Slovak language

Slovak(/ˈsloʊvæk,-vɑːk/SLOH-va(h)k;endonym:slovenčina[ˈslɔʋent͡ʂina]orslovenský jazyk[ˈslɔʋenskiːˈjazik]), is aWest Slavic languageof theCzech–Slovak group, written inLatin script.It is part of theIndo-European language family, and is one of theSlavic languages, which are part of the largerBalto-Slavic branch. Spoken by approximately 5 million people as a native language, primarily ethnicSlovaks, it serves as the official language ofSlovakiaand one of the 24official languages of the European Union.
Slovak is closely related toCzech, to the point of very highmutual intelligibility,as well as toPolish.Like other Slavic languages, Slovak is afusional languagewith a complex system ofmorphologyand relatively flexibleword order. Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced byLatinandGerman,as well as otherSlavic languages.
The Czech–Slovak group developed within West Slavic in thehigh medievalperiod, 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 modernSlovak alphabetand written standard became codified byĽudovít Štúrand reformed byMartin Hattala. TheMoravian dialectsspoken in the western part of the country along the border with theCzech Republicare 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 language is primarily spoken in Slovakia. The country's constitution declared it the official language of the state (štátny jazyk):
Constitution of Slovakia, Article 6.
Beside that, national minorities and ethnic groups also have explicit permission to use their distinct languages.Slovakia is a country with establishedLanguage policyconcerning itsofficial language.
Standard Slovak (spisovná slovenčina) is defined by an Act of Parliament on the State Language of the Slovak Republic (language law). According to this law, the 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 theĽudovít Štúr Institute of Linguistics, which is part of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. In practice, the Ministry of Culture publishes a document that specifies authoritative reference books for standard Slovak usage, which is called the codification handbook (kodifikačná príručka). The current regulations were published on 15 March 2021. There are four such publications:
Slovak speakers are also found in theSlovak diasporain theUnited States, theCzech Republic,Argentina,Serbia,Ireland,Romania,Poland,Canada,Hungary,Germany,Croatia,Israel, theUnited Kingdom,Australia,Austria,Ukraine,Norway, and other countries to a lesser extent.
Slovak language is one of the official languages ofAutonomous Province of Vojvodina.
There are many Slovak dialects, which are divided into the following four basic groups:
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 inZborník 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.
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 andareal featureswith the languages surrounding them (Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, and Romanian).
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, unlike Czech, employs a"rhythmic law"which forbids two long vowels from following one another within the same word. In such cases the second vowel is shortened. For example, adding the locative plural ending-áchto the rootvín-createsvínach, not*vínách.This law also applies to diphthongs; for example, the adjective meaning "white" isbiely, not*bielý(compare Czechbílý).
Slovak hasfinal devoicing; when a voiced consonant (b, d, ď, g, dz, dž, z, ž, h) is at the end of a word before a pause, it is devoiced to its voiceless counterpart (p, t, ť, k, c, č, s, š, ch, respectively). For example,pohybis pronounced/pɔɦip/andprípadis pronounced/priːpat/.
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,otázkais pronounced/ɔtaːska/andvzchopiť sais pronounced/fsxɔpitsːa/. This rule applies also over the word boundary. For example,prísť domov[priːzɟdɔmɔw](to come home) andviac jahôd[ʋɪɐdzjaɦʊɔt](more strawberries). The voiced counterpart of "ch"/x/is[ɣ], and the unvoiced counterpart of "h"/ɦ/is/x/.
Slovak uses theLatin scriptwith small modifications that include the fourdiacritics(ˇ, ´, ¨, ˆ) placed above certain letters (a-á,ä; c-č; d-ď; dz-dž; e-é; i-í; l-ľ,ĺ; n-ň; o-ó,ô; r-ŕ; s-š; t-ť; u-ú; y-ý; z-ž)
Italicletters are used in loanwords and foreign names.
The primary principle of Slovak spelling is thephonemicprinciple. 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 ofiafter certain consonants and ofyafter other consonants, although bothiandyare 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.pekný= nice – singular versuspekní= nice – plural). Such spellings are most often remnants of differences in pronunciation that were present in Proto-Slavic (in Polish, where the vowel merger did not occur,pięknyandpiękniand in Czechpěknýandpěkníare pronounced differently).
Mostloanwordsfrom foreign languages are respelt using Slovak principles either immediately or later. For example, "weekend" is spelledvíkend, "software" –softvér, "gay" –gej(both not exclusively), and "quality" is spelledkvalita. 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.Londýnfor "London").
Slovak features someheterophonic homographs(words with identical spelling but different pronunciation and meaning), the most common examples beingkrásne/ˈkraːsnɛ/(beautiful) versuskrásne/ˈkraːsɲɛ/(beautifully).
