Slovak language

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Slovak language

The Slovak language (slovencina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with slovenšcina), sometimes incorrectly called “Slovakian”, is an Indo-European language

Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a Language family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau , Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent ....
that belongs to the West Slavic languages

West Slavic languages

The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic languages that includes Czech language, Polish language, Slovak language, and Sorbian language....
(together with Czech

Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czech people worldwide....
, Polish

Polish language

Polish , an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic languages. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a regular orthography....
, Silesian, Kashubian

Kashubian language

Kashubian or Cassubian is one of the Lechitic languages, a subgroup of the Slavic languages.Kashubian is assumed to have evolved from the language spoken by some tribes of Pomeranians called Kashubians, in the region of Pomerania, on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea between the Vistula and Oder River rivers....
, and Sorbian).

The Czech and Slovak languages are mutually intelligible

Mutual intelligibility

In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort....
which means that even after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia

Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

The dissolution of Czechoslovakia, which took effect on 1 January 1993, saw Czechoslovakia split into two separate countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia....
Czech may be used in all official proceedings and documents in Slovakia, and vice versa.

Slovak is spoken in Slovakia

Slovakia

Slovakia . It was amended in September 1998 to allow direct election of the president and again in February 2001 due to EU admission requirements....
(by 5 million people), the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
(500,000), the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east....
(320,000), northern Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country in Central Europe and Balkans Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkans....
(60,000), Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....
(30,000), Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located in Southeastern Europe Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian Mountains, bordering on the Black Sea....
(22,000), Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially in English the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia....
(20,000), Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
(20,000), Canada

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
(20,000), Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a Central European country at the crossroads of Pannonian Plain, Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea....
(5,000), Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south....
, and Bulgaria

Bulgaria

The state of Bulgaria , Scientific transliteration Balgarija, officially the Republic of Bulgaria has played a significant role in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe for over fourteen centuries....
.

Alphabet
Slovak uses a modification of the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

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Encyclopedia

The Slovak language (slovencina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with slovenšcina), sometimes incorrectly called “Slovakian”, is an Indo-European language

Indo-European languages

West Slavic languages

The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic languages that includes Czech language, Polish language, Slovak language, and Sorbian language....
(together with Czech

Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czech people worldwide....
, Polish

Polish language

Kashubian language

Mutual intelligibility

Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

Slovakia

Slovakia . It was amended in September 1998 to allow direct election of the president and again in February 2001 due to EU admission requirements....
(by 5 million people), the United States

United States

Czech Republic

Serbia

Ireland

Romania

Hungary

Poland

Canada

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a Central European country at the crossroads of Pannonian Plain, Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea....
(5,000), Australia

Australia

Austria

Ukraine

Bulgaria

Alphabet

Slovak uses a modification of the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
. The modifications include the four diacriticals (?, ´, ¨, ^; see Pronunciation) placed above certain letters.

Orthography

The primary principle of Slovak spelling is the phonemic
Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
principle, "Write as you hear". 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 pronounced the same way. Finally there is the rarely applied grammatical principle, under which, for example, there is a difference in writing (but not in the pronunciation) between the basic singular and plural form of masculine adjectives, for example pekný (nice – sg.) vs pekní (nice – pl.), both pronounced [].

Most foreign words

Loanword

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the Meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself....
receive Slovak spelling immediately or after some time. For example, "weekend" is víkend, "software" is softvér (not exclusively), and "quality" is spelled kvalita (possibly from Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
qualità). Personal and geographical names from other languages using Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
s keep their original spelling, unless there is a fully Slovak form for the name (for example Londýn for "London").

Slovak orthography has changed many times. One of the most important changes was after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
when s began to be written as z where pronounced as [z] in prefixes, for example smluva into zmluva, sväz into zväz. (That is, the phonemic principle has been given priority over the etymological principle in this case.)

The Slovak alphabet (minus the vowel diacritics) is often used to transcribe Ukrainian

Ukrainian language

Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic languages of the Slavic languages. It is the official language of Ukraine. In some areas of Russia there are dialects, Balachka or Surzhyk, which are the Ukrainianized versions of the Russian language....
or Russian

Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
into the Latin alphabet.

