News:

Ą

Ą (minuscule: ą) is a letter in the Polish alphabet and other languages. It is formed from the letter a and an ogonek.

1 In Polish
2 Other languages
3 Computer use
4 See also

In Polish

In Polish ą comes after a in the alphabet but never appears at the start of a word. It usually represents a nasal o, more specifically IPA: [/ɔ̃/] or IPA: [/ɔw̃/].

Unlike in French, nasal vowels in Polish are asynchronous, meaning that they are pronounced as an oral vowel + a nasal semivowel, or a nasal vowel + a nasal semivowel. For instance, ą might be more accurately represented as [ɔw̃] but for the sake of simplicity, it is usually represented as /ɔ̃/.

Some examples,

obowiązek ("duty", "obligation"), pronounced IPA: [ɔbɔˈvjɔ̃zɛk]
robią ("They are making"), pronounced IPA: [ˈrɔbjɔ̃]
wciąż ("still"), pronounced IPA: [ˈftɕɔ̃ʂ]

Before all stops and affricates, it is pronounced as an oral vowel + nasal consonant. The nasal consonant may be either m (before p or b) or n (all other cases). For example,

kąpać ("to bathe") is pronounced IPA: [ˈkɔmpatɕ] rather than [ˈkɔ̃patɕ]
pająk ("spider") is pronounced IPA: [ˈpajɔnk]
Bądź cierpliwy! ("Be patient!") is pronounced IPA: [ˈbɔntɕ]
oglądając ("(by) watching") is pronounced IPA: [ɔglɔnˈdajɔnts]

History

Polish ą evolved from long nasal a of medieval Polish, which developed into a short nasal o in the modern language. This medieval vowel, along with its short counterpart, evolved in turn from the merged nasal *ę and *ǫ of Late Proto-Slavic.

Evolution
Late Proto-Slavic	/ẽ/ and /õ/, represented by ę and ǫ
Medieval Polish	long and short /ã/, written approximately as ø
Modern Polish	long /ã/ → short /ɔ̃/, written ą short /ã/ → short /ɛ̃/, written ę

Alternations

ą often alternates with ę, for example:

tooth: ząb → zęby (teeth), thousand: tysiąc → tysięcy (thousands), snake: wąż → węże (snakes)
husband in nominative: mąż → z mężem (with husband, in instrumental case)
row in nominative: rząd → cztery razy z rzędu (four times in a row, in genitive case)

[but note that in words derived from rząd (government) the vowel does not change]

weight: ciężar → ciążyć (to weigh down, to be a burden), month: miesiąc → miesięczny (monthly)

Audio examples

wąż (help·info) (snake)
mąż (help·info) (husband)

The ISO basic Latin alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz
Letter A with diacritics ÁáÀàĂăẮắẰằẴẵẲẳÂâẤấẦầẪẫẨẩǍǎÅåǺǻÄäǞǟÃãȦȧǠǡĄąĀāẢảȀȁȂȃẠạẶặẬậḀḁȺⱥᶏ ɐ∀ Letters using ogonek sign ĄąĘęĮįǪǫŲų history • palaeography • derivations • diacritics • punctuation • numerals • Unicode • list of letters

Top 10 Articles

News:

Ą

Contents

In Polish

History

Alternations

Audio examples

Other languages

Computer use

See also