Vowels: Part 1—Oral Vowels
Polish has six oral vowels (a, e, i, o, u/ó, y) and two nasal vowels (ą, ę). The oral vowels are predominantly italianate in their formation and unlike Russian, Polish vowels do not centralize when they are not in stressed positions. For this post, I will solely focus on the oral vowels although the nasal vowels will have some carryover into phonemes used for the oral vowels.
The vowel <a> will be similar to the Italian [a], just not as bright. When forming this vowel, the tongue will relax into a low position while the sides and the tip touch the lower teeth. This phoneme appears wherever the letter a is written.
Bajka [baj.ka] “fairy tale”; Awans [a.vans] “promotion”; Praca [pra.t͡sa] “work”
Speakers of Russian need to be sure that the vowel remains pure even when in unstressed positions as Polish does not have vowel reduction.
The next vowel, <e>, will always be represented by the IPA symbol [ɛ]. It is pronounced almost exactly the same as in the Italian word tempo or English word bed. Again this vowel will never devoice, and will also not be pronounced as a closed [e]. It is
Cedr [t͡sɛdr] “cedar”; Beza [bɛ.za] “meringue”; Feler [fɛ.lɛr] “defect, fault”
The phoneme [i] (close forward unrounded vowel) is represented by the letter <i> in Polish and serves two purposes: a vowel and also an indicator of palatalization. Palatalization will be covered in a later post, but when a consonant is palatalized the vowel will usually be pronounced as [ʲ] or not at all. When it is between two vowels, [i] will be pronounced as a [j]. Otherwise, the letter <i> will always be pronounced as [i]. This sound is very familiar to singers as the vowel in the Italian rive or French fini.
Miś [mʲiɕ] “bear”; Praia [pra.ja] Praia, Cape Verde; ognisko [ɔg.ɲi.skɔ] “bonfire, campfire”
Much like the open-e, the Polish <o> will always be pronounced as the open, back, mid-rounded [ɔ] and can be found wherever <o> is written. Speakers of Russian need to be sure that word-initial <o> does not reduce to [ɐ]. To be sure that [ɔ] is being properly pronounced, make sure the lips are rounded and slightly protruded. A good English comparison, as suggested by Dr. Schultz, is to practice the British pronunciation of awe and go. The Polish rounding should lay within the middle of the two.
Kot [kɔt] “cat”; odkroić [ɔt.krɔ.it͡ɕ] “to cut off”; kto [ktɔ] “who”
The phoneme [u] can be represented by two letters in Polish: <u> and <ó>. The latter is a remnant of vowel length, as seen in Czech. The long <o> in Polish eventually developed into the short [u] sound, but retained the spelling (much like how the <rz> shows the development from the historically palatalized r). [u] is a very pure, close, back, rounded vowel sound, much like the Italian puro or Russian узкий [ˈu.skʲij]. The tip of the tongue touches the lower incisors while the back of the tongue is raised towards the soft palate. The jaw is not lowered and the lips are very rounded and closed.
Król [kɾul] “king”; tulić [tu.lit͡ɕ] “to cuddle, nestle”; próba [pɾu.ba] “rehearsal”; kura [ku.ɾa] “hen”
The last oral vowel <y>, is related to the [i] vowel as it is just an allophonic change. While <i> can trigger palatalization, <y> will never palatalize a preceding consonant. It is a close forward unrounded vowel, with the tip of the tongue still touching the lower incisors and the upper portion of the body of the tongue slightly lower than [i]. <y> will always be pronounced as [ɪ], similar to the German and English [ɪ] vowel.
Życie [ʐɪ.t͡ɕɛ] “life”, mydło [mɪ.dwɔ] “soap”; dotykać [dɔ.tɪ.kat͡ɕ] “to touch”
Compare and contrast [i] and [ɪ]
Nic [ɲit͡s] “nothing” and ruiny [ɾu.i.nɪ] “ruins”
Być [bɪt͡ɕ] “to be” and bić [bʲit͡ɕ] “to beat”
Siano [ɕa.nɔ] “hay” and szyna [ʂɪ.na] “rail, splint”