The Slovak language has distinctive palatalization

Palatalization

Palatalization or palatalisation generally refers to two phenomena:*As a process or the result of a process, the effect that front vowels and the palatal approximant frequently have on consonants;...
. Among the Slavic languages that do not use the Latin alphabet, Slovak is the closest to Rusyn

Rusyn language

Rusyn is an East Slavic languages that is spoken by the Rusyns. Opinions differ among linguists concerning whether Rusyn is a separate East Slavic language or a dialect of Ukrainian language....
and then to Ukrainian

Ukrainian language

Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
. Many Slovak words are familiar to Ruthenian speakers and to a much lesser extent, Ukrainian speakers.

English word	Slovak	Ruthenian	Ukrainian
to buy	kupovat	kupovaty	kupuvaty
Hello!	Vitajte!	Vitajte!	Vitaju!
morning	ráno	rano	rano(k)
Thank you	Dakujem	Dakuju	Dakuju
How are you doing?	Ako sa máš?	Jak s'a maješ / maš?	Jak spravy? Jak s'a maješ?

Note: Jak s'a maješ? in Ukraine

Ukraine

Polonization

Polonization is the acquisition or imposition of elements of Polish culture, especially Polish language, as experienced in some historic periods by non-Polish populations of territories controlled or substantially influenced by Poland....
version of greeting. In proper Ukrainian

Ukrainian language

Accent (poetry)

In poetry, accent refers to the Stress syllable of a polysyllabic word, or a monosyllabic word that receives stress because it belongs to an "open class" of words or because of "contrastive" or "rhetorical" stress....
(stress

Stress (linguistics)

In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables....
) in the standard language is always placed on the first syllable of a word (or on the preceding preposition, see below). This is not the case in certain dialects. The eastern dialects, for example, have penultimate stress, which at times makes them difficult for speakers of Standard Slovak to understand. Some of the north-central dialects have a weak stress on the first syllable, which becomes stronger and "moves" to the penultimate in certain cases. Monosyllabic conjunctions, monosyllabic short personal pronouns and auxiliary verb forms of the verb byt (to be) are, as a rule, not stressed.

Prepositions form a single prosodic

Prosody (linguistics)

In linguistics, prosody is the rhythm, stress , and intonation of connected speech . Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of a speaker; whether an utterance is a statement, a question, or a command; whether the speaker is being ironic or sarcastic; emphasis, contrast, and focus ; or othe...
unit with the following word, unless the word is long (four syllables or more) or the preposition stands at the beginning of a sentence.

The acute

Acute accent

The acute accent is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet and Greek alphabet writing systems....
mark (in Slovak "dlžen", "prolongation mark") indicates a long vowel

Vowel length

In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one such as in Australian English....
, for example í = approximately /i:/. This mark may appear on any vowel except "ä" (wide "e", široké "e" in Slovak). It may also appear above the consonants "l" and "r" (which, in such cases, are considered vowels).

The circumflex

Circumflex

The circumflex is a diacritic mark used in written Serbian language, Croatian language, Esperanto, French language, West Frisian language, Norwegian language, Romanian language, Slovak language, Vietnamese language, Romaji, Romanization of Persian, Welsh language, Portuguese language, Italian language, Afrikaans language, Turkish language...
("vokán") exists only above the letter "o." It turns the o into a diphthong

Diphthong

In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel?that is, a unitary vowel that changes vowel quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a glissando of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts with "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, where the tongue is held s...
(see below).

The umlaut

Umlaut (diacritic)

The word umlaut is the name of a type of sound shift in spoken language and of the diacritic mark used to represent it Orthography. The diacritic mark comprises a pair of dots or lines placed over the letter that represents the affected Vowel....
("prehláska", "dve bodky" = two dots) is only used above the letter "a." It indicates a raised vowel, almost an "e".

