Slovak () , is a
West Slavic language
The West Slavic languages are a subdivision of the Slavic language group. They include Polish, Czech, Slovak, Kashubian, Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian. The languages have traditionally been spoken across a mostly continuous region encompa ...
of the
Czech–Slovak group, written in
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
.
It is part of the
Indo-European language family
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
, and is one of the
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ear ...
, which are part of the larger
Balto-Slavic branch. Spoken by approximately 5 million people as a native language, primarily ethnic
Slovaks
The Slovaks ( sk, Slováci, singular: ''Slovák'', feminine: ''Slovenka'', plural: ''Slovenky'') are a West Slavic ethnic group and nation native to Slovakia who share a common ancestry, culture, history and speak Slovak.
In Slovakia, 4.4 mi ...
, it serves as the official language of
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
and one of the 24
official languages of the European Union
The European Union (EU) has 24 official languages, of which threeEnglish, French and Germanhave the higher status of "procedural" languages of the European Commission (whereas the European Parliament accepts all official languages as working la ...
.
Slovak is closely related to
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
*Czech, ...
, to the point of
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
to a very high degree, as well as
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
. Like other Slavic languages, Slovak is a
fusional language
Fusional languages or inflected languages are a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by their tendency to use a single inflectional morpheme to denote multiple grammatical, syntactic, or semantic features.
Fo ...
with a complex system of
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
and relatively flexible
word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
. Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced by
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
and other
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ear ...
.
The Czech–Slovak group developed within West Slavic in the
high medieval
The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended around AD 1500 ...
period, and the standardization of Czech and Slovak within the Czech–Slovak dialect continuum emerged in the early modern period. In the later mid-19th century, the modern
Slovak alphabet
The first Slovak orthography was proposed by Anton Bernolák (1762–1813) in his ''Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum'', used in the six-volume ''Slovak-Czech-Latin-German-Hungarian Dictionary'' (1825–1927) and used primarily ...
and written standard became codified by
Ľudovít Štúr
Ľudovít Velislav Štúr (; hu, Stur Lajos; 28 October 1815 – 12 January 1856), known in his era as Ludevít Štúr, (pen names : B. Dunajský, Bedlivý Ludorob, Boleslav Záhorský, Brat Slovenska, Ein Slave, Ein ungarischer Slave, Karl Wi ...
and reformed by
Martin Hattala
Martin Hattala (4 November 1821 in Trstená, Kingdom of Hungary (today Slovakia) – 11 December 1903 in Prague) was a Slovak pedagogue, Roman Catholic theologian and linguist. He is best known for his reform of the Štúr's Slovak language, so- ...
. The
Moravian dialects
Moravian dialects ( cs, moravská nářečí, moravština) are the variety (linguistics), varieties of Czech language, Czech spoken in Moravia, a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic. There are more forms of the Czech language used ...
spoken in the western part of the country along the border with the
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
are also sometimes classified as Slovak, although some of their western variants are closer to Czech; they nonetheless form the bridge dialects between the two languages.
Slovak speakers are also found in the
Slovak diaspora
The Slovak diaspora refers to both historical and present emigration from Slovakia, as well as from the former Czechoslovakia. The country with the largest number of Slovaks living abroad is the United States.
Slovak diaspora in Romania
Appro ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, the
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
,
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
,
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
,
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
,
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
,
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
, and other countries to a lesser extent.
Phonology
Slovak contains 15 vowel phonemes (11 monophthongs and four diphthongs) and 29 consonants.
The phoneme /æ/ is marginal and often merges with /e/; the two are normally only distinguished in higher registers.
Vowel length is phonemic in Slovak and both short and long vowels have the same quality. In addition, Slovak employs a "rhythmic law" which forbids two long vowels from following one another. In such cases the second vowel is shortened. For example, adding the locative plural ending to the root creates , not .
Slovak has
final devoicing
Final-obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as Catalan, German, Dutch, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voiced obstruents in fina ...
; when a voiced consonant () is at the end of a word before a pause, it is devoiced to its voiceless counterpart (, respectively). For example, is pronounced and is pronounced .
Consonant clusters containing both voiced and voiceless elements are entirely voiced if the last consonant is a voiced one, or voiceless if the last consonant is voiceless. For example, is pronounced and is pronounced . This rule applies also over the word boundary. For example, (to come home) and (more strawberries). The voiced counterpart of "" is , and the unvoiced counterpart of "" is .
