Masovian dialect

The Masovian dialect (Polish: dialekt mazowiecki), also written Mazovian, is the dialect of Polish spoken in Mazovia and historically related regions, in northeastern Poland.^[1] It is the most distinct of the Polish dialects and the most expansive.^[1]

Mazovian dialects may exhibit such features as mazurzenie, sandhi (intervocalic voicing of obstruents on word boundaries), and asynchronous palatal pronunciation of labial consonants (so-called softening). The Kurpie region has some of the most distinctive phonetic features due to isolation. Characteristics include:

• Depalatalization of velars before /ɛ/ and palatalization of velars before historical /ɛ̃/; e.g. standard Polish rękę, nogę ('arm', 'leg', in the accusative case) is rendered [ˈrɛŋkʲɛ], [ˈnɔɡʲɛ] respectively instead of [ˈrɛŋkɛ], [ˈnɔɡɛ];
• /li/ sequences realized [lɪ] instead of [lʲi];
• merger of the retroflex series sz, ż, cz, dż into the alveolar s, z, c, dz;
• /ɨ/ > /i/ before certain consonants;
• the Old Polish dual number marker -wa continues to be attached to verbs;
• Standard Polish /ɔ̃/ and /ɛ̃/ merged with /u/ and /a/ respectively, in most situations;
• certain instances of a > e;
• [mʲ] > [ɲ]

Masovian dialects also contain certain vocabulary that is distinct from the standard Polish language and shares common characteristics with the Kashubian language.^[2]