The caron

Caron

A caron or h?cek , also known as a wedge, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, is a diacritic placed over certain letters to indicate present or historical palatalization, iotation, or postalveolar consonant pronunciation in the orthography of some Baltic languages, Slavic languages, Finno-Lappic languages, and other la...
(in Slovak "mäkcen", "palatalization mark" or "softener") indicates either palatalization or a change of alveolar fricatives into post-alveolar, in informal Slovak linguistics often called just "palatalization". Eight consonants can bear a caron. Not all "normal" consonants have a "caroned" counterpart:

In printed texts, the caron is printed in two forms: (1) c, dž, š, ž, n and (2) l, d, t (looking more like an apostrophe), but this is just a convention. In handwritten texts, it always appears in the first form.
Phonetically, there are two forms of "palatalization": l, n, d, t are palatalized
Palatalization

Palatalization or palatalisation generally refers to two phenomena:*As a process or the result of a process, the effect that front vowels and the palatal approximant frequently have on consonants;...
consonants, while c, dž, š, ž are postalveolar affricates and fricatives.
To accelerate writing, a rule has been introduced that the frequent character combinations ne, de, te, le, ni, di, ti, li, ní, dí, tí, lí are simply written ne, de, te, le, ni, di, ti, li, ní, dí, tí, lí (that is without the caron). These combinations are usually pronounced as if there were a caron above the consonant. There are exceptions:

foreign words (for example telefón is pronounced with a hard t and a hard l)
the following words: ten (that), jeden (one), vtedy (then), teraz (now)
nominative masculine plural endings of pronouns and adjectives do not "soften" preceding n, d, t, l (for example tí odvážni mladí muži , the/those brave young men)
short e in adjectival endings, which is derived from long é shortened by the "rhythmical rule" (see below), does not "soften" preceding n, d, t, l (for example krásne stromy , beautiful trees, c.f. zelené stromy , green trees)

l is current pronounced by many speakers, particularly from western Slovakia, as a non-palatalized l, esp. in li and le where the caron is not written. The palatalized pronunciation of li and le as palatalized has become a middle and eastern dialect feature, or as a sign of hypercorrectness
Hypercorrection

Hypercorrection is a linguistic phenomenon which may take any of the following forms:# an elaborate, Prescription and description based correction of common usage, often introduced in an attempt to avoid vulgarity or informality, that results in wording commonly considered clumsier than the usual, colloquialism;...
.

In addition, the following rules hold:

When a voiced consonant having a voiceless correspondent (that is b, d, d, dz, dž, g, h, z, ž) stands at the end of the word before a pause, it is pronounced as a voiceless consonant (that is p, t, t, c, c, k, ch, s, š, respectively), for example pohyb is pronounced , prípad is pronounced
When "v" stands at the end of the syllable, it is pronounced as non-syllabic u (bilabial approximant ), with the exception of the position before "n" or "n", for example, kov (metal), kravský (cow - adjective), but povstat (uprise) because the v is not at the end of the syllable (po-vstat), hlavný because "v" stands before "n" here
The assimilation rule: 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, otázka is pronounced , vzchopit sa is pronounced . This rule applies also over the word boundary, for example príst domov (to come home), viac jahôd (more strawberries). The voiced counterpart of "ch" is .
The rhythmical rule: A long syllable (that is, a syllable containing á, é, í, ý, ó, ú, r, l, ia, ie, iu, ô) cannot be followed by another long syllable in the same word. This rule has morphonemic implications: for example žen-ám but tráv-am) and conjugation
Grammatical conjugation

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb, noun or adjective from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical tense, Grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, or other grammatical category....
(for example nos-ím but súd-im). There are several exceptions to this rule. It is typical of the literary Slovak language, and does not appear in Czech
Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czech people worldwide....
, or in some Slovak dialects.

Official transcriptions

Slovak linguists do not usually use IPA for phonetic transcription of their own language or others, but have their own system based on the Slovak alphabet. Many English language textbooks make use of this alternative system of 'phonetic' transcription, a factor which probably contributes to some Slovaks developing a particular ('incorrect') pronunciation of certain English phonemes. In the following table, pronunciation of each grapheme is given in this system as well as in the IPA.

grapheme	IPA	transcr.
a	a
á	á
ä		ä, e
b	b
c		c
c		c
d		d
d		d
dz
dž
e		e
é		é
f		f
g		g
h		h
ch		x
i		i
í		í
j		j
k		k
l		l
l
l		l
m		m
n	n
n		n
o	o
ó		ó
ô		uo
p		p
q		kv
r		r
r
s		s
š		š
t		t
t		t
u		u
ú		ú
v		v
w		v
x		ks
y		i
ý		í
z		z
ž		ž