Orthography
Slovak uses the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
with small modifications that include the four
diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s (
ˇ, ´, ¨, ˆ) placed above certain letters ()
The primary principle of Slovak spelling is the
phonemic
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
principle. The secondary principle is the morphological principle: forms derived from the same stem are written in the same way even if they are pronounced differently. An example of this principle is the assimilation rule (see below). The tertiary principle is the etymological principle, which can be seen in the use of ''i'' after certain consonants and of ''y'' after other consonants, although both ''i'' and ''y'' are usually pronounced the same way.
Finally, the rarely applied grammatical principle is present when, for example, the basic singular form and plural form of masculine adjectives are written differently with no difference in pronunciation (e.g. = nice – singular versus = nice – plural). Such spellings are most often remnants of differences in pronunciation that were present in Proto-Slavic (in Polish, where the vowel merger didn't occur, and are pronounced differently).
Most
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s from foreign languages are respelt using Slovak principles either immediately or later. For example, "weekend" is spelled , "software" – , "gay" – (both not exclusively), and "quality" is spelled . Personal and geographical names from other languages using Latin alphabets keep their original spelling unless a fully Slovak form of the name exists (e.g. for "
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
").
Slovak features some
heterophonic homographs (words with identical spelling but different pronunciation and meaning), the most common examples being (beautiful) versus (beautifully).
Syntax
The main features of Slovak syntax are as follows:
*The verb (
predicate
Predicate or predication may refer to:
* Predicate (grammar), in linguistics
* Predication (philosophy)
* several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic:
**Predicate (mathematical logic)
**Propositional function
**Finitary relation, o ...
) agrees in person and number with its
subject.
Some examples include the following:
:. (The+woman+singer is+singing.)
:(, where -∅ is (the
empty
Empty may refer to:
Music Albums
* ''Empty'' (God Lives Underwater album) or the title song, 1995
* ''Empty'' (Nils Frahm album), 2020
* ''Empty'' (Tait album) or the title song, 2001
Songs
* "Empty" (The Click Five song), 2007
* ...
) third-person-singular ending)
:. (Woman+singers are+singing.)
:(; is a third-person-plural ending, and /j/ is a
hiatus
Hiatus may refer to:
*Hiatus (anatomy), a natural fissure in a structure
*Hiatus (stratigraphy), a discontinuity in the age of strata in stratigraphy
*''Hiatus'', a genus of picture-winged flies with sole member species ''Hiatus fulvipes''
*Globa ...
sound)
:. (We the+woman+singers are+singing.)
:(, where is the first-person-plural ending)
:and so forth.
*Adjectives, pronouns and numerals agree in
person
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
,
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
and
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component
* Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books
* Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
with the noun to which they refer.
*Adjectives precede their noun. Botanic or zoological terms are exceptions (e.g. , literally "cat wild", ) as is the naming of Holy Spirit () in a majority of churches.
Word order in Slovak is relatively free, since strong
inflection
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defin ...
enables the identification of
grammatical roles (subject, object, predicate, etc.) regardless of word placement. This relatively free word order allows the use of word order to convey
topic and emphasis.
Some examples are as follows:
:. = That big man opens a store there today. ( = that; = big; = man; = there; = today; = opens; = store) – The word order does not emphasize any specific detail, just general information.
:. = That big man is today opening a store there. – This word order emphasizes the place ( = there).
:. = Today over there a store is being opened by that big man. – This word order focuses on the person who is opening the store ( = that; = big; = man).
:. = The store over there is today being opened by that big man. – Depending on the intonation the focus can be either on the store itself or on the person.
The
unmarked
In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant defau ...
order is
subject–verb–object. Variation in word order is generally possible, but word order is not completely free.
In the above example, the noun phrase cannot be split up, so that the following combinations are not possible:
:.
:. ...
And the following sentence is stylistically infelicitous:
:. (Only possible in a poem or other forms of artistic style.)
The regular variants are as follows:
:
:
:
:
:
:
Morphology
Articles
Slovak, like every major Slavic language other than
Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
and Macedonian, does not have articles. The demonstrative pronoun (fem: , neuter: ) may be used in front of the noun in situations where
definiteness
In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical d ...
must be made explicit.
