Slovak language

Pronunciation and spelling

The Slovak language has distinctive palatalization.

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The accent (stress) in standard language is always on the first syllable of a word (or on the preceding preposition, see below). It is however different in some dialects. The eastern dialects, for example, have penultimate stress, which does not contribute to their intelligibility with standard Slovak. Some of the north-central dialects have a weak stress on the first syllable, which becomes stronger and "moves" to the penultima in some kinds of sentences. The stress is weaker than the English or German or Russian accent, but stronger than the French one. Monosyllabic conjunctions, monosyllabic short personal pronouns and auxiliary verb forms of the verb by? (to be) are, as a rule, not stressed.

Related Topics:
Accent - Stress

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Prepositions are pronounced together with the following word, unless the words are long (four syllables or more) or the preposition stands at the very beginning of a sentence.

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The acute mark (in Slovak "d??e?", that is prolongation mark) indicates the long pronunciation of the character below it, for example í = approximately ii . The acute can be above all vowels and only above the 2 consonants "l" and "r" (strictly speaking, the r and l are called vowels then, because in Slovak r and l can function either as a vowel (long or short) ? a so-called syllabic r, l - or as a consonant). Long vowels are about two times longer than corresponding normal (that is short) vowels, the long l or r should have an even longer pronunciation. Note that the acute mark has nothing to do with accent in the Slovak language.

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The circumflex ("voká?") exists only above the letter "o" (and turns the o into a diphthong ? see below).

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The diaresis (umlaut, "dve bodky" = two dots) is only used above the letter "a" (and turns the a into e ? see below).

Related Topics:
Diaresis - Umlaut

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The caron (in Slovak "mäk?e?", that is palatalization mark or softening mark) indicates either palatalization or change of alveolar fricatives into post-alveolar, in informal Slovak linguistics often called just "palatalization". Only 8 consonants can bear a caron, that is not all "normal" consonants have a "carroned" counterpart:

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• In printed texts, the caron is printed in two forms: (1) ?, d?, ?, ? and (2) ?,?,? (looking more like an apostrophe), but this is just a convention. In handwritten texts, it always takes the form (1).
• Phonetically, there are two forms of "palatalization": ?,?,?,? are palatalized consonants, while the ?, d?, ?, ? are postalveolar fricatives.
• To accelerate writing, a rule has been introduced that the frequent character combinations ?e, ?e, ?e, ?e, ?i, ?i, ?i, ?i, ?í, ?í, ?í, ?í must be written ne, de, te, le, ni, di, ti, li, ní, dí, tí, lí (that is without the caron). In other words ne, de, te, le, ni, di etc. are pronounced as if there were a caron above the consonant. There are, however, exceptions to this rule:

:# foreign words (for example telefón is pronounced with a hard t and a hard l)

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:# the following old Slavic words: ten (that), jeden (one), vtedy (then) are pronounced with hard t and d

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:# nominative masculine plural endings of pronouns and adjectives do not "soften" preceding n, d, t, l (for example tí odvá?ni mladí mu?i {{IPA|/ti? odva??ni mladi? mu?i/}}, the/those brave young men)

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:# short e in adjectival endings that is, actually (morphonemically), long é shortened by the "rhythmical rule" (see below) does not "soften" preceding n, d, t, l (for example krásne stromy {{IPA|/kra?sn?.../}}, beautiful trees, c.f. zelené stromy {{IPA|/z?l??n??.../}}, green trees)

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• ? is nowadays by many speakers esp. from western Slovakia pronounced as a non-palatalized l, esp. in li, le where the caron is not written. The officially correct pronunciation of li, le as palatalized is already frequently perceived as marked (either as a trait of middle and eastern dialect, or as a feature of language zealots). (An analogous tendency occurs in European Spanish, where however the ll is pronounced like English y instead of l.)

In addition, the following rules hold:

