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About Polish, Kashubian and Silesian
Polish is a West Slavic language closely related to Czech and Slovak and more distantly to Russian and other Slavic languges. It is first attested in the Middle Ages.
Polish Language Links
- Britanica.com Polish Language
- National SEERLC Polish Webliography
- Polish Grammar
- Wikipedia Polish Language
Kashubian and Silesian
These are languages closely related to Polish but using their own alphabet. Kashubian is found in north central Poland in the region known as Pomerania. Silesian is found in a region crossing both Poland and the Czech Republic.
Note: These languages are sometimes considered to be dialects of Polish, but each does use a unique spelling system with letters not used in Polish writing.
Kashubian Links
Silesian Links
Note: Multiple spelling systems have been proposed for Silesian.
- Silesian Writing (Wikipedia)
- Omniglot Silesian
- Inside Poland – Time to Learn Silesian
- Silesian Keyboard
Recommended Fonts
Latin-2 (Central European) Encoding
Although Polish uses the Western alphabet, it includes accented letters (e.g. ł,ą,ć) which may not be found in all fonts.
Note: The term Central European is sometimes used to refer to the languages which use accented letters not common in Western European languages.
Common Fonts
Many common fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica, Comic Sans, Calibri, Cambria, Palatinto and many more do include these characters.
Third Party Fonts
Below are some additional third party Unicode fonts which include Central European characters.
- SIL Fonts – The SIL has created multiple fonts with IPA characters including:
- Andika – Designed for new readers. It could be suitable for some students with reading disorders.
- Doulos SIL – Includes Greek, Cyrillic
- Charis SIL – Font family and includes Greek, Cyrillic
- Gentium – From SIL. Very readable
- Quivira – Modelled on Garamond and includes ancient language, basic Cyrillic/Armenian/Georgian and math/astronomical symbols.
Note: Many fonts designed to include phonetic characters or Greek and Western letters include Central European characters. Additional Central European or Extended Latin fonts may be available online, but users should be sure they are properly encoded fonts before installing them.
Typing Polish
Windows
Activate Polish Keyboard
Microsoft provides keyboard utilities for Central European languages which allow you to type Central European Characters.
Note: Neither the Windows International
Keyboard or ALT code repertoire includes Central European characters.
- See detailed keyboard activation instructions for different versions of the Windows operating system.
- To see where the different characters are, go to the Microsoft Keyboard Layouts Page.
Other Options
You can also input characters from the Character Map. This can be useful if you only need to insert characters into only a few words.
Kashubian and Silesian
Third-party keyboards for Kashubian and Silesian exist, but have not been tested.
Macintosh
Extended Keyboard Codes
You can activate the Extended Keyboard to input Central European characters. This extends the range of available accented letters.
ACCENT | SAMPLE | TEMPLATE |
---|---|---|
Ogonek/Polish Cedille | ą,Ą | Option+M, X |
Acute | ć,Ć | Option+E, X |
Superscript Dot | ż,Ż | Option+W, X |
Barred L | ł, Ł | Option+L, X |
Example 1: To input the lower case c-acute ć hold down the Option key, then the E key. Release both keys then type lowercase c.
Example 2: To input the capital c-acute Ć, hold down the Option key, then the E key. Release all three keys then type capital C.
Kashubian and Silesian
In addition to the letters found in Polish, Kashubian and Silesian may include the following accented letters.
ACCENT | SAMPLE | TEMPLATE |
---|---|---|
Tilde (K) | ã,Ã | Option+N, X |
Grave (K) | ù,Ù | Option+`, X |
Umlaut (K) | ë,Ë | Option+U, X |
Hat/Circumflex (K) | ô,Ô | Option+6, X |
U-Ring (K) | ů,Ů | Option+K, X |
Hacheck (S) | ř,Ř | Option+V, X |
Macron (S) | ō,Ō | Option+A, X |
Breve (S) | ŏ,Ŏ | Option+V, X |
Note: Silesian has multiple spelling systems in use, so not all characters will be found in all texts.
Polish Mac Keyboard Utilities
Apple also has keyboard utilities for most Central European languages. See instructions for activating a Macintosh keyboard for more details.