Nouns, adjectives, pronouns
Slovak nouns are inflected for case and number. There are six cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, and instrumental. The vocative is purely optional and most of the time unmarked. There are two numbers: singular and plural. Nouns have inherent gender. There are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives and pronouns must agree with nouns in case, number, and gender.
Numerals
The numerals 0–10 have unique forms, with numerals 1–4 requiring specific gendered representations. Numerals 11–19 are formed by adding to the end of each numeral. The suffix is used to create numerals 20, 30 and 40; for numerals 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90, is used. Compound numerals (21, 1054) are combinations of these words formed in the same order as their mathematical symbol is written (e.g. 21 = , literally "twenty-one").
The numerals are as follows:
Some higher numbers: (200) , (300) , (900) , (1,000) , (1,100) , (2,000) , (100,000) , (200,000) , (1,000,000) , (1,000,000,000) .
Counted nouns have two forms. The most common form is the plural genitive (e.g. = five houses or = one hundred two women), while the plural form of the noun when counting the amounts of 2–4, etc., is usually the nominative form without counting (e.g. = two houses or = two women) but gender rules do apply in many cases.
Verbs
Verbs have three major conjugations. Three persons and two numbers (singular and plural) are distinguished. Several
conjugation
Conjugation or conjugate may refer to:
Linguistics
* Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form
* Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language
Mathematics
* Complex conjugation, the chang ...
paradigms exist as follows:
*-type verbs
*-type verbs +
rhythmical rule
*-type verbs (soft stem)
*-type verbs
*-type verbs +
rhythmical rule
*-type verbs
*-type verbs ()
*-type verbs (typically -)
*-type verbs (typically -)
*-type verbs (-, -, -)
*-type verbs (-)
*Irregular verbs
*
Subject personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s are omitted unless they are emphatic.
*Some imperfective verbs are created from the stems of perfective verbs to denote repeated or habitual actions. These are considered separate
lexemes
A lexeme () is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection. It is a basic abstract unit of meaning, a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken ...
. One example is as follows: to hide (perfective) = , to hide (habitual) = .
*Historically, two
past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...
forms were utilized. Both are formed analytically. The second of these, equivalent to the
pluperfect
The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...
, is not used in the modern language, being considered archaic and/or grammatically incorrect. Examples for two related verbs are as follows:
: (I hid / I have hidden); (I had hidden)
:.
*One
future tense
In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meaning ...
exists. For imperfective verbs, it is formed analytically, for perfective verbs it is identical with the present tense. Some examples are as follows:
:
:
*Two
conditional forms exist. Both are formed analytically from the past tense:
: (I would hide), (I would have hidden)
:
*The
passive voice
A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...
is formed either as in English (to be + past participle) or using the reflexive pronoun 'sa':
:
:
*The active present
participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
(= ~ing (one)) is formed using the suffixes -/ - / -
:
:
*The
transgressive (=(while/by) ...ing) is formed using the suffixes - / - / -.
: (by hiding (perfective))
: ((while/during) hiding)
*The active past
participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
(= ~ing (in the past)) was formerly formed using the suffix -, but is no longer used.
*The
passive participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
(= ~ed (one), the "third form") is formed using the suffixes - / - / -:
:
:
*The
gerund
In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiable ...
(= the (process of) ...ing) is formed using the suffix -:
:
:
Adverbs
Adverbs are formed by replacing the adjectival ending with the ending - or - / -. Sometimes both - and - are possible. Examples include the following:
: (high) – (highly)
: (nice) – (nicely)
: (friendly) – (in a friendly manner)
: (fast) – (quickly)
The comparative of adverbs is formed by replacing the adjectival ending with a comparative/superlative ending - or -, whence the superlative is formed with the prefix ''naj-.'' Examples include the following:
: (fast) – (faster) – (fastest): (quickly) – (more quickly) – (most quickly)
Prepositions
Each preposition is associated with one or more grammatical cases. The noun governed by a preposition must appear in the case required by the preposition in the given context (e.g. from friends = ). is the genitive case of . It must appear in this case because the preposition (= from) always calls for its objects to be in the genitive.
:around the square = (locative case)
:up to the square = (accusative case)
has a different meaning depending on the case of its governed noun.
History
Relationships to other languages
Slovak is a descendant of
Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the Attested language, unattested, linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately ...
, itself a descendant of
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
. It is closely related to the other
West Slavic languages
The West Slavic languages are a subdivision of the Slavic language group. They include Polish, Czech, Slovak, Kashubian, Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian. The languages have traditionally been spoken across a mostly continuous region encompass ...
