Slovak slovenčina
Spoken in:	Slovakia, United States, Canada, Czech Republic, Serbia, Romania, Hungary etc.
Region:	Central Europe
Total speakers:	over 6 million
Ranking:	104
Language family:	Indo-European  Slavic   West Slavic    Czech-Slovak     Slovak
Official status
Official language in:	European Union  Slovakia Vojvodina (Serbia)
Regulated by:	Slovak Academy of Sciences (The Ľudovít Štúr Linguistic Institute)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	sk
ISO 639-2:	slo (B)	slk (T)
ISO 639-3:	slk
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Slovak language (slovenčina, slovenský jazyk), sometimes referred to as "Slovakian", is an Indo-European language belonging to the West Slavic languages (together with Czech, Polish, Kashubian and Sorbian). Slovak is mutually intelligible with Czech. Not to be confused with Republika Srpska. ... Central Europe The Alpine Countries and the Visegrád Group (Political map, 2004) Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. ... This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use. ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... This article or section should be merged with List of West Slavic languages The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group (q. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Sorbian. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Slovakia. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Vojvodina. ... Vojvodina (red) is one of Serbias two autonomous provinces Capital (and largest city) Novi Sad Official languages Ethnic groups  2. ... Not to be confused with Republika Srpska. ... The Slovak Academy of Sciences (in Slovak Slovenská akadémia vied) is the main scientific and research institution in Slovakia fostering basic and strategic basic research. ... Ľudovít Å túr Ľudovít Å túr, known in his era as Ludevít Velislav Å túr, (October 29, 1815 - January 12, 1856) was the leader of the Slovak national revival in the 19th century, the author of the Slovak language standard eventually leading to the contemporary Slovak literary... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... This article or section should be merged with List of West Slavic languages The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group (q. ... Kashubian or Cassubian (Kashubian: kaszëbsczi jãzëk, pòmòrsczi jãzëk, kaszëbskò-sÅ‚owiÅ„skô mòwa) is one of the Lechitic languages, which are a group of Slavic languages. ... This article or section should be merged with List of Sorbian languages The Sorbian languages are members of the West Slavic branch of languages spoken in eastern Germany. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Slovak is spoken in Slovakia (by 5 million people), the United States (500,000, emigrants), the Czech Republic (320,000, due to the former Czechoslovakia), Hungary (20,000, due to former unitary state), Northern Serbia-Vojvodina (60,000, due to Austria-Hungary), Romania (22,000, due to A-H), Poland (20,000), Canada (20,000, emigrants), Australia (emigrants), Austria, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Croatia (5,000) and some other countries. Not to be confused with Republika Srpska. ... Vojvodina (red) is one of Serbias two autonomous provinces Capital (and largest city) Novi Sad Official languages Ethnic groups  2. ... Austria-Hungary, also known as the Dual monarchy (or: the k. ...

Alphabet

A technical note for users of the English wikipedia: All Slovak vowels, but no Slovak-specific consonants (that is no č, ď, ľ, ĺ, ň, ŕ, š, ť, ž) are available within the Latin-1 encoding. ISO 8859-1, more formally cited as ISO/IEC 8859-1 or less formally as Latin-1, is part 1 of ISO/IEC 8859, a standard character encoding defined by ISO. It encodes what it refers to as Latin alphabet no. ...

Slovak uses a modification of the Roman (Latin) alphabet. The modifications include the four diacriticals (ˇ, ´, ¨, ^; see Pronunciation) placed above certain letters. For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ...

The lexicographic ordering of the Slovak alphabet is very similar to that of English: A B C D DZ E F G H CH I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z. The complete alphabet, however, allows for characters with diacritics (the character with diacritics always comes after the same character without diacritics) and is as follows: a á ä b c č d ď dz dž e é f g h ch i í j k l ľ ĺ m n ň o ó ô p q r ŕ s š t ť u ú v w x y ý z ž. Note that dz, dž and ch are considered single letters and that ch follows the h (not the c). The letters "q", "w", "x" are only used in loanwords, never in native Slovak words.

The names of the letters (like in English ey, bee, cee, dee …) are: a (á), á (dlhé á), ä (prehlasované á; á s dvoma bodkami), bé, cé, čé, dé, ďé, dzé, džé, e (é), é (dlhé é), ef, gé, há, chá, i (í), í (dlhé í), jé, ká, el, eľ, dlhé el, em, en, eň, o (ó), ó (dlhé ó), ô (ó s vokáňom), pé, kvé, er, dlhé er, es, eš, té, ťé, u (ú), ú (dlhé ú), vé, dvojité vé, iks, ypsilon (ý), dlhé ý, zet, žet (for pronunciation see below)

The characters are divided as follows:

• Vowels are: a á ä e é i í o ó y ý u ú (+ r ŕ l ĺ).
• Diphthongs are: ia, ie, iu, ô.
• Consonants are: b c č d ď dz dž f g h ch j k l ľ ĺ m n ň p q r ŕ s š t ť v w x z ž. The consonants r, l, ŕ, ĺ are considered vowels in certain cases (see Pronunciation).

Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ...

Pronunciation and spelling

The Slovak language has distinctive palatalization. Among all the Slavic languages that use the Latin alphabet, Slovak is the closest to Russian and many of the Slovak words and pronunciations would be very familiar to students of Russian. Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ...

The accent (stress) in standard language is always placed on the first syllable of a word (or on the preceding preposition, see below). However, 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. The stress is weaker than the English or German or Russian accent, but stronger than the French one. Monosyllabic conjunctions, monosyllabic short personal pronouns and auxiliary verb forms of the verb byť (to be) are, as a rule, not stressed. Accent in poetry refers to the stressed portion of a word. ... In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. ...

