Lesser Poland dialect

Map of Polish dialects

Lesser Polish dialect (Polish: dialekt małopolski; named after the historical region of Lesser Poland) is a regional variety of the Polish language. Heterogeneous, it covers a wide range of local dialects, often differing from one place to another. Hence in Polish linguistics there is a strong division onto proper dialects (Lesser Polish dialect, Mazovian dialect, Silesian dialect) and subdialects (Polish: gwara). Common subdialects of Lesser Polish dialect include Podhale subdialect, Cracow subdialect, Lwów subdialect, Sącz subdialect, Żywiec subdialect, Kielce subdialect and some others.

The common traits of Lesser Polish variety of the Polish language include:

• nasal pronunciation of ą and ę, pronunciation of -enka suffix (typical of many female nouns) as εŋka rather than εnka ("dziewczynka", "sukienka")
• lack of distinction between affricates and stop+fricative consonant clusters, for example trzysta ('three hundred') is pronounced as czysta ('clean' fem.)
• frequent usage of initial syllable stress, also oxytonic stress in vocative case (as opposed to paroxytonic stress common in other varieties of Polish)
• frequent usage of grammatical particle "że" in imperative mood ("weźże" vs. "weź" - take)