O slovenčine

 

About Slovak

 

Slovak is the official language in Slovakia (spoken by 5 mil. people. It is also spoken in the USA (1,200,000), the Czech Republic (350,000), Serbia (60,000), Ireland (30,000), Romania (22,000), Poland (20,000), Canada (20,000), Hungary (11,800), Croatia (5,000), Australia, Austria, and Ukraine.

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

The primary principle of Slovak spelling is the principle, "Write as you hear". Another principle is the etymological one which can be seen in the use of “i “after certain consonants and of “y” after other consonants, although both pronounced the same way.

There are no articles in Slovak. Nouns are declined (jazyk – language, o jazyku – about language), and verbs are conjugated (hovorím – I speak, hovoríš – you speak).

Once there were two past tenses, but one of them is not used in the modern language any more, an example:

“urobil som” (I did / I have done) – still in use

“bol som urobil” (I had done)  - not used

There is one future tense.

Slovak is regulated by Ľudovít Štúr Institute of Linguistics (Jazykovedný ústav Ľudovíta Štúra) at Slovak Academy of Sciences (Slovenská akadémia vied).

There is also 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 “vysoký chlapec” (tall boy – sg.) vs ”vysokí chlapci” (tall boys – pl.), both pronounced /pekni:/.

Most foreign words receive Slovak spelling immediately or after some time, for example, "weekend" is spelled ”víkend”, "software" – ”softvér”.

The acute mark (in Slovak "dĺžeň", "prolongation mark") indicates a long vowel (ráno /ra:no/=morning), and can be used also above the consonants "l" and "r" (stĺp /stl:p/= column, vŕba /vr:ba/= willow).

The circumflex ("vokáň") exists only above the letter "o" (kôš /kuosh/ = basket).

The umlaut ("prehláska", "dve bodky" = two dots) is only used above the letter "a" (mäso /mæso/ = meat).

The caron ("mäkčeň", "palatalization mark" or "softener") is used above eight consonants (škola /shkola/ = school).