Regional differences in the Polish language of the 17th century exemplified by variantivity like dawam daję, stawam staję, poznawam poznaję

A competition between iterative present tense forms like dawam, stawam, poznawam and forms like daję, staję, poznaję is visible in the oldest Polish literary texts. Nevertheless, according to Witold Śmiech and Mirosława Siuciak, until the end of the 17th century, forms with the suffix -wa- prevailed whereas the strongest struggle between these variants and the final victory of the forms daję, staję, poznaję occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries. However, a detailed examination of the printed works from various regions from 1639–1652 shows that spreading of forms with the suffix -aj- intensified much earlier whereas its pace varied regionally. A progressive variant (daję, staję, poznaję) caught on the fastest in Little Poland (Małopolska) whereas the region of Great Poland (Wielkopolska) proved to be the most resistant to changes. It can be noticed, therefore, that in the 17th century a literary language was still strongly diversified regionally. Thus the average, which is estimated solely for the national Polish literary language and, what is more, for the entire century, may, as it has been the case in previous studies, significantly distort the picture of developing the norm, which at that time was still conditioned regionally to an extremely great extent.Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu1019320