Overview of linguistic typology

Like Polish, Belarusian and Ukrainian, the varieties presented here are inflected languages.  In inflected languages there is a variation in the verb, eg by time, person, noun by the number, the case.
In light of the definition of mixed dialect (Małecki), there is a development in some of the words according to a feature of system X, the other of system Y (e.g., one word in Polish [g], and in other Slovak [h]).  In contrast, a transitional dialect develops consistently, with the exception that some of the different systems, for example in the Łaski dialects on the one hand, the lack of nasal consonants, which puts them into the Czech language; on the other word stress falls on the penultimate syllable, as in Polish (Małecki 2004: 105Małecki 2004 / komentarz/comment/r /
Małecki, Mieczysław 2004. „Do genezy gwar mieszanych i przejściowych”, w: Dialekty polskie i słowiańskie. Kraków: Wydawnictwo UJ.
).
On the fringes of language there are areas where there are two parallel dialects described as belonging to two different language systems that combine some features of both languages.  In 1987-1989 Stefan Warchoł studied the villages of Buśno and Raciborowice (near Chelm), in which at the time of resettlement of the Ukrainian population there was bilingualism.  In the years when the fieldwork was carried out, only the oldest population used dialect forms fluently in both Polish and Ukrainian (Warchoł 1992: 27, 137Warchoł 1992 / komentarz/comment/r /
Warchoł, Stefan 1992. Specyfika gwar mieszanych i przejściowych na terenach etnicznie zróżnicowanych. Lublin: UMCS.
).
Variations in the language of southeastern Bialystok are distinguished from the following Ukrainian phonetic features (and not all features are present in all varieties:
  • loss of palatalization in labial consonants before [e], eg žmena 'change', vesna 'spring',
  • loss of palatalization in labial consonants before [e], for example, vesna 'spring', tel'a 'calf',
  • loss of palatalization in labial consonants before [i], [i͡e], for example xoditi, xodyty 'walk', t i͡e ˈsto, ty͡eˈsto 'cake',
  • pronunciation of [e] as [i / y] in unstressed position, eg ṕisok, pysok 'sand'; bida, cattle 'poverty'; Hnízdo, hnyzdo 'nest', and in accented position as  [i͡e], [y͡e], while around the Czeremcha area it is [i], eg vira 'faith', sino 'hay', tisto 'cake';
  • pronunciation of [o] as [u͡y], for example ku͡yń, mu͡yst or [ü], eg Kun 'horse' Must 'bridge',
  • softened pronunciation of [c], for example xłopeć 'boy', hułyća 'street' (Smułkowa 2002: 222Smułkowa 2002 / komentarz/comment/r /
    Smułkowa, Elżbieta 2002. Białoruś i pogranicza. Studia o języku i społeczeństwie. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UW.
    ).

ISO Code
no code
in 2011, Jan Maksymiuk applied for a ISO 639-3 code for the Podlachian languages - the application was rejected (SIL 2011SIL 2011 / komentarz/comment/r /
SIL 2011. Change request documentation for: 2011-013. [http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/chg_detail.asp?id=2011-013&lang=pdl]
).
The Ethnologue refers to transitional Belarusian-Ukrainian dialects (Lewis 2009Lewis 2009 / komentarz/comment/r /
Lewis, M. Paul (red.) 2009. The Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Sixteenth edition. Dallas: SIL International. [http://www.ethnologue.com/].
).
UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger mentions Polesian as a vulnerable language.
The Linguascale encodes all Belarusian-Ukrainian transitional and Polesian varieties with: 53-AAA-edd.