The main features of Slovak syntax are as follows:
Some examples include the following:
Word order in Slovak is relatively free, since stronginflectionenables the identification ofgrammatical roles(subject, object, predicate, etc.) regardless of word placement. This relatively free word order allows the use of word order to conveytopic and emphasis.
Some examples are as follows:
Theunmarkedorder issubject–verb–object. Variation in word order is generally possible, but word order is not completely free.
In the above example, the noun phraseten veľký mužcannot be split up, so that the following combinations are not possible:
And the following sentence is stylistically infelicitous:
The regular variants are as follows:
Slovak, like every major Slavic language other thanBulgarianandMacedonian, does not have articles. The demonstrative pronoun in masculine formten(that one) ortáin feminine andtoin neuter respectively, may be used in front of the noun in situations wheredefinitenessmust be made explicit.
Slovak nouns are inflected forcaseandnumber. There are six cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, and instrumental. Thevocativeis purely optional and most of the time unmarked. It is used mainly in spoken language and in some fixed expressions:mamamum (nominative) vs.mamimum! (vocative),tato,ocodad (N) vs.tati,ocidad! (V),pánMr., sir vs.panesir (when addressing someone e.g. in the street). There are two numbers: singular and plural. Nouns have inherentgender. There are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives and pronouns must agree with nouns in case, number, and gender.
The numerals 0–10 have unique forms, with numerals 1–4 requiring specific gendered representations. Numerals 11–19 are formed by addingnásťto the end of each numeral. The suffixdsaťis used to create numerals 20, 30 and 40; for numerals 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90,desiatis used. Compound numerals (21, 1054) are combinations of these words formed in the same order as their mathematical symbol is written (e.g. 21 =dvadsaťjeden, literally "twenty-one").
The numerals are as follows:
Some higher numbers: (200)dvesto, (300)tristo, (900)deväťsto, (1,000)tisíc, (1,100)tisícsto, (2,000)dvetisíc, (100,000)stotisíc, (200,000)dvestotisíc, (1,000,000)milión, (1,000,000,000)miliarda.
Counted nouns have two forms. The most common form is the plural genitive (e.g.päť domov= five houses orstodva žien= 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.dva domy= two houses ordve ženy= two women) but gender rules do apply in many cases.
Verbs have three major conjugations. Three persons and two numbers (singular and plural) are distinguished.Subjectpersonal pronounsare omitted unless they are emphatic.
Severalconjugationparadigms exist as follows:
Adverbs are formed by replacing the adjectival ending with the ending -oor -e/ -y. Sometimes both -oand -eare possible. Examples include the following:
The comparative of adverbs is formed by replacing the adjectival ending with a comparative/superlative ending -(ej)šíor -(ej)šie, whence the superlative is formed with the prefixnaj-.Examples include the following:
Each preposition is associated with one or more grammatical cases. The noun governed by a preposition must agree with the preposition in the given context. The prepositionodalways calls for the genitive case, but some prepositions such aspocan call for different cases depending on the intended sense of the preposition.
Slovak is a descendant ofProto-Slavic, itself a descendant ofProto-Indo-European. It is closely related to the otherWest Slavic languages, primarily toCzechandPolish. Czech also influenced the language in its later development. The highest number of borrowings in the old Slovak vocabulary come fromLatin,German, Czech,Hungarian, Polish andGreek(in that order).Recently, it is also influenced by English.
Although most dialects of Czech and Slovak aremutually intelligible(seeComparison of Slovak and Czech),eastern Slovak dialectsare less intelligible to speakers of Czech and closer to Polish andEast Slavic, and contact between speakers of Czech and speakers of the eastern dialects is limited.
Since thedissolution of Czechoslovakiait 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 ofCzechoslovakiain 1918, a state which existed until 1993.LiterarySlovak shares significantorthographic features with Czech, as well as technical and professional terminology dating from the Czechoslovak period, but phonetic, grammatical, and vocabularydifferencesdo exist.
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 dialectshave the greatest degree of mutual intelligibility withPolishof all the Slovak dialects, followed byRusyn, but both Eastern Slovak and Rusyn lack familiar technical terminology and upperregisterexpressions. Polish andSorbianalso 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 spokenRusyn,Ukrainian, and evenRussian(in this order), although their orthographies are based on theCyrillic script.
Sports:
Food:
Clothing:
Exclamations:
Nouns:
Verbs:
Greetings:
Servusis commonly used as a greeting or upon parting in Slovak-speaking regions and some German-speaking regions, particularly Austria.Papais also commonly used upon parting in these regions. Bothservusandpapaare used in colloquial, informal conversation.
Hungarians and Slovaks have had language interaction ever since the settlement of Hungarians in theCarpathian area. Hungarians also adopted many words from various Slavic languages related to agriculture and administration, and a number ofHungarian loanwordsare found in Slovak. Some examples are as follows:
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Slovak:
Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rightsin English: