Basic information on the spoken languages and the educational system:

Polish belongs to the Western group of the Slavic branch of Indo-European languages and is thus closely related to Czech, Slovak, and the (Upper and Lower) Sorbian language found in eastern Germany, Kashubian, as well to the extinct Polabian language.

The oldest known examples of written Polish are names and glosses in Latin documents (notably a papal bull of 1136). Modern literary Polish emerged in the 16th century. Although the core of literary Polish has remained pure, loan-words were absorbed from medieval Czech and German, from Latin, Italian, and, more recently, from such languages as Russian, French and English.

Roughly speaking, teaching of modern languages in Poland may be divided into three areas: formal teaching of foreign languages in the primary and secondary schools; formal teaching of native tongues for national minorities (either as languages of instruction or as subjects), taught as a seperate subject alongside Polish. All other subjects are taught in Polish; informal teaching and learning of foreign languages out of school.

One foreign language is compulsory in primary schools, while two languages must be studied in secondary general school. In secondary technical and basic vocational schools two foreign languages can be studied.

The structure of foreign language teaching as compulsory and optional subjects in primary and secondary schools (schools for children with special educational needs excluded) is as follows (state for 31.12.1999).

There are six minority groups whose native tongue is formally taught in schools. These are the following: Belorusian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Slovak, German and Kashubian. Most often the native language is taught additionally to Polish because the limited population makes it difficult to create separate schools for ethnic minorities. Despite that fact separate schools for ethnic minorities do exist. Moreover, if pupils want to continue their education in higher-level institutions, they need to have their basic education in Polish. Out of school courses are organized by various language schools, (the so-called inter-school groups) cultural institutes, embassies, associations, etc.

Kashubian

The Kashubian language belongs to the group of West Slavic languages and is most closely related to Polish. It is spoken in north-central Poland, south west of Gdansk. The literary standard has been created during the last century. Kashubian has been used in media and education only since the 1990’s. In 1999, the Kashubian Institute was founded in Gdansk.

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