O badaniach sytuacji i stanu polszczyzny na Litwie na pograniczu litewsko-łotewsko-białoruskim
Exploring the status and condition of the Polish language in Lithuania on the borderline of Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus

Summary/Abstract: The paper describes research (both concluded and ongoing) on the current status, state and typical features of the Polish language used in the North-Eastern part of Lithuania on the borderline of Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus. The Polish language on the borderline of Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus (in the Zarasai district and the Ignalina district in Lithuania) has so far been given little attention. The conclusions presented in the paper have been formulated on the basis of data gathered during field research in 2000-2001 and 2010-2011, and the observations have been illustrated with samples of utterances provided by informants. The article outlines the scope of Polish on the borderline of the three states, names given to the Polish language area, its sociolinguistic situation and changes that have taken place over the last decade, the state-of-the-art research on the Polish language and the results of studies that have been conducted for over ten years now. These studies have shown that the Polish language is geographically diversified into the northern variant (the Zarasai district) that is more similar to Kaunas variety, and the southern one (the Ignalina district) that to a greater extent resembles the Vilnius variety of Polish. The two variants—the Zarasai one and the Ignalina one—differ with respect to the range of Lithuanian interference (it is larger in the Zarasai dialect group and smaller in the southern part), the number of exhibited features typical for Belarussian (they are noticeable mainly in the Ignalina region and in the southern part of the Zarasai district along the Belarussian border), as well as the varying range of features typical of the North-Eastern Borderlands.

• Details
• Contents