, primarily to
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
*Czech, ...
and
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
. Czech also influenced the language in its later development. The highest number of borrowings in the old Slovak vocabulary come from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
,
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
, Czech,
Hungarian, Polish and
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
(in that order). Recently, it is also influenced by English.
Czech
Although most dialects of Czech and Slovak are
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
(see
Comparison of Slovak and Czech
Comparison or comparing is the act of evaluating two or more things by determining the relevant, comparable characteristics of each thing, and then determining which characteristics of each are similar to the other, which are different, and t ...
),
eastern Slovak dialects
Eastern Slovak dialects ( sk, východoslovenské nárečia, východniarčina), are dialects of the Slovak language spoken natively in the historical regions of Spiš, Šariš, Zemplín and Abov, in the east of Slovakia. In contrast to other dia ...
are less intelligible to speakers of Czech and closer to Polish,
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
,
Rusyn
Rusyn may refer to:
* Rusyns, Rusyn people, an East Slavic people
** Pannonian Rusyns, Pannonian Rusyn people, a branch of Rusyn people
** Lemkos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
** Boykos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
* Rusyn l ...
and
Belarusian and contact between speakers of Czech and speakers of the eastern dialects is limited.
Since the
dissolution of Czechoslovakia
The dissolution of Czechoslovakia ( cs, Rozdělení Československa, sk, Rozdelenie Česko-Slovenska) took effect on December 31, 1992, and was the self-determined split of the federal republic of Czechoslovakia into the independent countries o ...
it has been permitted to use Czech in TV broadcasting and during court proceedings (Administration Procedure Act 99/1963 Zb.). From 1999 to August 2009, the Minority Language Act 184/1999 Z.z., in its section (§) 6, contained the variously interpreted unclear provision saying that "When applying this act, it holds that the use of the Czech language fulfills the requirement of fundamental intelligibility with the state language"; the state language is Slovak and the Minority Language Act basically refers to municipalities with more than 20% ethnic minority population (no such Czech municipalities are found in Slovakia). Since 1 September 2009 (due to an amendment to the State Language Act 270/1995 Z.z.) a language "fundamentally intelligible with the state language" (i.e. the Czech language) may be used in contact with state offices and bodies by its native speakers, and documents written in it and issued by bodies in the Czech Republic are officially accepted. Regardless of its official status, Czech is used commonly both in Slovak mass media and in daily communication by Czech natives as an equal language.
Czech and Slovak have a long history of interaction and mutual influence well before the creation of
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
in 1918, a state which existed until 1993.
Literary
Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
Slovak shares significant
orthographic features with Czech, as well as technical and professional terminology dating from the Czechoslovak period, but phonetic, grammatical, and vocabulary
differences do exist.
Other Slavic languages
Slavic language varieties are relatively closely related, and have had a large degree of mutual influence, due to the complicated ethnopolitical history of their historic ranges. This is reflected in the many features Slovak shares with neighboring language varieties. Standard Slovak shares high degrees of mutual intelligibility with many Slavic varieties. Despite this closeness to other Slavic varieties, significant variation exists among Slovak dialects. In particular, eastern varieties differ significantly from the standard language, which is based on central and western varieties.
Eastern Slovak dialects
Eastern Slovak dialects ( sk, východoslovenské nárečia, východniarčina), are dialects of the Slovak language spoken natively in the historical regions of Spiš, Šariš, Zemplín and Abov, in the east of Slovakia. In contrast to other dia ...
have the greatest degree of mutual intelligibility with
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
of all the Slovak dialects, followed by
Rusyn
Rusyn may refer to:
* Rusyns, Rusyn people, an East Slavic people
** Pannonian Rusyns, Pannonian Rusyn people, a branch of Rusyn people
** Lemkos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
** Boykos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
* Rusyn l ...
, but both Eastern Slovak and Rusyn lack familiar technical terminology and upper
register
Register or registration may refer to:
Arts entertainment, and media Music
* Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc.
* ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller
* Registration (organ), the ...
expressions. Polish and
Sorbian also differ quite considerably from Czech and Slovak in upper registers, but non-technical and lower register speech is readily intelligible. Some mutual intelligibility occurs with spoken
Rusyn
Rusyn may refer to:
* Rusyns, Rusyn people, an East Slavic people
** Pannonian Rusyns, Pannonian Rusyn people, a branch of Rusyn people
** Lemkos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
** Boykos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
* Rusyn l ...