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• When a voiced consonant having a voiceless correspondent (that is b, d, ?, dz, d?, g, h, z, ?) stands at the end of the word before a pause, it is pronounced as a voiceless consonant (that is p, t, ?, c, ?, k, ch, s, ?, respectively), for example pohyb is pronounced {{IPA|/pohip/}}, prípad is pronounced {{IPA|/pri?pat/}}
• When "v" stands at the end of the syllable, it is pronounced as non-syllabic u (bilabial approximant {{IPA|/u?/}}), with the exception of the position before "n" or "?", for example, kov {{IPA|/kou?/}} (metal), kravský {{IPA|/krau?ski?/}} (cow - adjective), but povsta? {{IPA|/pofstat?/}} (uprise) because the v is not at the end of the syllable (po-vsta?), hlavný {{IPA|/hlavni?/}} because "v" stands before "n" here
• The assimilation rule: When voiced consonant(s) having a voiceless correspondent and voiceless consonant(s) meet in the word, all consonants of the group are pronounced as voiced if the last consonant is a voiced one, or as voiceless if the last consonant is a voiceless one, for example otázka is pronounced {{IPA|/ota?ska/}}, vzchopi? sa is pronounced {{IPA|/fsxopits?a/}}. This rule applies also over the word boundary, for example prís? domov {{IPA|/pri?zd? domou?/}} (to come home), viac jahôd {{IPA|/vi?adzjahu?ot/}} (more strawberries). The voiced counterpart of "ch" {{IPA|/x/}} is {{IPA|/?/}}.
• The rhythmical rule: A long syllable (that is a syllable containing á, é, í, ý, ó, ú, ?, ?, ia, ie, iu, ô) cannot be followed by another long syllable in the same word, that is the following syllable must be made short (in writing and pronunciation) (this rule has implications for the formation, declension (for example ?en-ám but tráv-am) and conjugation (for example nos-ím but súd-im) of words; there are several exceptions to this rule; this rule is typical of the literary Slovak language (not existing in the closely related Czech, or some Slovak dialects).

Official transcriptions

Slovak linguists do not usually use IPA for phonetic transcription (neither for the Slovak language, nor for other common languages), but rather their own system based on the Slovak alphabet.

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In the following table, pronunciation of each grapheme is given in this system as well as in IPA and Kirshenbaum.

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Some additional notes (transcriptions in IPA unless otherwise stated):

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• Pronunciation of ä as is already archaic (or dialectical) but still considered correct by some linguistic authorities; the other standard pronunciation today is {{IPA|}}.
• r and l can be syllabic phonemes {{IPA|/r?/}} and {{IPA|/l?/}}, which leads to words like vlk, prst, ?tvr?, krk.
• ch, normally the unvoiced , can have the voiced {{IPA|}} as an allophone as a result of phonetic assimilation.
• The sound group or graphemic group -ou (at the end of words) is pronounced {{IPA|}} but is not considered a separate diphthong, nor grapheme respectively (unlike ch, dz, d?). Its phonemic interpretation is /ov/.
• ia, ie, iu form diphthongs {{IPA|/i?a/ /i??/ /i?u/}} in native Slovak words, but glides in foreign and loan words.
• m has the allophone {{IPA|}} in front of the labiodental fricatives /f/ and /v/.
• n in front of (post)alveoral fricatives has an allophone written as {{IPA|/n?/}} in Slovak phonemic transcription; this is, however, an allophone of /n/.
• n can be in front of the velar plosives /k/ and /g/.
• f can be voiced {{IPA|}} as a result of phonetic assimilation.

Intuitive transcription for English speakers

Following list shows approximate pronunciation for English speakers:

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The values of the characters b, d, f, h, l, k, m, n, p, x are approximately equal to their English counterparts.

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The vowel combinations ia, ie, iu, ô are diphthongs, that is both elements are pronounced "together" the first element is almost a Slovak j for ia, ie, and iu and almost an English w for ô.

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• a ? approx. u in cut
• á ? approx. a in father (long a)
• ä ? e in set (or in archaic pronunciation like a in fat)
• c ? ts in its
• ? ? approx. ch in child
• ? ? approx. British d in during, dew
• dz ? approx. d+z (voiced c; like the Italian zz in organizzare)
• d? ? j in John (voiced ?)
• e ? e in set
• é ? ai in fair (long e)
• g ? g in go
• ch ? Scottish ch, for example in Loch Ness (approx. like German ch, Russian x)
• i ? i in sit
• í ? ee in need (long i)
• j ? y in yes
• ? ? approx. l in lurid (like gli... in Italian or ll in European Spanish)
• ? ? approx. "lll"
• ? ? approx. n in new (like French or Italian gn or Spanish ñ)
• o ? o in odd
• ó ? aw in saw, a in ball (long o)
• r ? "rolled r" like in Italian, Scottish, Bavarian (and like a Spanish r that is not before a vowel and not at the beginning of the word, for example in color)
• ? ? approx. Spanish rr in Zorro)
• s ? s in save
• ? ? approx. sh in she
• ? ? approx. t in tutor
• ô ? approx. wo in wonder (or like Italian uo in buono)
• q ? qu is like Slovak kv; q does not occur elsewhere
• u ? u in put
• ú ? oo in choose (long u)
• v ? v in very (but at the end of the syllable approx. as w in window, see above)
• y ? like Slovak i
• ý ? like Slovak í (long y)
• z ? z in zone
• ? ? s in pleasure (like French j in journal or g in général)
• w ? like Slovak v