Prepositions are pronounced in conjunction with the following word, unless the words are long (four syllables or more) or the preposition stands at the very beginning of a sentence. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with adposition. ...

The acute mark (in Slovak "dĺžeň", that is prolongation mark) indicates the lengthing of the quantity of the vowel it modifies, for example í = approximately ii. The acute can be above all vowels and only above the 2 consonants "l" and "r" (which, in such cases, are considered vowels.) Long vowels are about twice as long as their short counterparts. The acute accent (   ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin and Greek scripts. ...

The circumflex ("vokáň") exists only above the letter "o" (and turns the o into a diphthong – see below). The circumflex ( ˆ ) (often called a caret, a hat or an uppen) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek, French, Dutch, Esperanto, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovak, Vietnamese, Japanese romaji, Welsh, Portuguese, Italian, Afrikaans and other languages, and formerly in Turkish [citation needed]. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus (bent...

The umlaut ("prehláska", "dve bodky" = two dots) is only used above the letter "a" (and turns the a into almost e – see below). The umlaut mark (or simply umlaut) and the trema or diaeresis mark (or simply diaeresis) are two diacritics consisting of a pair of dots placed over a letter. ...

The caron (in Slovak "mäkčeň", i.e. a "palatalization mark" or "softener") indicates either palatalization or a change of alveolar fricatives into post-alveolar, in informal Slovak linguistics often called just "palatalization". Only 8 consonants can bear a caron, that is, not all "normal" consonants have a "caroned" counterpart: For other uses, see Caron (disambiguation). ...

• In printed texts, the caron is printed in two forms: (1) č, dž, š, ž, ň and (2) ľ, ď, ť (looking more like an apostrophe), but this is just a convention. In handwritten texts, it always takes the form (1).
• Phonetically, there are two forms of "palatalization": ľ, ň, ď, ť are palatalized consonants, while č, dž, š, ž are postalveolar affricates and fricatives.
• To accelerate writing, a rule has been introduced that the frequent character combinations ňe, ďe, ťe, ľe, ňi, ďi, ťi, ľi, ňí, ďí, ťí, ľí must be written ne, de, te, le, ni, di, ti, li, ní, dí, tí, lí (that is without the caron). In other words ne, de, te, le, ni, di etc. are pronounced as if there were a caron above the consonant. There are, however, exceptions to this rule:

1. foreign words (for example telefón is pronounced with a hard t and a hard l)
2. the following old Slavic words: ten (that), jeden (one), vtedy (then) are pronounced with hard t and d
3. nominative masculine plural endings of pronouns and adjectives do not "soften" preceding n, d, t, l (for example tí odvážni mladí muži /tiː odvaːʒniː mladiː muʒi/, the/those brave young men)
4. short e in adjectival endings that is, actually (morphonemically), long é shortened by the "rhythmical rule" (see below) does not "soften" preceding n, d, t, l (for example krásne stromy /kraːsnɛ.../, beautiful trees, c.f. zelené stromy /zɛlʲɛnɛː.../, green trees)

• ľ is pronounced nowadays by many speakers, esp. from western Slovakia, as a non-palatalized l, esp. in li and le where the caron is not written. The officially correct pronunciation of li and le as palatalized is already frequently perceived either as a trait of middle and eastern dialect, or as a feature of language zealots. (A similar tendency occurs in yeísta Spanish, where, instead, the palatal ll is pronounced like the English y ([j]) instead of [ʎ].)

In addition, the following rules hold: Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Yeísmo is a distinctive feature of many dialects of the Spanish language, which consists of the merger of the palatal lateral approximant phoneme (written ll) with another phoneme, usually realized as a palatal fricative or affricate. ...

1. When a voiced consonant having a voiceless correspondent (that is 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 (that is p, t, ť, c, č, k, ch, s, š, respectively), for example pohyb is pronounced /pohip/, prípad is pronounced /priːpat/
2. When "v" stands at the end of the syllable, it is pronounced as non-syllabic u (bilabial approximant /u̯/), with the exception of the position before "n" or "ň", for example, kov /kou̯/ (metal), kravský /krau̯skiː/ (cow - adjective), but povstať /pofstatʲ/ (uprise) because the v is not at the end of the syllable (po-vstať), hlavný /hlavniː/ because "v" stands before "n" here
3. The assimilation rule: When voiced consonant(s) having a voiceless correspondent and voiceless consonant(s) meet in the word, all consonants of the group are pronounced as voiced if the last consonant is a voiced one, or as voiceless if the last consonant is a voiceless one, for example otázka is pronounced /otaːska/, vzchopiť sa is pronounced /fsxopitsːa/. This rule applies also over the word boundary, for example prísť domov /priːzdʲ domou̯/ (to come home), viac jahôd /vi̯adzjahu̯ot/ (more strawberries). The voiced counterpart of "ch" /x/ is /ɣ/.
4. The rhythmical rule: A long syllable (that is a syllable containing á, é, í, ý, ó, ú, ŕ, ĺ, ia, ie, iu, ô) cannot be followed by another long syllable in the same word, that is the following syllable must be made short (in writing and pronunciation) (this rule has implications for the formation, declension (for example žen-ám but tráv-am) and conjugation (for example nos-ím but súd-im) of words; there are several exceptions to this rule; this rule is typical of the literary Slovak language (not existing in the closely related Czech, or some Slovak dialects).