Kashubian and Silesian
Third-party keyboards for Kashubian and Silesian exist, but have not been tested.
Web Development and Language Codes
Test Sites
If you have your browser configured correctly, the Web sites below should display
the correct characters.
Note: If a site displays gibberish, see the Browser Setup page for debugging information.
- Polish: motonews.pl (Auto News)
- Kashubian: ZYMK (Kashubian Literature)
- Silesian: szl.wikipedia.org (Silesian Wikipedia
Historical Encodings
Unicode (utf-8
) is the preferred encoding for Web sites. However, the following historic encodings may still be encountered.
win-1250
(aka "Windows Encoding")iso-8859-2
(aka "Latin-2")
Language Tags
Language Tags allow browsers and other software to process Polish text more efficiently. The following lists codes for Polish and minority languages closely related to Polish.
pl
(Polish)csb
(Kashubian/Pomeranian)szl
(Silesian)
Inserting Unicode Character Codes for HTML
The Entity Codes
Use these codes to input accented letters in HTML. For instance, if you want to type język you would type język
.
Be sure the appropriate Encodings and Language Tags are used.
NOTE: Because these are Unicode characters, the formatting may not exactly match that of the surrounding text depending on the browser.
Vwl | Entity Code |
---|---|
Ą | Ą Capital A Ogonek ("Polish cedilla") |
ą | ą Lower A Ogonek |
Ę | Ę Capital E Ogonek |
ę | ę Lower E Ogonek |
Ó | Ó (211) Capital O Acute |
ó | ó (243) Lower O Acute |
Cns | Entity Code |
---|---|
Ć | Ć Capital C Acute |
ć | ć Lower C Acute |
Ł | Ł Capital L-Barred |
ł | ł Lower L Barred |
Ń | Ń Capital N Acute |
ń | ń Lower N Acute |
Ś | Ś Capital S Acute |
ś | ś Lower S Acute |
Ź | Ź Capital Z Acute |
ź | ź Lower Z Acute |
Ż | Ż Capital Z Dot |
ż | ż Lower Z Dot |
Vwl | Entity Code |
---|---|
à | à Capital A Tilde |
ã | ã Lower A Ogonek |
É | É Capital E Acute |
é | é Lower E Acute |
Ë | Ë Capital E umlaut |
ë | ë Lower E umlut |
Ò | Ò Capital O Grave |
ò | ò Lower O Grave |
Ô | Ô Capital O Circumflex |
ô | ô Lower O circumflex |
Ù | Ù Capital U Grave |
ù | ò Lower u Grave |
Vwl | Entity Code |
---|---|
Õ | Õ Capital O Grave |
õ | õ Lower O Grave |
Ō | Ō Capital Long O |
ō | ō Lower long O |
Ŏ | Ŏ Capital O Breve |
ŏ | ŏ Lower O Brebe |
Vwl | Entity Code |
---|---|
Č | Č Capital C hachek |
č | č Lower C hachek |
Ř | Ř Capital R hachek |
ř | ř Lower R-hachek |
Š | Š Capital S hachek |
š | š Lower S-hachek |
Ž | Ž Capital Z hachek |
ž | ž Lower Z-hachek |
European Quote Marks
Many modern texts use American style quotes, but if you wish to include European style quote marks, here are the codes. Note that these codes may not work in older browsers.
Sym | HTMl Entity Code |
---|---|
« | « (left angle) |
» | » (right angle) |
‹ | ‹ (left single angle) |
› | › (right single angle) |
„ | „(bottom quote) |
‚ | ‚(single bottom quote) |
“ | “(left curly quote) |
‘ | ‘(left single curly quote) |
” | ”(right curly quote) |
’ | ’(right single curly quote) |
– | – (en dash) |
— | — (em dash) |
Links
Polish Language Links
- Britanica.com Polish Language
- National SEERLC Polish Webliography
- Polish Grammar
- Wikipedia Polish Language
Kashubian Links
Silesian Links
Central European Computing
Linux/Unix
Linux is used in the region so a search for specific issues may be useful.