Slovak orthography
Template:Short description Template:IPA notice The first Slovak orthography was proposed and created by the Slovak Catholic priest Anton Bernolák (1762–1813) in his Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum, used in the six-volume Slovak-Czech-Latin-German-Hungarian Dictionary (1825–1927) and used primarily by Slovak Catholics.
The standard orthography of the Slovak language is immediately based on the standard developed by Ľudovít Štúr in 1844 and reformed by Martin Hattala in 1851 with the agreement of Štúr. The then-current (1840s) form of the central Slovak dialect was chosen as the standard. After Hattala's reform, the standardized orthography remained mostly unchanged.
Alphabet
The Slovak alphabet is an extension of the Latin alphabet with 46 letters including four diacritics (ˇ(mäkčeň), ´(acute accent), ¨(diaeresis/umlaut), which makes it the longest Slavic and European alphabet.
| Majuscule forms (also called uppercase or capital letters) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A | Á | Ä | B | C | Č | D | Ď | Dz | Dž | E | É | F | G | H | Ch | I | Í | J | K | L | Ĺ | Ľ | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| M | N | Ň | O | Ó | Ô | P | Q | R | Ŕ | S | Š | T | Ť | U | Ú | V | W | X | Y | Ý | Z | Ž | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minuscule forms (also called lowercase or small letters) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | á | ä | b | c | č | d | ď | dz | dž | e | é | f | g | h | ch | i | í | j | k | l | ĺ | ľ | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| m | n | ň | o | ó | ô | p | q | r | ŕ | s | š | t | ť | u | ú | v | w | x | y | ý | z | ž | |||||||||||||||||||||||
In IPA transcriptions of Slovak, Template:IPA are often written with Template:Angbr IPA, i.e. as if they were palato-alveolar. The palato-alveolar Template:IPA exist in Slovak, but only as allophones of Template:IPA, which are normally retroflex, as in Polish.
The following digraphs are not considered to be a part of the Slovak alphabet:
- Template:Angbr, which stands for the rising-opening diphthong Template:IPA, similar to the Template:IPAc-en sequence in English (as in yap Template:IPAc-en), rather than the common Template:IPA realization of the underlying Template:IPA in the German word Wirt Template:IPA 'host', which is falling;
- Template:Angbr, which stands for the rising-opening diphthong Template:IPA, similar to the Template:IPAc-en sequence in English (as in yes Template:IPAc-en);
- Template:Angbr, which stands for the rising-backing diphthong Template:IPA, similar to the Template:IPAc-en sequence in English (as in use Template:IPAc-en) (but with a short ending point), never as a falling-backing diphthong as in some Welsh English new Template:IPA.
In loanwords, all three can stand for the disyllabic sequences Template:IPA, rather than the rising diphthongs. The starting points of those diphthongs are written with Template:Angbr IPA, rather than Template:Angbr IPA (as in Spanish tierra Template:IPA) because Template:IPA count as a long vowel in the rhythmical rule described below, unlike the phonological consonant Template:IPA followed by a short vowel. Template:IPA also counts as a long vowel, though there is no *Template:IPA sequence to rival it, as Template:IPA never appears before a vowel within the same word.
Sound–spelling correspondences
The primary principle of Slovak spelling is the phonemic principle. The secondary principle is the morphological principle: forms derived from the same stem are written in the same way even if they are pronounced differently. An example of this principle is the assimilation rule (see below). The tertiary principle is the etymological principle, which can be seen in the use of i after certain consonants and of y after other consonants, although both i and y are pronounced the same way.
Finally, the rarely applied grammatical principle is present when, for example, the basic singular form and plural form of masculine adjectives are written differently with no difference in pronunciation (e.g. pekný = nice – singular versus pekní = nice – plural).
Most foreign words receive Slovak spelling immediately or after some time. For example, "weekend" is spelled víkend Template:IPA, "software" - softvér Template:IPA, "gay" - gej Template:IPA (both not exclusively)Template:Clarify, and "quality" is spelled kvalita. Personal and geographical names from other languages using Latin alphabets keep their original spelling unless a fully Slovak form of the name exists (e.g. Londýn Template:IPA for "London").
The letters e, i, í, ie, ia trigger the palatal realization of the preceding D, N, T, L with few exceptions when the letters denote the ordinary alveolar phonetic value. To accelerate writing, a rule has been introduced that the frequent sequences Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA are written without a mäkčeň as de, te, ne, le, di, ti, ni, li, dí, tí, ní, lí, die, tie, nie, lie, dia, tia, nia, lia.