,
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
, and even
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
(in this order), although their orthographies are based on the
Cyrillic script
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, ...
.
Latin
* : (stick)
* : (monastery)
* : (church)
* : (shirt)
* : (blot, stain)
* : (school)
* : (cupboard)
* : (title)
English
Sports:
* : to do sports
* : sport
* : football (
Association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
; it can also mean
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
, especially when specified as )
* : offside
* : out (football)
* : hockey
* : body check (hockey)
Food:
* : ham & eggs
* :
ketchup
Ketchup or catsup is a table condiment with a sweet and tangy flavor. The unmodified term ("ketchup") now typically refers to tomato ketchup, although early recipes used egg whites, mushrooms, oysters, grapes, mussels, or walnuts, among other ...
Clothing:
* : jeans
* : leggings
* : sweater
* : tennis shoes
Exclamations:
* : fine
* : super
German
Nouns:
* : (rubbish)
* : (guild)
* : (goal/target)
* : (tin)
* : (blanket)
* : (wire)
* : (coat-of-arms, from "to inherit")
* : (falsity)
* : (color)
* : (carnival)
* : (viola)
* : (bottle)
* : (load)
* : (count)
* : (hook)
* : (helmet)
* : (hand plane)
* : (funfair)
* : (dumpling)
* : (coin)
* : (verdict)
* : (stocking)
* : (sheet metal)
* : (shelf)
* : (backpack)
* : (pipe)
* : (knight)
* : (mine shaft)
* : (roof shingle)
* : (cord)
* : (purse)
* : (topic)
* : (bathtub)
* : (Christmas)
* : (flake)
* : (cesspit)
Verbs:
* : (to study (as in, to major in))
* : (to wish)
** Note: colloquially, the standard term in Slovak is
Greetings:
is commonly used as a greeting or upon parting in Slovak-speaking regions and some German-speaking regions, particularly Austria. is also commonly used upon parting in these regions. Both and are used in colloquial, informal conversation.
Hungarian
Hungarians and Slovaks have had a language interaction ever since the settlement of Hungarians in the
Carpathian area. Hungarians also adopted many words from various Slavic languages related to agriculture and administration, and a number of
Hungarian loanwords are found in Slovak. Some examples are as follows:
*"wicker whip": Slovak (the standard name for "whip" is and , itself originating from
Turkish
Turkish may refer to:
*a Turkic language spoken by the Turks
* of or about Turkey
** Turkish language
*** Turkish alphabet
** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
*** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey
*** Turkish communities and mi ...
, usually means only one particular type of it—the "wicker whip") – Hungarian ;
*"dragon/kite": Slovak (rather rare, is far more common in this meaning; often means only "kite", especially a small one that is flown for fun and this term is far more common than in this meaning; for the "dragon kite", the term is still used almost exclusively) – Hungarian .
*"rumour": Slovak , Hungarian ;
*"
camel
A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...
": Slovak , Hungarian ;
*"ditch": Slovak , Hungarian ;
*"glass": Slovak , Hungarian ;
Dialects
![Slovak Dialects EN](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Slovak_Dialects_EN.jpg)
There are many Slovak dialects, which are divided into the following four basic groups:
*
Eastern Slovak dialects
Eastern Slovak dialects ( sk, východoslovenské nárečia, východniarčina), are dialects of the Slovak language spoken natively in the historical regions of Spiš, Šariš, Zemplín and Abov, in the east of Slovakia. In contrast to other dia ...
(in
Spiš
Spiš (Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
,
Šariš
Šariš is the traditional name of a region situated in northeastern Slovakia. It encompasses the territory of the former (comitatus) Sáros county.
History
Sáros county was created in the 13th century from the ''comitatus Novi Castri'' (name ...
,
Zemplín and
Abov
Abov (Hungarian: ''Abaúj'') is historically the Slovak name of an Abaúj County in the Kingdom of Hungary. Today, it is an informal designation of the part of that county situated in Slovakia, as well as the official name of one of Slovakia's tou ...
)
*Central Slovak dialects (in
Liptov
Liptov () is a historical and geographical region in central Slovakia with around 140,000 inhabitants. The area is also known by the German name ''Liptau'', the Hungarian ''Liptó'', the Latin name ''Liptovium'' and the Polish ''Liptów''.