In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns and adjectives to indicate such features as number (typically singular vs. ... In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (regular alteration according to rules of grammar). ...

Official transcriptions

Slovak linguists do not usually use IPA for phonetic transcription of their own language or others, but rather their own system based on the Slovak alphabet. Many English language textbooks, for example, make use of this alternative system of 'phonetic' transcription of English, a factor which 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.

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 linguistic authorities; the other standard pronunciation today is [ɛ].
• r and l can be syllabic phonemes /r̩/ and /l̩/ and behave as vowels, i.e. they have their long phonemic counterparts /rː/ and /lː/ (written ŕ and ĺ), e.g., vlk (wolf), prst (finger), štvrť (quarter), krk (neck), bisyllabic vĺča—vĺ-ča (wolfling), vŕba—vŕ-ba (willow-tree), etc.
• ch, normally the unvoiced [x], can have the voiced [ɣ] as an allophone as a result of phonetic assimilation.
• The sound group or graphemic group -ou (at the end of words) is pronounced [ɔu̯] but is not considered a separate diphthong, nor grapheme respectively (unlike ch, dz, dž). Its phonemic interpretation is /ov/.
• ia, ie, iu form diphthongs /i̯a/ /i̯e/ /i̯u/ in native Slovak words, but two monophtongs in foreign and loan words.
• m has the allophone [ɱ] in front of the labiodental fricatives /f/ and /v/.
• n in front of (post)alveolar fricatives has an allophone written as /n̶/ in Slovak phonemic transcription; this is, however, an allophone of /n/.
• n can be [ŋ] in front of the velar plosives /k/ and /g/.
• f can be voiced [f̬] as a result of phonetic assimilation.

Intuitive transcription for English speakers

The following list shows a list of Slovak sounds and their approximate English equivalents:

The values of the characters b, d, f, h, l, k, m, n, p, x are approximately equal to their English counterparts. The vowel combinations ia, ie, iu, ô [pronounced appr. like uo] are diphthongs, that is both elements are pronounced "together" the first element is almost a Slovak j for ia, ie, and iu and almost an English w for ô. In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

• a – u in cut
• á – a in father (long a)
• ä – e in set (or in old-fashioned — but canonical — pronunciation like a in fat)
• c – ts in its
• č – ch in child
• ď – approx. British d in during, dew
• dz – approx. d+z (voiced c; very much like the Italian zz in organizzare or azzurro)
• dž – j in John (voiced č)
• e – e in set
• é – ai in fair (long e)
• g – g in go
• h - always pronounced; voiced (/ɦ/), except if at the end of the word
• ch – Scottish ch, for example in Loch Ness (like Russian х)
• i – i in sit
• í – ee in need (long i)
• j – y in yes
• ľ – approx. l in lurid (like gli... in Italian, lh in Portuguese or ll in non-yeista Spanish)
• ĺ – approx. "ll"(long "L") - no known equivalents in other languages
• ň – like French or Italian gn, Portuguese nh or Spanish ñ
• o – o in odd
• ó – aw in saw, a in ball (long o)
• r – "rolled r" like in Italian, Scottish, Bavarian (and like a Spanish r that is not before a vowel and not at the beginning of the word, for example in color)
• ŕ – approx. Spanish rr in Zorro)
• s – s in save
• š – sh in she
• ť – approx. the first t in tutor
• ô – approx. wo in wonder (or like Italian uo in buono)
• q – qu is like Slovak kv; q does not occur elsewhere
• u – u in put
• ú – oo in choose (long u)
• v – v in very (but at the end of the syllable approx. as the second w in window, see above)
• y – like Slovak i
• ý – like Slovak í (long y, as ee in eel)
• z – z in zone
• ž – s in pleasure (like French and Portuguese j in journal/jornal or g in général/general)
• w – like Slovak v

Main article: Spanish phonology Yeísmo is a distinctive feature of many dialects of the Spanish language, which consists in the merge of the palatal lateral approximant phoneme (written ll) with another phoneme, usually realized as a palatal fricative or affricate. ...

Orthography

The primary principle of Slovak spelling is the phonemic principle (that is "Write as you hear") – as opposed to the English spelling where the etymological principle is primary. The secondary principle is the morphological principle (that is, all forms derived from the same stem are written in the same way even if they are pronounced differently in reality) – the main example is the assimilation rule (see Pronunciation). 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. And 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 [pekniː]. In human language, a phoneme is the theoretical representation of a sound. ...

Most foreign words receive Slovak spelling immediately or after some time, for example "weekend" is víkend, "software" is softvér (but some 15-years-ago was spelled the English way), and "quality" is spelled kvalita (different sound; possibly from Italian qualità). However, personal and geographical names from other languages using Latin alphabets keep their original spelling, unless there is a fully Slovak form for the name (for example Londýn for "London"). A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz redirects here. ...

Slovak orthography has changed many times. One of the most important changes was after World War II 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.) Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... In linguistics, a prefix is a type of affix that precedes the morphemes to which it can attach. ...

Interestingly, the Slovak alphabet (minus the vowel diacritics) is often used to transcribe Russian into the Latin alphabet.

Syntax

The main features of Slovak syntax are:

• The verb (predicate) agrees in person and number with its subject – just like for example in German, Slavic and Romance languages, for example:

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

(Speváčk-a spieva-0, where -0 is a third person singular ending)

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

(Speváčk-y spieva-j-ú, where -ú is a third person plural ending, -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.