Some additional notes (transcriptions in IPA unless otherwise stated):

Pronunciation of ä as [æ] is already archaic (or dialectical) but still considered correct by some authorities; the other standard pronunciation today is .
r and l can be syllabic and and behave as vowels. When they are used in this manner, they may be written with the acute accent (r and l). e.g., vlk (wolf), prst (finger), štvrt (quarter), krk (neck), bisyllabic vlca—vl-ca (wolfling), vrba—vr-ba (willow-tree), etc.
ch, normally the unvoiced [x], has a voiced allophone resulting from assimilation .
The graphic group -ou (at the end of words) is pronounced but is not considered a separate diphthong. Its phonemic interpretation is /ov/.
ia, ie, iu form diphthongs in native Slovak words, but two monophtongs in foreign and loan words.
m has the allophone in front of the labiodental fricatives /f/ and /v/.
n in front of (post)alveolar fricatives has an allophone written as in Slovak phonemic transcription.
n can be [?] in front of the velar plosives /k/ and /g/.
f can be voiced as a result of phonetic assimilation.

Syntax

The main features of Slovak syntax are:

The verb (predicate
Predicate (grammar)

In traditional grammar, a predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence . In current semantics, a predicate is an expression that can be true of something....
) agrees in person and number with its subject
Subject (grammar)

The subject is one of the two main constituent every sentence can be divided into, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle....
, for example:

Spevácka spieva. (The+female+singer is+singing.)

Spevácky spievajú. (The+female+singers are+singing.)

|hiatus]] sound)

My spevácky spievame. (We the+female+singers are+singing.)

and so forth.

Adjectives, pronouns and numerals agree in person
Person

The term person in common usage means an individual human being. In the fields of law, philosophy, medicine, and others, the term also has specialised context-specific meanings....
, gender
Gender

Gender comprises a range of differences between man and woman, extending from the biological to the social. Biologically, the male gender is defined by the presence of a Y-chromosome, and its absence in the female gender....
and case
Grammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject , of direct object, or of possession ....
with the noun to which it refers(see Slovak declension
Slovak declension

The Slovak language, like most Slavic languages or like Latin, is an inflected language, meaning that the Ending s of most words change depending on the given combination of the grammatical gender, the grammatical number and the grammatical case of the particular word in the particular sentence:...
).

Adjectives precedes their noun. Botanic or zoological terms are exceptions (for example, macka divá, literally "cat wild", Felis silvestris).

Word order in Slovak is relatively free, since strong inflection

Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as grammatical tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical case....
enables the identification of thematic role

Thematic relation

In linguistics, thematic relations express the meaning that a Noun phrase plays with respect to the action or state described by a sentence's verb....
(subject, object, predicate, etc.) regardless of its placement. This relatively free word order allows the use of word order in information structure.

Examples:

Ten velký muž tam dnes otvára obchod. = That big man opens a store there today. (ten = that; velký = big; muž = man; tam = there; dnes = today; otvára = opens; obchod = store)

Ten velký muž dnes otvára obchod tam. = That big man is today opening a store there.

Dnes tam otvára obchod ten velký muž. = Today over there a store is being opened by that big man.

Obchod tam dnes otvára ten velký muž. = The store over there is today being opened by that big man.

The unmarked

Markedness

Markedness is a Linguistics concept that developed out of the Prague School. A marked form is a non-basic or less natural form. An unmarked form is a basic, default form....
order is Subject-Verb-Object. Word order is not completely free. In the above example, the following combinations are not possible:

Ten otvára velký muž tam dnes obchod.

Obchod muž tam ten velký dnes otvára. ...

The following are unlikely:

Otvára ten velký muž tam dnes obchod? = Is that big man opening the store there?

Obchod ten velký muž dnes tam otvára.

Morphology

Articles

There are no articles in the Slovak language. The demonstrative pronoun ten (fem: tá, neuter: to) may be used in front of the noun in situations where definiteness

Definiteness

In grammar, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....
must be indicated.

Nouns

See: Slovak declension

Slovak declension

The Slovak language, like most Slavic languages or like Latin, is an inflected language, meaning that the Ending s of most words change depending on the given combination of the grammatical gender, the grammatical number and the grammatical case of the particular word in the particular sentence:...

