Slovak Language

The Slovak Language, also known as Slovak or Slovakian, is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by more than five million people. Slovak is also spoken by people in various countries throughout the world including Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, the Ukraine, and the United States.

Slovak is based on a Latin alphabet, and the spelling of words is determined by pronunciation; one letter usually indicates one sound. The language uses diacritics, small marks above letters, to indicate how a letter should be pronounced. The first syllable of each word is stressed, or accented.

Slovak is a West Slavic language that is closely related to the Czech language. Speakers of Czech, and other Slavic languages, can often understand the Slovak language.

Slovak has four main dialects based on geography: Eastern Slovak, Central Slovak, Western Slovak, and Lowland, but the Lowland dialect is often considered a subgroup of Central and Western Slovak. The Eastern dialect differs significantly from the Central and Western dialects.

Slovak was not the official language of Slovakia until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993. From 1918 until 1993, Czechoslovakian was the official language of the country, with the Slovak and Czech languages considered dialects. When Slovakia joined the European Union (EU) in 2004, Slovak became an EU official language.

History and Classification

The Slovak language has a long and complicated history. Slavic people arrived in the area that is now Slovakia around 500 CE. The language they spoke was most likely Latin. An early form of Slovak developed around 860 CE.

Scholars have found early texts containing elements of the Slovak language used by people in Great Moravia and Pannonia, regions collectively referred to as Slovenia in the texts. This early literary form of the Slovak language is called the Old Church Slavonic, and it was used until the collapse of Moravia in the 900s. After this, the people in the region that is now Slovakia once again used Latin.

During the fourteenth century, a Slovak version of the Czech language came into use and became the official language of Slovakia. This mixed language was used until the eighteenth century when Anton Bernolák, a Slovak linguist and Catholic priest, attempted to create the first standard literary Slovak language. Problems within his chosen dialect prevented him from succeeding, however. Bernolák based his language on the Western Slovak dialect, which did not distinguish between the letters "y" and "i." It also did not use the letter "j," but used "g" and "w" instead. Such oversights made the language difficult to comprehend. Ludovǐt Štúr , the leader of the Slovak National Revival, amended Bernolák's language and developed the first standard literary Slovak language in 1843. This language had rules for the use of "y" and "i." Shortly after, Štúr published the first Slovak political newspaper.

However, the Slovak language nearly became extinct after the establishment of Austria-Hungary in 1867. The Hungarian government converted all Slovak schools into Hungarian schools and only allowed students to study the Slovak language for an hour each week as a foreign language.

The establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918 ended this practice. Slovak became an official language along with the Czech language, but this ended two years later when the Czechoslovakian parliament made the Czechoslovakian language the official language and declared the Czech and Slovak languages as dialects. The Slovak and Czech languages had always been similar, so this was not a drastic change. Unlike other Slavic languages, in the Slovak and Czech languages, the accent, or stress, is always on the first syllable of a word.

In 1993, because of increased tensions between the Slovaks and the Czechs, the Czechoslovakian parliament divided the county into two separate countries: Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The official language of Slovakia was now Slovak, and the official language of the Czech Republic was Czech.

In terms of classification, the Slovak language is an Indo-European language, a family of languages spoken by most people in Europe and in parts of South Asia. Slovak is also a Proto-Indo-European language. Such languages can be traced to the same ancestral language. Like the Polish and Czech languages, Slovak is also classified as a West Slavic language, which is a branch of the Indo-European family of languages.

Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage

The modern Slovak language uses a modified Latin alphabet with twenty-six upper- and lowercase letters and diacritics to indicate pronunciation. The language underwent a significant change after the end of World War II in 1945. In the past, many prefixes began with the letter "s," which was pronounced as "z." This "s" prefix was changed to "z," so a word such as "smluva" was now "zmluva." (Zmluva means "agreement.")

While the Slovak language and the Czech language are still similar, after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, the languages underwent changes in pronunciation and vocabulary that made them more distinct.

Standard Slovak is now used in education, government, and media in Slovakia. It is based primarily on the Central Slovak dialect; the Western Slovak dialect incorporates Czech dialects, and the Eastern Slovak dialect incorporates Polish dialects since this region shares a border with Poland.

Bibliography

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