Slovak language

Alphabet

A technical note for users of the English wikipedia: All Slovak vowels, but no Slovak-specific consonants (that is no ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?) are available within the Latin-1 encoding.

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The Slovak language uses a modified Roman (Latin) alphabet. Modified means that it uses four types of diacritical marks (?, ´, ¨, ^; see Pronunciation) placed above some letters.

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The lexicographic ordering of the Slovak alphabet is very similar to the English alphabet: A B C D DZ E F G H CH I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z. The complete alphabet, however, allows for characters with diacritics (the character with diacritics always comes after the same character without diacritics) and is as follows: a á ä b c ? d ? dz d? e é f g h ch i í j k l ? ? m n ? o ó ô p q r ? s ? t ? u ú v w x y ý z ?. Note that dz, d? and ch are considered single letters and that ch follows the h (not the c). The letters "q", "w" are only used in loan words, never in native or naturalized Slovak words.

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The names of the letters (like in English ey, bee, cee, dee ?) are: a (á), á (dlhé á), á s dvoma bodkami, bé, cé, ?é, dé, ?é, dzé, d?é, e (é), é (dlhé é), ef, gé, há, chá, i (í), í (dlhé í), jé, ká, el, e?, dlhé el, em, en, e?, o (ó), ó (dlhé ó), ó s voká?om, pé, kvé, er, dlhé er, e?, té, ?é, u (ú), ú (dlhé ú), vé, dvojité vé, iks, ypsilon (ý), dlhé ý, zet, ?et (for pronunciation see below)

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The characters are divided as follows:

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• Vowels are: a á ä e é i í o ó y ý u ú.
• Diphthongs are: ia, ie, iu, ô.
• Consonants are: b c ? d ? dz d? f g h ch j k l ? ? m n ? p q r ? s ? t ? v w x z ?. The consonants r, l, ?, ? are considered vowels in some cases (see Pronunciation).