Slovak has preserved many of the basic Slavic word roots and sounds of Common Slavic , the original language from which all the Slavic languages descended. Slovak developed as a national language in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, prompted by a rise in the Slovak people's awareness of their national identity and the accompanying need for education and literacy. The Slovak language has gained the soft dental consonants t', d', l' , and , but it lacks a soft r existing also in Polish . Compared with Czech, Slovak word structure has been simplified.
Stress falls on the first syllable of a word.
The vocative case has been virtually lost. Many verbs have an iterative form, which expresses repeated action. Slovak has a complex numeral system and a well-developed system of indefinite pronouns and adverbs.