• An adjective, pronoun and partly also a numeral agrees in person, gender and case with the noun it refers to (see Slovak declension) – just like in most Slavic languages.
• An adjective always precedes the corresponding noun – as in English, unlike in Polish and Romance languages. Botanic or zoological terms are exceptions (for example, mačka divá, literally "cat wild", Felis silvestris).

Word order in Slovak is relatively free (unlike in English or French), since the strong inflection of words enables the identification of the specific role of a word within the sentence (subject, object, predicate, etc.) regardless of its placement. This relatively free word order enables Slovaks (just as in most other Slavic languages) to make use the word order to impose emphasis conveying importance or novelty of themes in a sentence i.e. constituents relating to old information precede constituents with new information, or those that carry most emphasis. In traditional grammar, a predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence (the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies). ... According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the other being its predicate. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family, comprising all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ... Hiatus in linguistics is the separate pronunciation of two adjacent vowels, sometimes with an intervening glottal stop. ... For other uses, see Person (disambiguation). ... Gender in common usage refers to the sexual distinction between male and female. ... Look up case in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... See also: Slovak language. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Inflection of the Spanish lexeme for cat, with blue representing the masculine gender, pink representing the feminine gender, grey representing the form used for mixed-gender, and green representing the plural number. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup...

Examples:

Ten veľký muž tam dnes otvára obchod. = The big man opens a store there today. (ten = the or that; veľký = big; muž = man; tam = there; dnes = today; otvára = opens; obchod = store)

Ten veľký muž dnes otvára obchod tam. = It is there that the big man opens a store today.

Dnes tam otvára obchod ten veľký muž. = It is the big man who opens a store there today.

Obchod tam dnes otvára ten veľký muž. = As for the store, it is opened there by the big man.

However, the normal order is Subject-Verb-Object (as in English) and the word order is not completely arbitrary. For example, in the above example, the following combinations are not possible:

Ten otvára veľký muž tam dnes obchod.

Obchod muž tam ten veľký dnes otvára. ...

And the following, for instance, are not likely to occur:

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

Obchod ten veľký muž dnes tam otvára.

This means that these senteces will not be grammatically correct, although they are "understandable".

Morphology

Articles (Členy)

There are no articles in the Slovak language. If it is really necessary to emphasize that the thing that one is talking about was already mentioned, the demonstrative pronoun ten (fem: tá, neuter: to) can be used in front of the noun.

Nouns (Podstatné mená)

See: Slovak declension See also: Slovak language. ...

Adjectives (Prídavné mená)

See: Slovak declension See also: Slovak language. ...

Pronouns (Zámená)

See: Slovak declension See also: Slovak language. ...

Numerals (Číslovky)

The basic formation of Slovak numerals is similar to that of English: there are special words for 0-19 and for 20, 30 . . . 90, 100, 1000 etc. and the compound numerals (21, 1054) are simply combinations of these special words formed in the same order as their mathematical symbol is written (for example 21 = dvadsaťjeden (that is literally „twenty-one“)).

The numerals are: (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, . . .

See also: Slovak declension See also: Slovak language. ...

Verbs (Slovesá)

• Verbs have three major conjugations distinguishing 3 persons and 2 numbers (singular and plural) – just like in English. There are several conjugation paradigms- like in most European languages.

• á-Type Verbs

• á-Type Verbs - rhythmic law

• á-Type Verbs - soft stem

• í-Type Verbs

• í-Type Verbs - rhythmic law

• ie-Type Verbs

• e-Type Verbs -ovať

• e-Type Verbs - (typically -Cnuť)

• ie-Type Verbs - (typically -Vnuť)

• ie-Type Verbs - -cť, -sť, -zť

• ie-Type Verbs - -nieť

• Irregular Verbs

• Subject personal pronouns are often omitted unless they are emphatic - like in Italian, Spanish and Russian, unlike English and most other Germanic lkanguages.

• The English continuous form (that is to be . . . ing) is expressed by a change in the stem of the verb or by removing the prefix (note however that this statement is a strong simplification). The non-continuous version is called a perfective verb and the continuous version an imperfective verb. Example: :to hide = skryť, to be hiding = skrývať

• There are only two past tenses. Both are formed analytically. The latter, however, is not used in the modern language and is considered dated and/or grammatically incorrect. Examples for two verbs (note that the continuous form is considered a separate verb in Slavic languages):

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

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

• There is only one future tense. For imperfective verbs, it is formed analytically, for perfective verbs it is identical with the present tense. Examples:

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

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

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

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

skrývať (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 like in English (to be + past participle) or like in Romance languages (using the reflexive pronoun 'sa'):

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

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

• The active present participle (=which is ...ing) is formed using the suffixes –úci/ -iaci / - aci

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

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

• The gerund (=by/when ...ing) is formed using the suffixes –úc / -uc / –iac/-ac

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

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

• The active past participle (= 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:

skryť (to hide): skrytý (hid)

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

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

skryť (to hide): skrytie (the hiding)

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

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (regular alteration according to rules of grammar). ... For other uses, see Paradigm (disambiguation). ... According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the other being its predicate. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. ... The preterite (also praeterite, in American English also preterit, or past historic) is the grammatical tense expressing actions which took place in the past. ... It has been suggested that Future perfect tense be merged into this article or section. ... In grammar, voice is the relationship between the action or state expressed by a verb, and its arguments (subject, object, etc. ... The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family, comprising all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ... In linguistics, a participle is a non-finite verb form that can be used in compound tenses or voices, or it can be used as a modifier. ... In linguistics, “gerund” is a term used to refer to various non-finite verb forms in various languages: As applied to English, it refers to what might be called a verbs action noun, which is one of the uses of the -ing form. ... In linguistics, a participle is a non-finite verb form that can be used in compound tenses or voices, or it can be used as a modifier. ...