Adjectives

See: Slovak declension

Slovak declension

Pronouns

See: Slovak declension

Slovak declension

Numerals

There are unique forms for 0-10. 11-19 are formed by the numeral plus "nást." Compound numerals (21, 1054) are combinations of these words formed in the same order as their mathematical symbol is written (for example 21 = dvadsatjeden, literally "twenty one")).

The numerals are: (1) jeden (jedno (neuter), jedna (feminine)), (2) dva (dve (neuter, feminine)), (3) tri, (4) štyri, (5) pät, (6) šest, (7) sedem, (8) osem, (9) devät, (10) desat, (11) jedenást, (12) dvanást, (13) trinást, (14) štrnást, (15) pätnást, (16) šestnást, (17) sedemnást, (18) osemnást, (19) devätnást, (20) dvadsat, (21) dvadsatjeden,... (30) tridsat, (31) tridsatjeden,... (40) štyridsat,... (50) pätdesiat,... (60) šestdesiat,... (70) sedemdesiat,... (80) osemdesiat,... (90) devätdesiat,... (100) sto, (101) stojeden,... (200) dvesto,... (300) tristo,... (900)devätsto,... (1,000) tisíc,... (1,100) tisícsto,... (2,000) dvetisíc,... (100,000) stotisíc,... (200,000) dvestotisíc,... (1,000,000) milión,... (1,000,000,000) miliarda,...

See also: Slovak declension

Slovak declension

Verbs

Verbs have three major conjugations. Three persons and two numbers (singular and plural) are distinguished. There are several conjugation
Grammatical conjugation

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb, noun or adjective from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical tense, Grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, or other grammatical category....
paradigm
Paradigm

The word paradigm has been used in linguistics and science to describe distinct concepts.To the 1960s, the word was specific to grammar: the 1900 Merriam-Webster dictionary defines its technical use only in the context of grammar or, in rhetoric, as a term for an illustrative parable or fable....
s.
á-Type Verbs

volat, to call	Singular	Plural	Past Participle (masculine - feminine)
1st Person	volám	voláme	volal - volala
2nd Person	voláš	voláte
3rd Person	volá	volajú

á-Type Verbs - rhythmic law

bývat, to live	Singular	Plural	Past Participle
1st Person	bývam	bývame	býval - bývala
2nd Person	bývaš	bývate
3rd Person	býva	bývajú

á-Type Verbs - soft stem

vracat, to return	Singular	Plural	Past Participle
1st Person	vraciam	vraciame	vracal - vracala
2nd Person	vraciaš	vraciate
3rd Person	vracia	vracajú

í-Type Verbs

robit, to do, work	Singular	Plural	Past Participle
1st Person	robím	robíme	robil - robila
2nd Person	robíš	robíte
3rd Person	robí	robia

í-Type Verbs - rhythmic law

vrátit, to return	Singular	Plural	Past Participle
1st Person	vrátim	vrátime	vrátil - vrátila
2nd Person	vrátiš	vrátite
3rd Person	vráti	vrátia

ie-Type Verbs

vidiet, to see	Singular	Plural	Past Participle
1st Person	vidím	vidíme	videl - videla
2nd Person	vidíš	vidíte
3rd Person	vidí	vidia

e-Type Verbs -ovat

kupovat, to buy	Singular	Plural	Past Participle
1st Person	kupujem	kupujeme	kupoval - kupovala
2nd Person	kupuješ	kupujete
3rd Person	kupuje	kupujú

e-Type Verbs - (typically -Cnut)

zabudnút, to forget	Singular	Plural	Past Participle
1st Person	zabudnem	zabudneme	zabudol - zabudla
2nd Person	zabudneš	zabudnete
3rd Person	zabudne	zabudnú

ie-Type Verbs - (typically -Vnut)

minút, to spend, miss	Singular	Plural	Past Participle
1st Person	miniem	minieme	minul - minula
2nd Person	minieš	miniete
3rd Person	minie	minú

ie-Type Verbs - -ct, -st, -zt

niest, to carry	Singular	Plural	Past Participle
1st Person	nesiem	nesieme	niesol - niesla
2nd Person	nesieš	nesiete
3rd Person	nesie	nesú

ie-Type Verbs - -niet

stucniet, to carry (be fat)	Singular	Plural	Past Participle
1st Person	stucniem	stucnieme	stucnel - stucnela
2nd Person	stucnieš	stucniete
3rd Person	stucnie	stucnejú

