As early as during their first Polish language lessons, when working on the Polish alphabet, the course participants are stunned by some of the Polish letters. However, none of these letters, neither vowels ą / ę, nor ć, dź, ś, ż, ź, absorb the foreigners as much as the small, beautiful and mysterious ó. What's the point of this letter, how do you pronounce it, and in which words does it occur? Ladies and gentlemen, the hero of today's episode is the letter Ó.
EVOLUTION OF Ó
In a nutshell, there used to exist short and long vowels in the Polish language. The letter were recorded with a characteristic, long dash above the a, e, i, u, and consequently also above o (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū). While the other vowels disappeared over time, ó has remained as a sort of peculiar relic of the past. Still, there are a lot of words in Polish that have kept the historical spelling based on the old pronunciation (chór – choir, góra – mountain, król - king, mózg - brain, późno – late, źródło - water spring, ogórek - cucumber, etc.).
U OR Ó? WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE AND WHERE CAN WE ENCOUNTER Ó?
This is a very common question in a Polish language course. Students are concerned with the fact that we have two letters that sound the same. Is their pronunciation really the same? Are the u in Ursula (a Polish female name) and the ó in Józef (a Polish male name) pronounced in the same way? Well, yes! Nowadays, there is only a spelling difference between these letters. The letter ó occurs very often in word endings: - ów, - ówna, - ówka (Kraków – the city of Cracow, kreskówka - cartoon, lodówka – refrigerator, etc.). You will never see it at the end of a word, and very rarely at the beginning (ósma - eighth, ósemka – the number eight, ów – that one, ówczesny – of that time).
Do you like the letter Ó slightly more now?
