Slovak is the official language of the Slovak Republic. The official Slovak written language was adopted in 1843 by Ludovit Stur and is based on the dialect spoken in central Slovakia. The Slovak language holds a central position among Slavic languages. While a West Slavic language, Slovak retains some features of Eastern Slavic languages and is related to Czech and Polish. Slovak-speakers intermingled with Ukrainian and Ruthenian speakers in the east and, before the arrival of Magyars (Hungarians) in the Danube basin, with speakers of the south Slavic languages (especially Slovene). Slovakia’s central geographic location and other factors have made it easy for other Slavs to understand Slovak. Slovak is written using an alphabet of Latin origin, with one letter usually indicating one sound. In addition, Slovak is a phonetic language, which means words are pronounced as they are written.
Special thanks to Michal Razus for providing information in this section.
Written Slovak uses several letters in addition to the twenty-six letters used in the English alphabet. These are á, ä, č, ď, é, í, ľ, ľ, ň, ó, ô, ŕ, š, ť, ú, ý, ž. The letter combinations dz, dž, and ch are also considered as single letters. Dz and dž are alphabetized after d, and ch is alphabetized after h. Letters q, w, and x are used only in words of foreign origin. The table below lists the capital and lowercase letters for the Slovak alphabet in the order they would appear in Slovak dictionaries and indexes.
Spelling rules were not standardized in earlier centuries. In Slovak, the following spelling variations are common:
There are also rules for plural forms of words and for grammatical use. For additional help with Slovak grammar and vocabulary, see the Slovak Word List at <www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/images/3/34/Slovakwordlist.pdf>.
With its many additional letters and sounds, the Slovak language can be intimidating to pronounce. Below are each of the letters of the Slovak language, its equivalent English sound, and an example of the sound as used in an English word. Note that ľ and accented vowels (á, é, í, ó, ú, and ý) are pronounced longer than their unaccented counterparts.
While it might help you in conducting Slovak ancestor research, being fluent in Slovak is certainly not necessary. Here are some terms you’re likely to encounter.
Unlike the languages of the other two ethnic groups covered in this book, the name of the months in Slovak come from Latin, meaning that they’re similar to the English names. The Slovak language doesn’t use nominative or genitive forms for months. Rather, Slovaks use the possessive form when writing dates.
In some genealogical records, numbers are written out. This is especially true with dates. The following list gives the cardinal (1, 2, 3) and the ordinal (first, second, third) versions of each number. In actual usage, days of the month are written in ordinal form with a possessive grammatical ending. In the following list, the ordinal number in its standard form is given first, followed by the possessive form (in some cases only the possessive ending is listed), for example: piaty—“the fifth”; na piaty—“on the fifth (of the month)”.
