be coned by them! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.253.105.52 (talk) 12:31, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Untitled

I'm not sure how this should be added, if at all, but Poles use first names when spelling aloud: A jak Adam, B jak Barbara, etc. (This doesn't count for most of the letters with diacritics, though: a z ogonkiem, n z kreską, z z kropką, etc.)

The problem is there doesn't seem to be any standard: "Teach Yourself Polish" (ISBN 0-340-87088-5) has "A jak Adam", while the only example I can find on the internet is this joke (http://www.lokozmin.itime.pl/index.php?id=humor):

Dzwoni telefon. Pies odbiera i mówi:
- Hau!
- Halo?
- Hau!
- Nic nie rozumiem.
- Hau!
- Proszę mówić wyraźniej!
- H jak Henryk, A jak Agnieszka, U jak Urszula: Hau!!!

(The phone rings. The dog answers and says:
"Woof!"
"Hello?"
"Woof!"
"I don't understand"
"Woof!"
"Please speak clearly"
"W for water, o for orange, o for orange, f for fish: Woof!")

Any ideas? -- Jim Regan 15:51, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Tere is not any standart. It's true: very ofte while spelling we use first names (this most popular). But you can use any other words (nouns). For letters with diacritics: "Ż jak Żaba (frog)", "Ć jak Ćma (moth)", "Ź jak Źrebak (colt)" "Ó jak Ósemka (the figure 8)" but it isn't any rule (simply there aren't many words beginning with this letters). Greetings from Poland. (wnaj@wp.pl)

I think this "J for John" expansion is not specific to Polish - i'd bet it's common in any language; and also the names are made-up on the spot, usually the first word that comes to one's mind. -- Jokes Free4Me 11:28, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Certainly it's not unheard of in English. Sir P. G. Wodehouse uses it all the time in his books; witness this example from Full Moon.

“ "I'll go and write that letter at once," he said. "The name is Lister?"

"William Lister," said Gally. "L for Laryngitis, I for Ipecacuanha, S for..."

But Lord Emsworth had gone.

”

Agur bar Jacé (talk) 17:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The letters' equivalent values should be included

Seeing as how this is an English language article, the Polish letters should have a chart of comparisons, such as the Romanian Alphabet Tev 01:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Changing the code for the wikitable

Would anyone object if i changed the 70 short lines of table code in the article to one of the compact versions below? And which would you prefer, as an editor? -- Jokes Free4Me 11:28, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Polish alphabet

Uppercase	A	Ą	B	C	Ć	D	E	Ę	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	Ł	M	N	Ń	O	Ó	P	R	S	Ś	T	U	W	Y	Z	Ź	Ż
Lowercase	a	ą	b	c	ć	d	e	ę	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	ł	m	n	ń	o	ó	p	r	s	ś	t	u	w	y	z	ź	ż
Or this:	a	ą	b	c	ć	d	e	ę	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	ł	m	n	ń	o	ó	p	r	s	ś	t	u	w	y	z	ź	ż

This is much better. However, I don't think the heading is necessary. I like the second line better than the third because of the alignment. Appleseed (Talk) 21:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Jokes, I've implemented your proposed change. Perhaps you'd be interested in cleaning up the second table too? Appleseed (Talk) 21:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Missing digraphs

I'm afraid there are missing digraphs in the list of the Polish alphabet. They are "dz", "dź" and "dż". Sample words with the digraphs: dzban, źdźbło (or palatalised: dziurkacz), dżem, dżdżownica.

Moreover "ch" is in Polish listed as it was related to "c", not to "h" in the dictionaries or listings (not like in Czech language), e.g. possible surname list in alphabetical order:
- Cap,
- Cep,
- Chanowski,
- Chlebowski,
- Cieszyński,
- Cwaliński,
- Cymbał,
- Czajkowski,
- Czapla.

Sorting

How the Polish sorting is done? Are ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ś, ź and ż separate letters or are they sorted with non-diacritic versions of the same letters? --Mikko Paananen (talk) 20:32, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

They are treated as separate letters, coming in the alphabet after their diacritic-less equivalents (so ą between a and b, etc.) After z come ź and then ż.--Kotniski (talk) 20:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

bad example for ą

please consider changing the sound-example (nasal o as French bon) of the letter ą as it is in a foreign language and does not fit perfectly to be honest. a way better example is given by owl. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.203.142.146 (talk) 09:48, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It is amazing: Haven't read this objection I just changed examples to French "bon" for ą and French "cinq" for ę as prefect phonetic representation: IPA symbol ɔ̃ for both ą and "bon" and IPA symbol ɛ̃ for both ę and cinq.. English word "owl" has very different phonetic representation aʊl. If anybody can provide English words including phonemes ɔ̃ or ɛ̃ it would be welcome. I could not find any so far in American English https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~kjohnson/English_Phonetics/ JacekVR (talk) 19:07, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Bad links to digraphs

There are multiple links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_orthography#Digraphs which does not seem to exist. In particular there is nothing about si digraph anywhere in either this or the linked article. [ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walworth (talk • contribs) 11:28, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

What is your name

What is your name 5.171.210.107 (talk) 16:23, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Merge proposal

The following comment was left on another page, which was obviously in error. I have manually moved it here and have no comment on the subject. — Cyrius|✎ 16:51, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

This page is dedicated to discussion of the content of the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_alphabet. Current problem with the above page is that it does not contain enough information on the subject and is missing references to external sources but contains redundant references to wikipedia pages. The maintenance template proposes to merge this page with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_orthography. However, as Polish alphabet is the subject of interest and of the internet search which are different from Polish orthography, I recommend to complete the information on the page rather than to merge it with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_orthography. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JacekVR (talk • contribs)

Rearrangement of the chapters

I would like to add 2 chapters: 1. Letters Frequency and 2. Alphabet History, both with referencing to external sources. I would also propose to remove the chapter Polish spelling alphabet as not relevant for English speaking readers and as not including all Polish letters. JacekVR (talk) 19:53, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Came here to suggest a "History" section but you beat me to it. The article Polish language#History has some information on it. Nakonana (talk) 14:21, 8 July 2023 (UTC)