The Podhale dialect (Polish: gwara podhalańska) is a subdialect (gwara) spoken by the Gorals, or the highlanders living in the Tatra Mountains. The dialect, itself a part of the larger Lesser Polish dialectal group, is characterized as Proto-Slavic from the Eastern Lechitic, Old Polish area, superimposed by Slovak.
In other words, the language is of Polish origin, but has been influenced by Slovak in recent centuries. The language contains Polish, Vlach and Slovak vocabulary, as well as unique words and words that are peculiar to the Carpathian language area (Carpathisms).
In Henryk Sienkiewicz's 1900 novel The Teutonic Knights, the author had his characters speak a variety of medieval Polish which he recreated by utilizing many of the archaic expressions then still common among the highlanders of Podhale.
Famous quotes containing the word dialect:
“The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is understood all the world over.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)