Slovak language

Slovak
slovenčina, slovenský jazyk
Native to Slovakia, Serbia / Vojvodina; minority language in Czech Republic, Hungary
Native speakers
 5.2 million  (2011–2012)[1]
Latin (Slovak alphabet)
Slovak Braille
Official status
Official language in
  European Union
 Slovakia
 Czech Republic[2]
 Serbia (in Vojvodina)
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated by Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic
Language codes
ISO 639-1 sk
ISO 639-2 slo (B)
slk (T)
ISO 639-3 slk
Glottolog slov1269[3]
Linguasphere 53-AAA-db < 53-AAA-b...-d
(varieties: 53-AAA-dba to 53-AAA-dbs)

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The Slovak-speaking world:
  regions where Slovak is the language of the majority
  regions where Slovak is the language of a significant minority

Slovak i/ˈsloʊvaːk/[4][5] (Slovak: slovenský jazyk, pronounced [ˈslovɛnskiː ˈjazik]; slovenčina [ˈslovɛntʃina]; not to be confused with slovenski jezik or slovenščina, the native names of the Slovene language) is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages (together with Czech, Polish, Silesian, Kashubian, and Sorbian).

Slovak is the official language of Slovakia where it is spoken by approximately 5.51 million people (2014). Slovak speakers are also found in the United States, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Serbia, Ireland, Romania, Poland, Canada, Hungary, Croatia, the United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, and Ukraine.

Phonology

Main article: Slovak phonology

Orthography

Main articles: Slovak orthography and Slovak braille

Slovak uses the Latin script with small modifications that include the four diacritics (ˇ, ´, ¨, ˆ) placed above certain letters.

The primary principle of Slovak spelling is the phonemic 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 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 versus pekní = nice – plural).

In addition, the following rules are present:

  1. When a voiced consonant having a voiceless counterpart (b, d, ď, dz, dž, g, h, z, ž) stands at the end of the word before a pause, it is pronounced as a voiceless consonant (p, t, ť, c, č, k, ch, s, š, respectively). For example, pohyb is pronounced /poɦip/ and prípad is pronounced /priːpat/.
  2. 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 /otaːska/ and vzchopiť sa is pronounced /fsxopitsːa/. This rule applies also over the word boundary. One example is as follows: prísť domov /priːzɟ domou̯/ (to come home) and viac jahôd /vi̯adzjaɦu̯ot/ (more strawberries). The voiced counterpart of "ch" /x/ is /ɣ/, and the unvoiced counterpart of "h" /ɦ/ is /x/.

Most foreign words receive Slovak spelling immediately or after some time. For example, "weekend" is spelled víkend, "software" – softvér, "gay" – gej (both not exclusively), and "quality" is spelled kvalita (possibly from Italian qualità). 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. Londýn for "London").

Slovak features some heterophonic homographs (words with identical spelling but different pronunciation and meaning), the most common examples being krásne /ˈkraːsne/ (beautiful) versus krásne /ˈkraːsɲe/ (beautifully).

Syntax

The main features of Slovak syntax are as follows:

Some examples include the following:

Speváčka spieva. (The+female+singer is+singing.)
(Speváčk-a spieva-∅, where -∅ is (the empty) third-person-singular ending)
Speváčky spievajú. (Female+singers are+singing.)
(Speváčk-y spieva-j-ú; -ú is a third-person-plural ending, and /j/ is a hiatus sound)
My speváčky spievame. (We the+female+singers are+singing.)
(My speváčk-y spieva-me, where -me is the first-person-plural ending)
and so forth.

Word order in Slovak is relatively free, since strong inflection 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:

Ten veľký muž tam dnes otvára obchod. = That big man opens a store there today. (ten = that; veľký = big; muž = man; tam = there; dnes = today; otvára = opens; obchod = store) – The word order does not emphasize any specific detail, just general information.
Ten veľký muž dnes otvára obchod tam. = That big man is today opening a store there. – This word order emphasizes the place (tam = there).
Dnes tam otvára obchod ten veľký muž. = Today over there a store is being opened by that big man. – This word order focuses on the person who is opening the store (ten = that; veľký = big; muž = man).
Obchod tam dnes otvára ten veľký muž. = 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 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 ten veľký muž cannot be split up, so that the following combinations are not possible:

Ten otvára veľký muž tam dnes obchod.
Obchod muž tam ten veľký dnes otvára. ...

And the following are stylistically not correct:

Otvára ten veľký muž tam dnes obchod? (Correct is Ten veľký muž tam dnes otvára obchod? or Ten veľký muž dnes otvára obchod tam? or Tam dnes otvára obchod ten veľký muž?)
Obchod ten veľký muž dnes tam otvára. (Only possible in a poem or a similar style.)

