The Slovak Accents: Acute, Caron and Circumflex

The Acute Accent Mark

In the previous entry the acute accent mark (prolongation mark or "dĺžeň"), which is used to denote long vowels in Slovak, was introduced. The acute accent mark is used on all Slovak vowels except the wide a (ä). These long vowels are therefore: á, é, í, ó, ú and ý. They are called long vowels because the vowel is emphasised when it is pronounced by holding the sound of the vowel.

Let's look at an example. In Slovak the word for "wine" is "'víno". As you can see from the acute mark, the 'i' vowel is long (í). The word "víno" is therefore pronounced more like "vee-no" and not like "vi-no". Other examples of long vowels include "biológia", which means "biology", and "súd", which means "court".  The pronunciation of "biológia" is something like "bi-o-low-gia" and closely resembles "sood" for "súd" where the 'ú' is pronounced like the 'oo' in "moo". 

It is important to note here that the acute accent mark can also be used with the consonants 'l' and 'r' to produce the letters 'ĺ' and 'ŕ'. As with English, a consonant is a letter of the alphabet that is not a vowel. However, these two consonants are considered vowels in these instances. Examples of their usage in Slovak are "kĺb", which means "joint" and "hŕba", which means "pile" or "heap".

The Caron and Circumflex

In Slovak there are two other accent marks that we have not yet introduced. These are the caron ("mäkčeň") and the circumflex ("vokáň"). The caron is a 'v'-like accent that is used with consonants only. It is written in two forms: as a small 'v' above the letter 'c', 'n', 's' and 'z' to create the letters 'č', ň', 'š', and 'ž'; and as an apostrophe behind the letters 'd', 'l' and 't' to create the letters 'ď', 'ľ', and 'ť'.

The caron serves to soften the sound of these letters when they are pronounced in Slovak. For example, the word "žena", which means "woman", is pronounced more like "zje-na" and not like "ze-na", where the 'ze' is something like the 'ze' in "zebra". Another example is "široký". This word means "wide" and is pronounced more like "she-ro-key" and not like "sa-ro-key".

The circumflex is an upside down 'v' that is used above the vowel 'o' only. It is represented as 'ô' and forms a diphthong. An example of the use of the circumflex is in the word "stôl", which means "table". It is pronounced something like "stwol". Diphthongs will be covered in a later entry on this blog.

As it is quite difficult to explain the pronunciation of the Slovak sounds through comparison with other English words, I suggest you try to familiarize yourself with Slovak by listening to the Slovak language and how it sounds in daily conversation. I will be looking for some Slovak sound clips to see if I can assist with this familiarization in some ways.

In the meantime, why not listen to some Slovak online? Visit Surf Music to listen to radio stations broadcast in Slovakia online. I recommend FUN Rádio and KISS 98; these are both radio stations that I often listen to when travelling in Slovakia. Rádio Slovensko (shown as Radio Slovensky on the Surf Music webpage) is also a good option as they talk more than some of the other radio stations. Look for a link that includes the word "živé" ("alive") on any of the websites to connect to their live broadcast. If you want to search for other broadcasts try using the search term "rozhlas", which means "radio broadcast".

Next time we will be looking at Slovak consonants and their associated accents in more detail.