Polish (jezyk polski, polszczyzna) is a Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages. Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the official languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script (a, c, e, l, n, ó, s, z, z). Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Lower Sorbian, Upper Sorbian, Czech and Slovak.