Morphology

Articles

Slovak does not have articles. The demonstrative pronoun ten (fem: tá, neuter: to) may be used in front of the noun in situations where definiteness must be made explicit.

Nouns, adjectives, pronouns

Main article: Slovak declension

Slovak nouns are inflected for case and number. There are six cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, and instrumental. The vocative is no longer morphologically marked. There are two numbers: singular and plural. Nouns have inherent gender. There are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives agree with nouns in case, number, and gender.

Numerals

The numerals 0–10 have unique forms. 11–19 are formed by the numeral plus "násť." 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: (1) jeden (jedno (neuter), jedna (feminine)), (2) dva (dve (neuter, feminine)), (3) tri, (4) štyri, (5) päť, (6) šesť, (7) sedem, (8) osem, (9) deväť, (10) desať, (11) jedenásť, (12) dvanásť, (13) trinásť, (14) štrnásť, (15) pätnásť, (16) šestnásť, (17) sedemnásť, (18) osemnásť, (19) devätnásť, (20) dvadsať, (21) dvadsaťjeden,... (30) tridsať, (31) tridsaťjeden,... (40) štyridsať,... (50) päťdesiat,... (60) šesťdesiat,... (70) sedemdesiat,... (80) osemdesiat,... (90) deväťdesiat,... (100) sto, (101) stojeden,... (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 or stodva žien = one hundred two women), while the plural form of the noun when counting the amounts of 2, 3, 4, etc., is the nominative form without counting (e.g. dva domy = two houses or dve ženy = two women).

Verbs

Verbs have three major conjugations. Three persons and two numbers (singular and plural) are distinguished. Several conjugation paradigms exist as follows:

volať, to call Singular Plural Past participle (masculine – feminine – neuter)
1st person volám voláme volal – volala – volalo
2nd person voláš voláte
3rd person volá volajú
bývať, to live Singular Plural Past participle
1st person bývam bývame býval – bývala – bývalo
2nd person bývaš bývate
3rd person býva bývajú
vracať, to return or (mostly in slang) to vomit Singular Plural Past participle
1st person vraciam vraciame vracal – vracala – vracalo
2nd person vraciaš vraciate
3rd person vracia vracajú
robiť, to do, work Singular Plural Past participle
1st person robím robíme robil – robila – robilo
2nd person robíš robíte
3rd person robí robia
  1. í-Type Verbs – rhythmic law
vrátiť, to return Singular Plural Past participle
1st person vrátim vrátime vrátil – vrátila – vrátilo
2nd person vrátiš vrátite
3rd person vráti vrátia
vidieť, to see Singular Plural Past participle
1st person vidím vidíme videl – videla – videlo
2nd person vidíš vidíte
3rd person vidí vidia
kupovať, to buy Singular Plural Past participle
1st person kupujem kupujeme kupoval – kupovala – kupovalo
2nd person kupuješ kupujete
3rd person kupuje kupujú
zabudnúť, to forget Singular Plural Past participle
1st person zabudnem zabudneme zabudol – zabudla – zabudlo
2nd person zabudneš zabudnete
3rd person zabudne zabudnú
minúť, to spend, miss Singular Plural Past participle
1st person miniem minieme minul – minula – minulo
2nd person minieš miniete
3rd person minie minú
niesť, to carry Singular Plural Past participle
1st person nesiem nesieme niesol – niesla – nieslo
2nd person nesieš nesiete
3rd person nesie nesú
stučnieť, to carry (be fat) Singular Plural Past participle
1st person stučniem stučnieme stučnel – stučnela – stučnelo
2nd person stučnieš stučniete
3rd person stučnie stučnejú
byť, to be jesť, to eat vedieť, to know
1st singular som jem viem
2nd singular si ješ vieš
3rd singular je je vie
1st plural sme jeme vieme
2nd plural ste jete viete
3rd plural sú jedia vedia
Past participle bol, bola, bolo jedol, jedla, jedlo vedel, vedela, vedelo
skryť: skryl som (I hid / I have hidden); bol som skryl (I had hidden)
skrývať: skrýval som; bol som skrýval.
skryť: skryjem
skrývať: budem skrývať
skryť: skryl by som (I would hide), bol by som skryl (I would have hidden)
skrývať: skrýval by som; bol by som skrýval
skryť: je skrytý; sa skryje
skrývať: je skrývaný; sa skrýva
skryť: skryjúci
skrývať: skrývajúci
skryť: skryjúc (by hiding (perfective))
skrývať: skrývajúc ((while/during) hiding)
skryť: skrytý
skrývať: skrývaný
skryť: skrytie
skrývať: skrývanie

Adverbs

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

vysoký (high) – vysoko (highly)
pekný (nice) – pekne (nicely)
priateľský (friendly) – priateľsky (in a friendly manner)
rýchly (fast) – rýchlo (quickly)

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

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 (e.g. from friends = od priateľov). Priateľov 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.

around 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, itself a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is closely related to the other West Slavic languages, primarily to Czech. It has been also influenced by German, English, Latin and Hungarian.