Irregular Verbs

	byt, to be	jest, to eat	vediet, to know
1st Sg	som	jem	viem
2nd Sg	si	ješ	vieš
3rd Sg	je	je	vie
1st Pl	sme	jeme	vieme
2nd Pl	ste	jete	viete
3rd Pl	sú	jedia	vedia
Past Participle	bol	jedol	vedel

Subject
Subject (grammar)

The subject is one of the two main constituent every sentence can be divided into, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle....
personal pronoun
Personal pronoun

Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known human languages have personal pronouns....
s are omitted unless they are emphatic.

Non-continuous time is indicated with a perfective verb and the continuous version with an imperfective verb which is formed on the perfective stem. These are considered separate lexemes. Example: :to hide = skryt, to be hiding = skrývat

Historically, there were two past tenses
Preterite

The preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place in the past. It is similar to the aorist in languages such as Greek language....
. Both are formed analytically. One of these is not used in the modern language, being considered dated and/or grammatically incorrect. Examples for two related verbs:

skryt (to hide) : skryl som (I hid / I have hidden); bol som skryl (I had hidden)

skrývat (to be hiding): skrýval som (I was hiding); bol som skrýval (I had been hiding)

There is one future tense
Future tense

In grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
. For imperfective verbs, it is formed analytically, for perfective verbs it is identical with the present tense. Examples:

skryt (to hide) : skryjem (I will hide / I will have hidden)

skrývat (to be hiding) : budem skrývat (I will be hiding)

There are two conditional forms. Both are formed analytically from the past tense:

skryt (to hide) : skryl by som (I would hide), bol by som skryl (I would have hidden)

skrývat (to be hiding) : skrýval by som (I would be hiding), bol by som skrýval (I would have been hiding)

The passive voice is formed either as in English (to be + past participle) or as in Romance languages
Romance languages

The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages comprising all the languages that descend from Latin language, the language of ancient Rome....
(using the reflexive pronoun 'sa'):

skryt (to hide): je skrytý (he is hidden); sa skryje (he is hidden)

skrývat (to be hiding): je skrývaný (he is being hidden); sa skrýva (he is being hidden)

The active present participle
Participle

In linguistics, a participle is a derivative of a non-finite verb verb, which can be used in compound Grammatical tense or Grammatical voice, or as a Grammatical modifier....
(=which is ...ing) is formed using the suffixes –úci/ -iaci / - aci

skryt (to hide) : skryjúci (which is hiding)

skrývat (to be hiding): skrývajúci (which is being hiding)

The gerund
Gerund

In linguistics, ?gerund? is a term used to refer to various non-finite verb in various languages:* As applied to English language, it refers to what might be called a verb's action noun, which is one of the uses of the -ing form....
(=by/when ...ing) is formed using the suffixes –úc / -uc / –iac/-ac

skryt (to hide): skryjúc (by/when hiding)

skrývat (to be hiding): skrývajúc (by/when being hiding)

The active past participle
Participle

In linguistics, a participle is a derivative of a non-finite verb verb, which can be used in compound Grammatical tense or Grammatical voice, or as a Grammatical modifier....
(= which was ...ing) was formerly formed using the suffix –vší, but is no longer used.

The passive participle (= ...ed (adj.)) is formed using the suffixes -ný / -tý / -ený:

skryt (to hide): skrytý (hid)

skrývat (to be hiding): skrývaný (being hidden)

The 'verbal noun' (= the ...ing) is formed using the suffix –ie:

skryt (to hide): skrytie (the hiding)

skrývat (to be hiding): skrývanie (the continuous hiding)

Adverbs

Adverbs are formed by replacing the adjectival ending with the ending –o or –e/-y. Sometimes both –o and -e are possible. Examples:

vysoký (high) – vysoko (highly)

pekný (nice) – pekne (nicely)

priatelský (friendly) – priatelsky (in a friendly manner)

rýchly (fast) – rýchlo / rýchle (quickly)

The comparative/superlative of adverbs is formed by replacing the adjectival ending with a comparative/superlative ending -(ej)ší or –(ej)šie. Examples:

rýchly (fast)– rýchlejší (faster) – najrýchlejší (fastest):rýchlo (quickly) – rýchlejšie (more quickly) – najrýchlejšie (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. Example:

from friends = od priatelov

Priatelov is the genitive case of priatelia. It must appear in this case because the preposition od (=from) always calls for its objects to be in the genitive.

throughout the square = po námestí (locative case)

past the square = po námestie (accusative case)

Po has a different meaning depending on the case of its governed noun.

