An Introduction to Slovakia and Slovak

Slovakia, or Slovensko as it is known to the locals, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The Slovak Republic territory that exists today was established in 1989 after the fall of Communism. The country was recognised as a sovereign state when Czechoslovakia was divided into two separate countries, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, on the 1st of January 1993.

With just under 5.5 million inhabitants, Slovakia is one of the smaller countries in Europe. Its size in terms of square kilometers is somewhat larger than that of Denmark and almost two thirds the size of its western neighbour and historical partner, the Czech Republic. Since its formation Slovakia has built a name for itself within Europe. The country joined the European Union in 2004 and the Schengen zone in 2007.  It also adopted the Euro on the 1st of January 2009.

The national language of Slovakia is Slovak (slovenčina). Slovak is a slavic language, or simply, a language of the Slavic people. The Slavic people are an ethic and linguistic group of people who populated many parts of Europe in around 6BC. Like other Slavic languages, Slovak descends from a parent language called 'Proto-Slavic' and is categorised as a 'West Slavic' language based on its geographical origin.

Slovak utilises the Latin alphabet, which is the same as the English ABC's. However, it includes 'ch' as a separate letter after 'h' and also excludes 'w' and 'q'. The letter 'x' is usually only used in foreign words. The language has two additional vowels compared to the English "a, e, i, o, u". These are the vowels ("samohlásky") 'y' and 'ä'. The vowel 'y' is pronounced like the English small 'i' and the wide 'ä', which is written as an 'a' with an umlaut, is pronounced more like the English small 'e'.

All of the vowels except for 'ä' are used in both a short and a long form, where the long form is denoted by an acute mark above the vowel. The differentiation between the long and short vowels is an important aspect of the Slovak language as the pronunciation of the word gives it its meaning. Take for example the Slovak word "rad". Spelled with a short 'a' (an 'a' without an accent), it means "row" or "line" in English. Replace the short 'a' with a long one, 'á' (an 'a' with an acute mark), and it means "gladly" or "with pleasure".

It becomes obvious then that understanding the Slovak accents and sounds is a vital step to mastering the language. Next time we will cover the Slovak consonants and their accents, which modify their pronunciation and result in a lot of tongue twisting for those of us who are not used to a soft language like Slovak!