Teaching Polish as a foreign language within the history of the Polish language

This article presents a synthesis of the history of Polish as a foreign language, which has previously been omitted in historical and linguistic studies. The author analysed all existing studies published in book form on the history of the Polish language focusing on the indications and discussions of handbooks, dictionaries and grammar compendia of the Polish language intended for foreigners. She stresses that in the Middle Polish age such resources were written not by Poles but foreigners (Germans and the French). In the text, she also includes information on the expansion of the Polish language in the 17th and 18th centuries onto the eastern and northern lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and outside its borders. The author concludes her article with a general outline of a future monograph devoted to the history of teaching Polish as a foreign language.