History

Relationships to other languages

The Slovak language is a descendant of Proto-Slavic language, itself a descendant of Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
. It is closely related to the other West Slavic languages

West Slavic languages

The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic languages that includes Czech language, Polish language, Slovak language, and Sorbian language....
. In particular, Slovak is very closely related to the Czech language

Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czech people worldwide....
. It also has some striking similiarities with other Slavic languages

Slavic languages

File:Slavic europe.svgThe Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia....
. The Slovak language has been influenced by many languages, including Czech, Polish

Polish language

German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
.

The Slavic language varieties tend to be 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, there is significant variation among Slovak dialects. In particular, eastern varieties differ significantly from the standard language, which is based on central and western varieties.

Most dialects of Czech and Slovak are mutually intelligible

Mutual intelligibility

In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort....
; the two are sometimes considered to be poles of a dialect continuum

Dialect continuum

A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater....
(see Differences between Slovak and Czech languages

Differences between Slovak and Czech languages

Linguistically, the Czech and Slovak languages form a language continuum, eastern Slovak dialects then blend into the Rusyn language. Czech exists in two different forms : literary Czech and colloquial Czech....
). The two varieties have a long history of interaction and mutual influence well before the creation of Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918 until 1992 . On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia dissolution of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia....
in 1918. The written form is very close to the Czech one, but there are phonetic and vocabulary differences. Literary

Literary language

A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include Sacred language. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others....
Slovak shares significant orthographic features with Czech

Czech orthography

Czech orthography is a system of rules for correct writing in the Czech language.The Czech orthographic system is diacritic. The h?cek is added to standard Latin letters for expressing sounds which are foreign to the Latin language ....
, as well technical and professional terminology dating from the Czechoslovakian period.

Eastern Slovak dialects are less intelligible with Czech; they differ structurally from Czech and from other Slovak dialects, and contact between speakers of Czech and speakers of eastern dialects is limited. However, Eastern Slovak dialects have some intelligibility with Rusyn

Rusyn language

In linguistics, a register is a subset of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, an English language speaker may adhere more closely to prescription and description, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal and refrain from using the word "ain't" when speaking in a formal setting, bu...
expressions. Polish and Sorbian also differ from Czech and Slovak in upper registers, but non-technical and lower register speech is readily intelligible. There is also some mutual intelligibility with spoken Polish

Polish language

Polish orthography

Note that Polish , , , are laminal Postalveolar consonant and may perhaps be most accurately transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet Retracted diacritic as , , , respectively....
is very different; Rusyn orthography is even further, as it, like Ukrainian

Ukrainian language

Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past....
.

In addition to vocabulary common to the Slavic languages of the region, significant non-Slavic elements have been incorporated into the Slovak lexicon. Slovak went through long periods of close contact

Language contact

Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics....
with both Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic languages unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries....
and German

German language

Serbian language

name=Serbian|nativename=|pronunciation=['sr?pski?]|familycolor=Indo-European|map=|states=See below under "Official status", besides that in Croatia and as an immigrant's language spread over Central Europe and Western Europe, as well as Northern America...
in Slovak include: "paprika," Slovak paprika, Hungarian paprika;. Hungarian loanwords include: "whip," Slovak korbác, Hungarian korbács; and "dragon", Slovak šarkan, Hungarian sárkány. German loanwords include "coins," Slovak mince, German münzen; "to wish", Slovak vinšovat, German wünschen; and "color," Slovak farba, German Farbe.