Some exceptions are as follows:
- foreign words (e.g. telefón is pronounced Template:IPA)
- the following words: ten Template:IPA 'that', jeden Template:IPA 'one', vtedy Template:IPA 'then', teraz Template:IPA 'now'
- nominative masculine plural endings of pronouns and adjectives do not turn the preceding d, n, t into palatal consonants (e.g. tí odvážni mladí muži Template:IPA, the/those brave young men)
- in adjectival endings, both the long é and the short e (shortened by the rhythmical rule) do not make the preceding d, n, t palatal, so that both zelené stromy Template:IPA 'green trees' and krásne stromy Template:IPA 'beautiful trees' feature the alveolar Template:IPA, rather than the alveolo-palatal Template:IPA.
- However, the adverb krásne Template:IPA (meaning 'beautifully') does feature the alveolo-palatal Template:IPA, resulting in a heterophonic homograph with krásne Template:IPA 'beautiful' (inflected), which features the same alveolar Template:IPA as the uninflected form krásny Template:IPA, which has an unambiguous spelling. There are some more examples of heterophonic homographs like this.
When a voiced obstruent (b, d, ď, dz, dž, g, h, z, ž) is at the end of the word before a pause, it is pronounced as its voiceless counterpart (p, t, ť, c, č, k, ch, s, š, respectively). For example, pohyb is pronounced Template:IPA and prípad is pronounced Template:IPA.
When "v" is at the end of the syllable, it is pronounced as labio-velar Template:IPA. For example, kov Template:IPA (metal), kravský Template:IPA (cow - adjective), but povstať Template:IPA (uprise), because the Template:IPA is morpheme-initial (po-vstať).
The feminine singular instrumental suffix -ou is also pronounced Template:IPA, as if it were spelled -ov.
Consonant clusters containing both voiced and voiceless elements are entirely voiced if the last consonant is voiced, or entirely voiceless if the last consonant is voiceless. For example, otázka is pronounced Template:IPA and vzchopiť sa is pronounced Template:IPA. This rule applies also over the word boundary. One example is as follows: prísť domov Template:IPA (to come home) and viac jahôd Template:IPA (more strawberries). The voiced counterpart of "ch" Template:IPA is Template:IPA, and the unvoiced counterpart of "h" Template:IPA is Template:IPA.
One of the most important changes in Slovak orthography in the 20th century was in 1953 when s began to be written as z where pronounced Template:IPA in prefixes (e.g. smluva into zmluva Template:IPA as well as sväz into zväz Template:IPA). The phonemic principle has been given priority over the etymological principle in this case.
Rhythmical rule
Template:See also The rhythmical rule, also known as the rule of "rhythmical shortening", states that a long syllable (that is, a syllable containing á, é, í, ý, ó, ú, ŕ, ĺ, ia, Template:Not a typo, iu, ô) cannot be followed by another long one within the same word. If two long syllables were to occur next to each other, the second one is to be made short. This rule has morphophonemic implications for declension (e.g. žen-ám Template:IPA but tráv-am Template:IPA) and conjugation (e.g. nos-ím Template:IPA but súd-im). Several exceptions of this rule exist.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It is typical of literary Slovak, and does not appear in Czech or in some Slovak dialects.
Diacritics
The acute mark (in Slovak "dĺžeň", "prolongation mark" or "lengthener") indicates length (e.g. í = Template:IPA). This mark may appear on any vowel except "ä" (wide "e", široké "e" in Slovak). It may also appear above the consonants "l" and "r", indicating the long syllabic Template:IPA and Template:IPA sounds.
The circumflex ("vokáň") exists only above the letter "o". It turns the o into a diphthong (see above).
The umlaut ("prehláska", "dve bodky" = two dots) is only used above the letter "a". It indicates an opening diphthong Template:IPA, similar to German Herz Template:IPA 'heart' (when it is not pronounced Template:IPA, with a consonantal Template:IPA).
The caron (in Slovak "mäkčeň", "palatalization mark" or "softener") indicates a change of alveolar fricatives, affricates, and plosives into either retroflex or palatal consonants, in informal Slovak linguistics often called just "palatalization". Eight consonants can bear a mäkčeň. Not all "normal" consonants have a counterpart with mäkčeň:
- In printed texts, the mäkčeň is printed in two forms: (1) č, dž, š, ž, ň and (2) ľ, ď, ť (looking more like an apostrophe), but this is just a convention. In handwritten texts, it usually always appears in the first form.
- Phonetically, two forms of "palatalization" exist: ľ, ň, ď, ť are palatal, while č, dž, š, ž are retroflex (which, phonetically speaking, is not "soft" but "hard").
Computer encoding
The Slovak alphabet is available within the ISO/IEC 8859-2 "Latin-2" encoding, which generally supports Eastern European languages. All vowels, but none of the specific consonants (that is, no č, ď, ľ, ĺ, ň, ŕ, š, ť, ž) are available within the "Latin-1" encoding, which generally supports only Western European languages.