Opole Voivodeship, is the smallest and least populated voivodeship (province) of Poland. The province's name derives from that of the region's capital and largest city, Opole. It is part of Silesia. A relatively large German minority lives in the voivodeship, and the German language is co-official in 28 communes.
Polish is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group within the Indo-European language family written in the Latin script. It is primarily spoken in Poland and serves as the official language of the country, as well as the language of the Polish diaspora around the world. In 2024, there were over 39.7 million Polish native speakers. It ranks as the sixth most-spoken among languages of the European Union. Polish is subdivided into regional dialects and maintains strict T–V distinction pronouns, honorifics, and various forms of formalities when addressing individuals.
Pan-Slavism, a movement that took shape in the mid-19th century, is the political ideology concerned with promoting integrity and unity for the Slavic people. Its main impact occurred in the Balkans, where non-Slavic empires had ruled the South Slavs for centuries. These were mainly the Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice.
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately 40,000 km2 (15,400 sq mi), and the population is estimated at 8,000,000. Silesia is split into two main subregions, Lower Silesia in the west and Upper Silesia in the east. Silesia has a diverse culture, including architecture, costumes, cuisine, traditions, and the Silesian language. The largest city of the region is Wrocław.
Opole is a city located in southern Poland on the Oder River and the historical capital of Upper Silesia. With a population of approximately 127,387 as of the 2021 census, it is the capital of Opole Voivodeship (province) and the seat of Opole County. Its built-up was home to 146,522 inhabitants. It is the largest city in its province.
Silesian, occasionally called Upper Silesian, is an ethnolect of the Lechitic group spoken by part of people in Upper Silesia. Its vocabulary was significantly influenced by Central German due to the existence of numerous Silesian German speakers in the area prior to World War II and after. The first mentions of Silesian as a distinct lect date back to the 16th century, and the first literature with Silesian characteristics to the 17th century.
Wymysorys, also known as Vilamovian or Wilamowicean, is a West Germanic language spoken by the Vilamovian ethnic minority in the town of Wilamowice, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland, on the border between Silesia and Lesser Poland, near Bielsko-Biała. It is considered an endangered language, possibly the most so of any of the Germanic languages. There are probably fewer than 20 native users of Wymysorys, virtually all bilingual; the majority are elderly.
Silesians is both an ethnic as well as a geographical term for the inhabitants of Silesia, a historical region in Central Europe divided by the current national boundaries of Poland, Germany, and Czechia. Historically, the region of Silesia has been inhabited by Polish, Czechs, and by Germans. Therefore, the term Silesian can refer to anyone of these ethnic groups. However, in 1945, great demographic changes occurred in the region as a result of the Potsdam Agreement leaving most of the region ethnically Polish and/or Slavic Upper Silesian. The Silesian language is one of the regional languages used in Poland alongside Polish as well as Kashubian and is structured with in a SVO format, however the grammar is quite often different to that of the other Lechitic languages. The names of Silesia in different languages most likely share their etymology—Polish: ; German: Schlesienpronounced[ˈʃleːzi̯ən] ; Czech: Slezsko ; Lower Silesian: Schläsing; Silesian: Ślōnsk ; Lower Sorbian: Šlazyńska ; Upper Sorbian: Šleska ; Latin, Spanish and English: Silesia; French: Silésie; Dutch: Silezië; Italian: Slesia; Slovak: Sliezsko; Kashubian: Sląsk. The names all relate to the name of a river and mountain in mid-southern Silesia, which served as a place of cult for pagans before Christianization.
Moravian Wallachia is a mountainous ethnoregion located in the easternmost part of Moravia in the Czech Republic, near the Slovak border, roughly centered on the cities Vsetín, Valašské Meziříčí and Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. The name Wallachia used to be applied to all the highlands of Moravia and the neighboring Silesia, although in the 19th century a smaller area came to be defined as ethno-cultural Moravian Wallachia. The traditional dialect represents a mixture of elements from the Czech and Slovak languages, and has a distinct lexicon of Romanian origin relating to the pastoral economy of the highlands. The name originated from the term "Vlach", the exonym of Romanians.
The registered German minority in Poland is a group of German people that inhabit Poland, being the largest minority of the country. As of 2021, it had the population of 144,177.
The term North Slavic languages is used in three main senses:
The Slavic dialects of Greece are the Eastern South Slavic dialects of Macedonian and Bulgarian spoken by minority groups in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace in northern Greece. Usually, dialects in Thrace are classified as Bulgarian, while the dialects in Macedonia are classified as Macedonian, with the exception of some eastern dialects which can also be classified as Bulgarian. Before World War II, most linguists considered all of these dialects to be Bulgarian dialects. However, other linguists opposed this view and considered Macedonian dialects as comprising an independent language distinct from both Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian.
Kevin J. Hannan was an American ethnolinguist and slavicist.
The Information Office of the Opole Voivodeship in Brussels, founded in 2000, acts as an office of the Polish region's interests in the European Union institutions. It was proposed by Tomasz Kamusella in late 1998 to the incoming first-ever Regional President of the Opole Voivodeship, Stanisław Jałowiecki, as one of a set of institutions that should prepare the region to the full participation in the process of European integration, and then run the region's participation in this process after Poland's accession to the European Union. The other institutions included the Dom Europejski for coordinating the region's European initiatives, and a financial institution that would ensure indispensable co-financing for EU initiatives. It was the already existing Fundacja Rozwoju Śląska oraz Wspierania Inicjatyw Lokalnych that agreed to shoulder the latter role. Arkadiusz Tkocz was the first director of the Brussels Office. Soon afterward, it became obvious that to safeguard the region's interests similar offices of the Opole Voivodeship had to be organized in the Polish capital of Warsaw and in the German Land of the Rhineland-Palatinate, with which the voivodeship closely cooperates.
The positions of Plenipotentiary on European Integration to the Regional Governor were gradually established in Poland between 1996 and 1999 in all of Poland's then 49 regions, or voivodeships (województwa). This step was taken in the wake of Poland's 1994 application for membership in the European Union in order to prepare the Polish administration and society at large for the process of European integration and Poland's eventual joining the EU. In early 1996, Regional Governor of the Opole Voivodeship, Ryszard Zembaczyński, appointed Tomasz Kamusella as the first-ever Plenipotentiary of this kind.
The Union of Upper Silesians was an early 20th-century movement for the independence of Upper Silesia. The movement had its genesis during the revolutions of 1848. Allied with the Silesian People's Party, it dissolved in 1924 but has influenced the present-day Silesian Autonomy Movement.
Józef Kożdoń was Silesian autonomist politician.
The International Romani Union, formerly known as the International Gypsy Committee and International Rom Committee, is an organization active for the rights of the Romani people. Its seat is in Vienna. The International Romani Union also has offices in Skopje, North Macedonia, and Washington, D.C., US.
The Eastern South Slavic dialects form the eastern subgroup of the South Slavic languages. They are spoken mostly in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, and adjacent areas in the neighbouring countries. They form the so-called Balkan Slavic linguistic area, which encompasses the southeastern part of the dialect continuum of South Slavic.
Motoki Nomachi is professor in the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan. He specializes in Slavic linguistics and general linguistics, and is an expert on Slavic microlanguages.
