Institute of English Studies, Faculty of Philology, University of Lodz, author: Maciej Andrzejewski
They were written in Latin in documents like chronicles and legal acts. The oldest sentence written in Polish, ‘Daj, ać ja pobruszę, a ty poczywaj’ was found in the Book of Henrykow (Księga Henrykowska) and meant ‘Give it to me, I will grind and you can rest now’ and it dates back to the XIII century. Later on, the Polish vocabulary has been influenced primarily by dialects and other Slavic languages (Russian, Czech, Ukrainian), but also by Latin, German, Italian, French and English.
There are several regional types of Polish, such as Silesian, Malopolan, Wielkopolan, Mazovian and Kashubian. Some of them differ significantly, especially in terms of vocabulary and intonation. The Polish grammar and lexis in large measure come from Latin.