Adverbs (Príslovky)

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

vysoký (high) – vysoko (highly)

pekný (nice) – pekne (nicely)

priateľský (friendly) – priateľsky (in a friendly manner)

rýchly (fast) – rýchlo / rýchle (quickly)

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

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

Prepositions (Predložky)

These are used like in English except that, in addition, each single preposition is associated with a particular grammatical case and the noun following the preposition must take the ending of the case required by the preposition. Example:

from friends = od priateľov (priateľov is the genitive case of priatelia, because the preposition od (=from) always calls for its objects to be in the genitive case)

Conjunctions (Spojky), Particles (Častice), Interjections (Citoslovcia)

These work more or less as in the English language.

Note: The Slovak (and Czech) definition of particles has been taken from Russian linguistics. Although the English linguists subsume them under the conjunctions, interjections and other word types, they nevertheless work like in English. Examples of particles as they are understood by Slovak linguists are the English words (the text in the brackets gives a sentence as an example): Well (, what will we do?), yes, anyway, obviously, above all, not ...at all, And ( what do you think?), But ( that is impossible!), so (, that's it!), hardly, really, most importantly, also, (what) the beard (is he doing?), actually, please, even, in sum, believe it or not, maybe, unfortunately, of course, I wonder where (you have been), in one word ...

History

Main article: History of the Slovak language

This is a tabular history of the Slovak language. ...

Relationships to other languages

The Slovak language arose directly from the Proto-Slavic language independently of other Slavic languages (see History). Proto-Slavic is the proto-language from which Old Church Slavonic and all the other Slavic languages later emerged. ...

The present-day Slovak language is closely related to the other west Slavic languages.

Nowadays Czechs and Slovaks have more common words due to their long historic coexistence and language standardization policies before but especially within the now-defunct country of Czechoslovakia. Slovak is most apparently related to Czech in written form (because the Slovak literary language spelling was inspired by Czech spelling), but differs from it both phonetically and grammatically. However, Slovak did not arise from the Czech language (neither from Old nor from Middle Czech) and the Czech language started to penetrate to Slovakia only in the 14th century. Adult Slovaks are able to understand Czech and to some extent Polish and Sorbian without a translator. As regards to Polish and Sorbian, the degree of understanding is highly dependent on the degree to which the individual has been exposed to these languages. Written Polish may look complicated to a Slovak due to its orthography — words which are pronounced similarly and often have the same meaning may look different in each language. A literary language is a register of a language that is used in writing, and which often differs in lexicon and syntax from the language used in speech. ... This article or section should be merged with List of Sorbian languages The Sorbian languages are members of the West Slavic branch of languages spoken in eastern Germany. ...

During the existence of Czechoslovakia (and especially due to common television, frequent contacts and the prestige of Czech), the spoken Slovak language took over many Czech words, idioms and some features of the syntax (e.g. Sokolová, 1995; Musilová and Sokolová, 2004), and in turn lost many typical Slovak expressions. The split of Czechoslovakia (1993) brought about a reshaping of mutual Czech-Slovak contacts. The precise extent of the decrease in intelligibility between Slovak and Czech is difficult to measure due to a lack of reliable data from the period of the common state that would be comparable to the data the linguists and scientist have today. Some Czech children today themselves, however, claim that they do not understand Slovak-language TV or radio programs perfectly (they are sometimes dubbed into Czech, which was not the case in the past) and are unable to read Slovak texts conveniently, this is also confirmed by young Slovak students in the Czech Republic. There is some evidence that Czech children (up to certain age) had not understood Slovak well in the period of Czechoslovakia either, but as they learned it by being exposed to Slovak in contrast to present-time (see Nábělková, 2003, 2007, and Sloboda, 2004, for more details). Concerning learners of either Czech or Slovak as a foreign language, they do not understand the other language "automatically". Slovak seems to keep slightly converging on Czech, especially in phraseology and volabulary, even after the split of Czechoslovakia, due to the frequent use of Czech on major TV channels (even for children) and due to the fact that there are more Czech books on the Slovak market than before 1993. Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ...

With respect to different varieties of Slovak, the standard (literary) Slovak, which is based on Central Slovak dialects, is mutually intelligible with Czech and shares much of professional terminology with it due to common language policy in terminology building in the period after the Second World War. In contrast to Western, Central and standard varieties of Slovak, Eastern Slovak dialects are much less intelligible with Czech, since they structurally differ from Czech the most and the Czechs do not usually come into contact with them (Eastern Slovaks in the Czech Republic use predominantly standard Slovak, or Czech, in communication with Czechs). A literary language is a register of a language that is used in writing, and which often differs in lexicon and syntax from the language used in speech. ...

The Rusyn language is mutually intelligible with eastern Slovak dialects (but both lack professional terminology and higher style expressions). The Polish and Sorbian languages are somewhat intelligible to both Slovak and Czech, but they have different professional terminology and higher style expressions — the more you keep your language style low and simple, the better you are understood. Rusyn is an East Slavic language (along with Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian to which it shares a common linguistic ancestry) that is spoken by the Rusyns. ... This article or section should be merged with List of Sorbian languages The Sorbian languages are members of the West Slavic branch of languages spoken in eastern Germany. ...