Dialects

There are many varieties of Slovak. These may be divided in four basic groups:

Eastern Slovak dialects (in Spiš
Spiš

Spi? is a region in north-eastern Slovakia, with a very small area in south-eastern Poland. Spi? is an informal designation of the territory , but it is also the name of one the 21 official tourism regions of Slovakia....
, Šariš
Šariš

For the beer brand see ?ari? .?ari? is the traditional name of a region situated in northeastern Slovakia. It encompasses the territory of the former S?ros county....
, Zemplín
Zemplín

Zempl?n is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is presently situated in eastern Slovakia under the name of Zempl?n ....
and Abov
Abov

Abov is:* historically the Slovak name of a county in the Kingdom of Hungary * today an informal designation of the part of that county situated in Slovakia, as well as the official name of one of Slovakia's tourist regions ....
)
Central Slovak dialects (in Liptov
Liptov

Lipt? is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is presently in northern Slovakia. Today, Liptov is only an informal designation of the corresponding territory....
, Orava
Orava (county)

?rva is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is presently in northern Slovakia and southern Poland....
, Turiec
Turiec

Tur?c , , /comitatus Thurociensis, ) is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is presently in north-western Slovakia, where it is under name Turiec only an informal designation of the corresponding territory....
, Tekov
Tekov

Tekov [Hungarian: 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 administratively divided between the Nitra Region and Bansk? Bystrica Region ....
, Hont
Hont

Hont is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary and then shortly of Czechoslovakia. Its territory is presently in southern Slovakia and northern Hungary ....
, Novohrad, Gemer
Gemer

Gemer is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary. In the 19th century, and in the beginning of the 20th century, it was united with the Kishont region to form G?m?r-Kishont county ....
and the historic Zvolen county
Zvolen county

Z?lyom county is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is presently in central Slovakia....
)
Western Slovak dialects (in remaining Slovakia: Kysuce
Kysuce

Kysuce is a traditional informal name of a region in north-western Slovakia, situated around the Kysuca river and bordering the Orava region in the east and the Czech Republic in the west....
, Trencín
Trencín

Trenc?n is a List of towns in Slovakia in western Slovakia of the central V?h River valley near the Czech Republic border, around from Bratislava....
, Trnava
Trnava

Trnava is a city in western Slovakia, 47 km to the north-east of Bratislava, on the Trn?vka river. It is the capital of a Regions of Slovakia and of an Districts of Slovakia ....
, Nitra
Nitra

Nitra is a city in western Slovakia, situated at the foot of Zobor Mountain in the Nitra River valley. With a population of 85,000, it is the fourth largest city in Slovakia....
, Záhorie
Záhorie

Z?horie is a region in western Slovakia bordered by the Little Carpathians in the east and the Morava River in the west. Although not an administrative region in its own right, it is one of the List of tourism regions of Slovakia in Slovakia....
)
Lowland (dolnozemské) Slovak dialects (outside Slovakia in the Pannonian Plain
Pannonian Plain

The Pannonian Plain is a large plain in Central Europe that remained when the Pliocene Pannonian Sea dried out. It is a geomorphology subsystem of the Alpide belt....
in Serbian Vojvodina
Vojvodina

The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an Subdivisions of Serbia in Serbia, containing about 27% of its total population according to the 2002 Census....
, and in southeastern Hungary
Hungary

Hungary , officially in English the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia....
, western Romania
Romania

Romania is a country located in Southeastern Europe Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian Mountains, bordering on the Black Sea....
, and the Croatian part of Syrmia
Syrmia

Syrmia is a fertile region of the Pannonian Plain in Europe, between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is divided between Serbia in the east and Croatia in the west....
)

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 (Serbian, Romanian and Hungarian) and long-time geographical separation from Slovakia (see the studies in Zborník Spolku vojvodinských slovakistov, e.g. Dudok, 1993).

For an external map of the three groups in Slovakia see .

The dialect groups differ mostly in phonology, vocabulary and 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 Slovak capital Bratislava

Bratislava

Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 427,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River....
(in western Slovakia) to understand a dialect from eastern Slovakia.

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 (USA, Canada, Croatian Slavonia

Slavonia

Slavonia is a geographical and historical region in eastern Croatia. It is a fertile agricultural and forested lowland bounded, in part, by the Drava river in the north, the Sava river in the south, and the Danube river in the east....
, Bulgaria and elsewhere) 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 features with the languages surrounding them (Serbian, Hungarian and Romanian).

External links

incl. sound file