Etymo ...
,
Orava,
Turiec
Turiec is a region in central Slovakia, one of the 21 official tourism regions. The region is not an administrative division today, but between the late 11th century and 1920 it was the Turóc County in the Kingdom of Hungary.
Etymology
The reg ...
,
Tekov
Tekov ungarian: ''Bars''is the traditional name of a region situated in southern and central Slovakia. Its territory encompasses the former Bars county, existing in the Kingdom of Hungary from the 11th century until 1918, though it is now admin ...
,
Hont,
Novohrad,
Gemer and around
Zvolen
Zvolen (; hu, Zólyom; german: Altsohl) is a town in central Slovakia, situated on the confluence of Hron and Slatina rivers, close to Banská Bystrica. It is surrounded by Poľana mountain from the East, by Kremnické vrchy from the West an ...
.)
*Western Slovak dialects (in remaining Slovakia:
Trenčín
Trenčín (, also known by other alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia of the central Váh River valley near the Czech border, around from Bratislava. It has a population of more than 55,000, which makes it the eighth largest municip ...
,
Trnava
Trnava (, german: Tyrnau; hu, Nagyszombat, also known by other alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia, to the northeast of Bratislava, on the Trnávka river. It is the capital of a ''kraj'' (Trnava Region) and of an '' okres'' (Trna ...
,
Nitra
Nitra (; also known by other alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia, situated at the foot of Zobor Mountain in the valley of the river Nitra. It is located 95 km east of Bratislava. With a population of about 78,353, it is the fifth la ...
,
Záhorie
Záhorie ( hu, Erdőhát) is a region in western Slovakia between by the Little Carpathians to the east and the Morava (river), Morava River to the west. Although not an administrative region, it is one of the List of tourism regions of Slovakia, ...
)
*Lowland (dolnozemské) Slovak dialects (outside Slovakia in the
Pannonian Plain
The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large basin situated in south-east Central Europe. The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense, with only the ...
in Serbian
Vojvodina
Vojvodina ( sr-Cyrl, Војводина}), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capital ...
, and in southeastern
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
, western
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
, and the Croatian part of
Syrmia
Syrmia ( sh, Srem/Срем or sh, Srijem/Сријем, label=none) is a region of the southern Pannonian Plain, which lies between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is divided between Serbia and Croatia. Most of the region is flat, with the exce ...
)
The fourth group of dialects is often not considered a separate group, but a subgroup of Central and Western Slovak dialects (see e.g. Štolc, 1968), but it is currently undergoing changes due to contact with surrounding languages (Serbo-Croatian, Romanian, and Hungarian) and long-time geographical separation from Slovakia (see the studies in ''Zborník Spolku vojvodinských slovakistov'', e.g. Dudok, 1993).
The dialect groups differ mostly in phonology, vocabulary, and tonal inflection. Syntactic differences are minor. Central Slovak forms the basis of the present-day standard language. Not all dialects are fully mutually intelligible. It may be difficult for an inhabitant of the western Slovakia to understand a dialect from eastern Slovakia and the other way around.
![Vojvodina slovak map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Vojvodina_slovak_map.png)
The dialects are fragmented geographically, separated by numerous mountain ranges. The first three groups already existed in the 10th century. All of them are spoken by the Slovaks outside Slovakia, and central and western dialects form the basis of the lowland dialects (see above).
The western dialects contain features common with the Moravian dialects in the Czech Republic, the southern central dialects contain a few features common with South Slavic languages, and the eastern dialects a few features common with Polish and the East Slavonic languages (cf. Štolc, 1994). Lowland dialects share some words and
areal feature
In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted to ...
s with the languages surrounding them (Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, and Romanian).
Regulation
Standard Slovak () is defined by an Act of Parliament on the State Language of the Slovak Republic (language law). According to this law, Ministry of Culture approves and publishes the codified form of Slovak based on the judgment of specialised Slovak linguistic institutes and specialists in the area of the state language. This is traditionally Ľudovit Štúr Institute of Linguistics, which is part of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. In practice, Ministry of Culture publishes a document that specifies authoritative reference books for standard Slovak usage, which is called '' (codification handbook). Current regulation was published on 15 March 2021. There are four such publications:
* '', 2013; (grammar rules)
* '', 2020; (dictionary)
* '', 2009; (pronunciation)
* '', 1966; (morphology)
See also
*
Slovak orthography
The first Slovak orthography was proposed by Anton Bernolák (1762–1813) in his ''Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum'', used in the six-volume ''Slovak-Czech-Latin-German-Hungarian Dictionary'' (1825–1927) and used primarily ...