The Slovak standard language holds a central position among Slavic languages: It has common features with:

• the Czech language [western neighbor of Slovakia]
• the Polish language [northern neighbor of Slovakia], for example the use of the prefix pre-, use of the consonant dz, and some vocabulary (teraz, now; pivnica, cellar)
• South Slavic languages (especially Slovenian and the Kajkavian dialect of Croatian); this connection is due to the fact that the territory of present-day Hungary was inhabited by the Sloviene (see Great Moravia) before and for some time after the Hungarians settled there in the 10th century, thus allowing for language changes to spread from today's Slovakia (particularly its central parts) to Slovenia and Croatia or in the other direction.
• East Slavic languages [eastern neighbors of Slovakia; a Rusyn and Ukrainian minority live in northern eastern Slovakia]

This central position makes it relatively easy for other Slavs to understand Slovak and vice-versa. Thus, Slovak provides a good starting point from which to branch off to any additional Slavic language. Note however that the above only holds for the standard (that is northern central Slovak) language, not necessarily for the dialects (see Dialects).  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... Kajkavian (kajkavski) dialect is one of the three dialects of Croatian language. ... Great Moravia was an empire existing in Central Europe between 833 and the early 10th century. ... As a means of recording the passage of time, the 10th century was that century which lasted from 901 to 1000. ... This article or section should be merged with List of East Slavic languages The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. ... Rusyns, also called Ruthenians, Ruthenes, Rusins, Carpatho-Rusins, and Russniaks, are a modern group of ethnic groups that speak the Rusyn language and are descended from the minority of Ruthenians who did not adopt a Ukrainian national identity and become Ukrainians in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ...

Slovak is not related to the (non-Slavic, non-Indo-European) Hungarian language. However, it borrowed words from Hungarian in the past as a result of being part of the Kingdom of Hungary from the 11th century to 1918, but only a very low number of them is still used in literary language today. Traces of Hungarian loanwords remain in some dialects; they are usually words with a very specific meaning. On the contrary, the Hungarian language borrowed some 1200 words from old Slovak (and 1000 from other Slavic languages), especially in the 10th century, when the nomadic Hungarians settled in present-day Hungary and had to take over basic vocabulary necessary for sedentary life ^[1], for example the words for: Hungarian (magyar nyelv  ) is a Finno-Ugric language (more specifically an Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... As a means of recording the passage of time, the 11th century was that century which lasted from 1001 to 1100. ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ...

• basic objects: table (sk: stôl, hu: asztal), window (sk: oblok, hu: ablak), court (sk: dvor (u dvora), hu: udvar), street (sk: ulica, hu: utca), chimney (sk: komín, hu: kémény), tablecloth (sk: obrus, hu: abrosz), money (sk: peniaz, hu: pénz), key (sk: kľúč, hu: kulcs), creek (sk: potok, hu: patak), pub (sk: krčma, hu: kocsma), roof (sk: strecha, hu: eszterha - nowadays obsolete, mostly tető is used), flag (sk: záclona = curtain, hu: zászló), wax (sk: vosk, hu: viasz(k)), rock (sk: skala, hu: szikla), shaft (sk: hriadeľ, hu: gerendély), gate (sk: brána, hu: borona - obsolete, mostly kapu is used), comb (sk: hrebeň, hu: gereben - obsolete, mostly fésű is used), pile (sk: hromada/stoh, hu: garmada/asztag - asztag obsolete, mostly halom is used), pail (sk: vedro, hu: vödör), swamp (sk: močiar, hu: mocsár), rainbow (old sk: daga, hu: donga - obsolete, only szivárvány is used), stick (sk: palica, hu: pálca), dinner plate (sk: tanier, hu: tányér), basket (sk: kôš, hu: kosár), mine (sk: baňa, hu: bánya), seal (sk: pečať, hu: pecsét), razor, axe (sk: sekera, hu: szekerce = "hatchet" obsolete, mostly fejsze is used), push bolt, hoop, skate (sk: korčuľa, hu: korcsolya), shovel (sk: lopata, hu: lapát), boat (sk: čln, hu: csónak), cup (sk: pohár, hu: pohár = "drinking glass"), bacon (sk: slanina, hu: szalonna)
• days of the week: Wednesday (sk: streda, hu: szerda), Thursday (sk: štvrtok, hu: csütörtök), Friday (sk: piatok, hu: péntek), Saturday (sk: sobota, hu: szombat)^{[citation needed]}
• religion: Christian (sk: kresťan, hu: keresztény), pagan (sk: pohan, hu: pogány), angel (sk: anjel, hu: angyal), hell (sk: peklo, hu: pokol), Christmas (old sk: karačún, hu: karácsony), baptise (sk: krstiť, hu: keresztel)...
• state and government: ruling prince (sk: knieža, old hu: kenéz), king (sk: kráľ, hu: király), servant (sk: sluha, hu: szolga)...
• clothing: cap (cloth; sk: čiapka, hu: sapka), coat (sk, hu: kabát), robe (sk: plášť, hu: palást), skirt (sk: sukňa, hu: szoknya)...
• animals: bear (sk: medveď, hu: medve), cat (sk: mačka, hu: macska), male sheep (sk: baran, hu: bárány), drake, salmon, ass, bull, buffallo, mare, cock, rat, peacock, moth...
• plants: cherry (sk: čerešňa/pl. čerešne, hu: cseresznye), cabbage, rye, maize, beet, carrot, cucumber, maple, poppy, raspberry, straw...
• military: fight (old sk: harc, hu: harc), camp (sk: tábor, hu: tábor), lance (sk: kopija, hu: kopja), rifle (sk: puška, hu: puska), platoon (sk: čata, hu: csata)...
• professions: miller (sk: mlynár, hu: molnár), smith (sk: kováč, hu: kovács), cottar (sk: želiar, hu: zsellér), hunter (sk: poľovník, old hu: polovnyak obsolete, only vadász is used )....
• nations: German (sk: nemec, hu: német), Prussian, Valachian, Danube, Jewish...
• other: error (sk: chyba, hu: hiba), beast (sk: potvora, hu: patvar - obsolete, only szörny is used), to measure (sk: merať, hu: mérni), neighbour (sk:sused, hu:szomszéd), brother (now, friend in Hu; sk: brat, hu: barát), deserted (sk: pustý/pustá/pusté, hu: puszta), dear (sk: drahý/drahá/drahé, hu: drága), lunch (sk: obed, hu: ebéd), grandchild (sk: vnuk, hu: unoka)