Czech

Although most dialects of Czech and Slovak are mutually intelligible (see Comparison of Slovak and Czech), eastern Slovak dialects are less intelligible to speakers of Czech; they differ from Czech and from other Slovak dialects, and mutual contact between speakers of Czech and speakers of the eastern dialects is limited.

Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia it has been allowed to use Czech in TV broadcasting and—like any other language of the world—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 in 1918. Literary 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 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, 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 have the greatest degree of mutual intelligibility with Rusyn of all the Slovak dialects, but both lack technical terminology and upper register 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, Ukrainian, and even Russian (in this order), although their orthographies are based on the Cyrillic script.

Slovak also exhibits numerous linguistic traits that set it apart from the other West Slavic languages. The Central Slovak dialect, upon which the Standard Slovak language is based, shares various features with South Slavic languages, most notably with the Kajkavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian and with Slovene language.[6]

English word Slovak Czech Rusyn Ukrainian Belarusian Polish Serbo-Croatian Bulgarian Slovenian
to buy kupovať kupovat куповати (kupovati) купувати (kupuvaty) купляць (kupliać) kupować kupovati / куповати купува (kupuva) kupovati
Welcome! Vitajte! Vítejte Вітайте! (vitajte!) Вітаю! (vitaju!) Вітаю! (vitaju!) Witajcie Dobrodošli! / Добродошли! добре дошли (dobre došli) Dobrodošli!
morning ráno ráno/jitro рано (rano) рано/ранок (rano/ranok) рана/ранак (rana/ranak) rano/ranek jutro / јутро утро (utro) jutro
Thank you Ďakujem Děkuji Дякую (diakuju) Дякую (diakuju) Дзякуй (dziakuj) Dziękuję Hvala / Хвала благодаря (blagodarja) Hvala
How are you? Ako sa máš? Jak se máš? Як ся маєш/маш?
(jak śa maješ/maš?)		 Як справи? (jak spravy?) Як справы? (jak spravy?) Jak się masz? (colloquially "Siema") Kako si? / Како си? Как си? (Kak si?) Kako si?
Як ся маєш?
(jak śa maješ?)		 Як маесься?
(jak majeśsia?)

English

weekend – víkend, football – futbal, ham & eggs – hemendex, offside – ofsajd, out (football) – aut, body check (hockey) – bodyček, couch – gauč

German

German loanwords include "coins," Slovak mince, German Münze; "to wish", Slovak vinšovať (colloquially, the standard term is želať), German wünschen; "funfair," Slovak jarmok , German Jahrmarkt and "color," Slovak farba, German Farbe.[7]

Hungarian

Hungarians and Slovaks have had a language interaction ever since the settlement of Hungarians in the Carpathian area. Hungarians 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:

Romanian

Romanian words entered the Slovak language in the course of the so-called "Wallachian colonization" in the 14th–16th century when sheep breeding became common in Slovak mountains. Many of today's Slovak rustic-pastoral words like bača ("shepherd"; Rmn. baci), valach ("young shepherd"; cf. the dated exonym for Romanians, "Valach"), magura ("hill"; Rmn. măgura), koliba("chalet"; Rmn. coliba), bryndza (a variety of sheep cheese; Rmn. brânză), striga ("witch", "demon"; Rmn. "strigă/strigoi"), etc. were introduced into the Slovak language by Romanian shepherds during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times. The Romanian influence is most strongly felt in the dialects of the Moravian Wallachia region.

Dialects

Official usage of Slovak language in Vojvodina, Serbia

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 in Zborník Spolku vojvodinských slovakistov, e.g. Dudok, 1993).

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

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 Slovak capital Bratislava (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, 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 (Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, and Romanian).

See also

References

  1. ↑ Slovak at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ E.g. law 500/2004, 337/1992. Source: http://portal.gov.cz/app/zakony/download?idBiblio=58370&nr=500~2F2004~20Sb.&ft=pdf
  3. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Slovak". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  4. ↑ Wells, John C. (2008), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Longman, ISBN 9781405881180
  5. ↑ Roach, Peter (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (18th ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521152532
  6. ↑ Nuorluoto, Juhani (2010). "Central Slovak and Kajkavian Structural Convergences: A Tentative Survey" (PDF). Retrieved 7 May 2014.
  7. ↑ http://www.fhv.umb.sk/app/cmsFile.php?disposition=a&ID=3394 google.com
  8. ↑ Magyar Nyelvőr – Pacsai Imre: Magyar–szlovák kulturális és nyelvi kapcsolat jegyei

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

Slovak edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Slovak.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Slovak language.