*
Slovak phonology
This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Slovak language.
Vowels
* Vowel length is phonemic in standard Slovak. Both short and long vowels have the same quality. However, in native words, it is contrastive mostly in the case ...
*
Slovak declension
Slovak, like most Slavic languages and Latin, is an inflected language, meaning that the endings (and sometimes also the stems) of most words (nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals) change depending on the given combination of the grammatic ...
*
List of language regulators
This is a list of bodies that consider themselves to be authorities on standard languages, often called language academies. Language academies are motivated by, or closely associated with, linguistic purism and Prestige (sociolinguistics), presti ...
for a list of languages with a regulated standard variety
References
Bibliography
*Dudok, D. (1993) Vznik a charakter slovenských nárečí v juhoslovanskej Vojvodine
''Zborník spolku vojvodinských slovakistov'' 15. Nový Sad: Spolok vojvodinských slovakistov, pp. 19–29.
*
*
*Musilová, K. and Sokolová, M. (2004) Funkčnost česko-slovenských kontaktových jevů v současnosti
In Fiala, J. and Machala, L. (eds.) ''Studia Moravica I'' (''AUPO, Facultas Philosophica Moravica'' 1). Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, pp. 133–146.
*Nábělková, M. (2003) Súčasné kontexty slovensko-českej a česko-slovenskej medzijazykovosti
ontemporary contexts of the Slovak-Czech and Czech-Slovak interlinguality In Pospíšil, I. – Zelenka, M. (eds.) ''Česko-slovenské vztahy v slovanských a středoevropských souvislostech (meziliterárnost a areál)''. Brno: ÚS FF MU, pp. 89–122.
*Nábělková, M. (2006) V čom bližšie, v čom ďalej... Spisovná slovenčina vo vzťahu k spisovnej češtine a k obecnej češtine
n what closer, in what further... Standard Slovak in relation to Standard Czech and Common Czech In Gladkova, H. and Cvrček, V. (eds.) ''Sociální aspekty spisovných jazyků slovanských''. Praha: Euroslavica, pp. 93–106.
*Nábělková, M. (2007
Closely related languages in contact: Czech, Slovak, "Czechoslovak" ''International Journal of the Sociology of Language'' 183, pp. 53–73.
*Nábělková, M. (2008) ''Slovenčina a čeština v kontakte: Pokračovanie príbehu.''
lovak and Czech in Contact: Continuation of the Story Bratislava/Praha: Veda/Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy. 364 pp.,
*
*Sloboda, M. (2004) Slovensko-česká (semi)komunikace a vzájemná (ne)srozumitelnost
lovak-Czech (semi)communication and the mutual (un)intelligibility ''Čeština doma a ve světě'' XII, No. 3–4, pp. 208–220.
*Sokolová, M. (1995) České kontaktové javy v slovenčine
zech contact phenomena in Slovak
Julius August Christoph Zech (24 February 1821 Stuttgart, Germany − 13 July 1864 Berg) was a German astronomer and mathematician.
In 1849, Zech published a table of logarithms; as a result, Zech logarithms for finite field
In mathematic ...
In Ondrejovič, S. and Šimková, M. (eds.) ''Sociolingvistické aspekty výskumu súčasnej slovenčiny'' (''Sociolinguistica Slovaca'' 1). Bratislava: Veda, pp. 188–206.
*Štolc, Jozef (1968) ''Reč Slovákov v Juhoslávii I.: Zvuková a gramatická stavba''
he speech of the Slovaks in Yugoslavia: phonological and grammatical structure Bratislava: Vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akadémie vied.
*Štolc, Jozef (1994) ''Slovenská dialektológia''
lovak dialectology Ed. I. Ripka. Bratislava: Veda.
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics – Slovak Academy of SciencesSlovak Monolingual DictionariesSlovake.eu – Online Language CourseOnline Translation DictionariesE-Slovak – Online Language CourseSlovak Language Lessons for Beginners
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slovak Language
Languages of Slovakia
Languages of the Czech Republic
Languages of Hungary
Languages of Serbia
Subject–verb–object languages
West Slavic languages
Slavic languages written in Latin script