Some of the words, however, have been loaned from Hungarian by the Slovaks themselves.

Differences between the 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 (excluding the Moravian dialects): literary Czech and colloquial Czech. The standard Slovak language is closer to literary Czech, especially in phonology and morphology. The differences between parts of the vocabulary of some Slovak dialects are rather big, comparable to the differences between standard Slovak and Czech. The description below sums the main differences between standard Slovak and Czech. In sociolinguistics, a language continuum is said to exist when two or more different languages or dialects merge one into the other(s) without a definable boundary. ... Rusyn is an East Slavic language (along with Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian to which it shares a common linguistic ancestry) that is spoken by the Rusyns. ...

• Slovak graphemes that do not exist in the Czech language are ä, ľ, ĺ, ŕ and ô (see Pronunciation). Czech graphemes that do not exist in the Slovak language are: ě, ř and ů.
• Slovak has the following phonemes which Czech does not have: /ʎ/, /rː/, /lː/, /æ/ (this one only in higher-style standard Slovak, or some dialects), and the diphthongs /i̯a/, /i̯ɛ/, /i̯u/, /u̯o/; and on the contrary, Czech has /r̝/.
• Czech uses peculiar pitch contour, not present in Slovak (or Moravian dialects).
• The Slovak, unlike Czech, uses palatalization more frequently (that is, is phonetically "softer")
• The phonetic assimilation and a kind of "liaison" are much stronger in the Slovak language
• The Slovak grammar:
  • is somewhat simpler (that is more regular) than Czech literary language grammar, since the present-day Slovak language standard has been codified only in the 19th century. However the colloquial Czech makes some more simplifications, especially merging case suffixes.
  • has different declension and conjugation endings and paradigms
  • has 6 morphological cases (see Slovak declension) - the vocative (officially not considered a separate grammatical case anymore) is almost lost, while the Czech vocative is well alive
• Some basic Slovak is similar to the Czech language, and a few (almost) identical words have different meaning. The differences are mostly of simple historical origin (for example the word hej mentioned below was used in Great Moravia). As for professional terminology, except for biology (esp. all names of animals and plants), the Czech terminology was mostly taken over (in Slovakized form) for practical reasons. The Czech-Slovak Dictionary of Different Terms (1989, Prague) contains some 11.000 entries (without professional terminology):
  • Examples of basic different words are: to speak (SK hovoriť – CZ mluvit), yeah (SK hej – CZ jo), if (SK ak – CZ jestli, jestliže, -li), Good bye (SK do videnia – CZ na shledanou), January (SK január – CZ leden), cat (SK mačka – CZ kočka), to kiss (SK bozkať – CZ líbat), now (SK teraz – CZ teď, nyní), goods (SK tovar – CZ zboží), he/she/it is not (SK nie je - CZ není) and so forth.
  • Examples of typical small differences: endings (SK -cia, -dlo, -ť, -om – CZ -c(i)e, -tko, -t, -em), expressions (SK treba, možno – CZ je třeba, je možné / je možno), prepositions (SK na – CZ k, pro) . . .
  • Examples of words with different meanings : SK topiť (to melt) – CZ topit (to heat), SK horký (bitter) – CZ horký (hot) . . .
• The Czech language has no equivalents for many Slovak words and vice versa. Examples of no Czech equivalents: prepositions (popod, ponad, sponad. . . ), verbs (ľúbiť, povynechávať, skackať, siakať,. . . ), nouns (kúrňava, kaštieľ, hoľa, grúň). . ., pronouns (dakto, voľakto, henten,. . . ) etc.
• The Czech language does not have the Rhythmical Rule (see Pronunciation)
• Slovak uses the passive voice formed like in English less than the Czech, and prefers the passive voice formed using the reflexive pronoun sa (like in Romance languages) instead
• Slovak has many dialects, while in the Czech Republic, many dialects have disappeared, especially in the Bohemian part of the Czech Republic.

In typography, a grapheme is the atomic unit in written language. ... In linguistics, speech synthesis, and music, the pitch contour of a sound is a function or curve that tracks the perceived pitch of the sound over time. ... See also: Slovak language. ... The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed, found in Latin among other languages. ... Great Moravia was an empire existing in Central Europe between 833 and the early 10th century. ...

Dialects

The spoken Slovak language consists of a large number of dialects that can be divided in four basic groups:

• Eastern Slovak dialects (in Spiš, Šariš, Zemplin and Abov)
• Central Slovak dialects (in Liptov, Orava, Turiec, Tekov, Hont, Novohrad, Gemer and the historic Zvolen county)
• Western Slovak dialects (in remaining Slovakia: Kysuce, Trencin, Trnava, Nitra, Zahorie)
• Lowland (dolnozemské) Slovak dialects (outside Slovakia in the Pannonian Plain which belonged to the Hungarian part of the former Austro-Hungary, i.e. in today's Serbian Vojvodina, southeastern Hungary, western Romania, and the Croatian part of Syrmia)

Note: 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). However, nowadays it differs from them to the extent that cannot be overlooked due to the contact with the surrounding languages (Serbian, Romanian and Hungarian) and long-time geographical separation from the territory of Slovakia, which lead to the emergence of idiosyncratic linguistic features (cf. the studies in Zborník Spolku vojvodinských slovakistov, e.g. Dudok, 1993, and other sources). SpiÅ¡ in Slovakia SpiÅ¡ (-Slovak; Latin: Scepusium, Polish: Spisz, German: , Hungarian: Szepesség) is a region in north-eastern Slovakia, with a very small area in south-eastern Poland. ... Å ariÅ¡ (in Latin: comitatus Sarossiensis, in German: Scharosch, in Hungarian: Sáros) is a historic administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. ... Zemplín (in Latin: Zemplinum, in German: Semplin, in Hungarian: Zemplén) is the name of a historic administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. ... Abov (in Latin: comitatus Abaujvariensis, in German: Neuburg or Abaujwar, in Hungarian: Abaúj) is the name of a historic administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. ... Lipton (-Slovak:, Hungarian: Liptó, German: Liptau, Polish: Liptów, Latin: Liptovium) is the name of a historic administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. ... This article is about the former Hungarian county. ... Turiec is the name of: a historic administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary; a river in Slovakia. ... Tekov (-Slovak, in Latin: comitatus Barsiensis, in German: Barsch, in Hungarian: Bars) is the name of a historic administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. ... Hont (-Slovak and Hungarian and German, in Latin: Honthum, in Hungarian also: Honth) is the name of a historic administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary and then shortly of Czechoslovakia. ... Nógrád an administrative county (comitatus or megye), in present Hungary, and also in the former Kingdom of Hungary. ... Gemer (in Latin: Gömörinum, in German: Gemer or Gömör, in Hungarian: Gömör) is the name of a historic administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. ... Zvolen (county) (in Latin: comitatus Zoliensis, in Hungarian Zólyom (vár)megye, in Slovak Zvolenský komitát/ Zvolenská stolica/ Zvolenská župa, in German Sohler Gespanschaft/Komitat Sohl) is the name of a historic administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. ... Kysuce is a traditional informal name for the northern Slovak region between the Orava region in the east and the Czech border in the west. ... Trenčín (Hungarian: Trencsén, German: Trentschin, Latin (Roman period): Laugaricio) is a town in western Slovakia (close to the Czech border) at the Váh river. ... Trnava (Hungarian: Nagyszombat, German: Tyrnau) is a town in western Slovakia, 45 kilometers to the north-east of Bratislava, on the Trnávka river, and at the main Bratislava-Žilina railway and Bratislava-Žilina limited-access highway. ... Nitra - City Center Nitra (German: ( ); Hungarian: / Nyitria [archaic]) is a city in western Slovakia (and the fourth largest urban settlement in Slovakia) situated at the foot of Zobor Mountain in the Nitra River valley. ... Záhorie is a (non-administrative) region in Slovakia situated between the Little Carpathians and the borders between Slovakia, Czechia, and Austria. ... The Pannonian Plain is a large plain in Central Europe that remained when the Pliocene Pannonian Sea (see below) dried out. ... Austria-Hungary, also known as the Dual monarchy (or: the k. ... Vojvodina (red) is one of Serbias two autonomous provinces Capital (and largest city) Novi Sad Official languages Ethnic groups  2. ... Map of the Syrmia region Syrmia (Serbian: Srem (Cyrillic: Срем), Croatian: Srijem) is a fertile region of the Pannonian plain in Europe, between the Danube and Sava rivers. ...

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

The dialect groups differ mostly in phonology, vocabulary and inflection. The differences in syntax are minor. Modified Central Slovak forms the basis of the present-day standard language. Not all dialects are fully mutually intelligible. The differences between some Slovak dialects make it for example often impossible for an inhabitant of the Slovak capital Bratislava (in western Slovakia) to understand a person from eastern Slovakia. Also, at the dialect level, only some dialects of western Slovak can be considered fully mutually intelligible with the Czech language, with which Slovak borders in the west. Nickname: Location of Bratislava within Slovakia Coordinates: , Country Region Districts Bratislava I-V City subdivisions 17 city boroughs Cadastral areas 20 cadastral areas First mentioned 907 Government  - Type City council  - Mayor (Primátor) Andrej ÄŽurkovský  - Headquarters Primates Palace Area [1]  - City 367. ... Czech (pronounced ; čeÅ¡tina IPA: in Czech) is one of the West Slavic languages, along with Slovak, Polish, Pomeranian (Kashubian), and Lusatian Sorbian. ...

The dialects are fragmented geographically, separated by numerous mountain ranges (Slovakia is a mountainous country). The first three groups already existed in the 10th century. All of them are also spoken by the Slovaks outside Slovakia (USA, Canada, Croatian Slavonia, Bulgaria and elsewhere) and Central and Western dialects form the basis of the Lowland dialects (see above). As a means of recording the passage of time, the 10th century was that century which lasted from 901 to 1000. ... Coat of arms Slavonia (Croatian: Slavonija) is a geographical and historical region in eastern Croatia. ...

The western dialects contain many 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 pronunciation features with the languages surrounding them (Serbian, Hungarian and Romanian).

References