TheSlovak language is aWest Slavic language. Historically, it forms adialect continuum withCzech. The written standard is based on the work ofĽudovít Štúr, published in the 1840s and codified in July 1843 inHlboké.

The centrist hypothesis was popular in the 19th century when it played a positive role in the Slovak national movement.^[1] According to this theory, Slovak is the remnant of theProto-Slavic language spoken in the Middle Danube region before thegreat migration of the Slavs. This hypothesis is based onNestor'sPrimary Chronicle and was supported byMatej Bel and several notable members of the movement, likePavel Jozef Šafárik,Anton Bernolák andĽudovít Štúr. Most modern scholars oppose the opinion about theSlavic homeland being in the Middle Danube, but the theory was revived in the 20th century by the Russian linguistOleg Trubachyov.

The theories about the nonhomogeneous origin of Slovak assume its late integration in the 13th to 14th centuries or even after the 16th century. They claim that the Proto-Slavic basis of Slovak emerged on the border of early Western, Southern and Eastern Slavic macro dialects or that Slovak emerged from early or late mixing of neighboring languages.^[1] A prominent Slovak linguist,Samuel Czambel (1856–1909), believed that Western Slovak dialects are derived from early Western Slavic, that Central Slovak dialects are remains of the South Slavic language area (Czechized over centuries) and that Eastern Slovak dialects come fromOld Polish andOld Ukrainian.Samuil Bernstein supported a similar theory.István Kniezsa suggested a mixing of languages in today's Central Slovakia after theMongol invasion of Europe andOttoman wars, thus forming modern Central Slovak dialects.^[2] The opinion about the late integration is not compliant with the current state of knowledge about the development of Slovak dialects fromProto-Slavic.^[3]

This theory was proposed in the interwar period by Czech linguistsFrantišek Trávníček andVáclav Vážný. Its proponents believed that Slovak and Czech emerged from a common Proto-Czech-Slovak (Proto-Czech). Trávníček explained unique features of Central Slovak dialects by later differentiation, Vážný, by expansion from the south.^[3] Trávníček's attempt to explain the origin of Slovak from Proto-Czech-Slovak is now thought to be erroneous, and the creator of the theory abandoned it already afterWorld War II.

Modern theories are based on a nonhomogeneousProto-Slavic basis of Slovak.^[4] The prevailing theory is the migration-integration theory ofRudolf Krajčovič.^[5]

Rudolf Krajčovič suggests three phases of development:^[6]

• post-migration period (5th–7th centuries): the Slavs came to present-day Slovakia from various locations; Western and Eastern Slovakia was settled by people who spoke Northwestern (West Slavic) Proto-Slavic dialect, Central Slovakia by speakers of the Southeastern (non-West Slavic) dialect.
• integration period (8th–9th centuries): several language features (both West and non-West Slavic) spread across the borders of the initial linguistic regions; these changes are best explained by the integration process of the Slavs before and during the existence ofGreat Moravia.
• constitutive period (10th–11th centuries): After the extinction of Proto-Slavic, Slovak began to evolve as a separate Slavic language.

This theory was proposed by a Slovak linguistMartin Pukanec. According to Pukanec, the migration-integration theory does not explain the presence of old isoglosses aroundNitra, one main old political center. The main idea of the theory is koineization, a formation of a super-dialect (koiné) on the border of the West Slavic and the South Slavic dialects. The koineization on the border of two dialects may have been very rapid with many dramatic changes, possibly even two or three in one generation.^[5]

The author suggests the following chronology:

• an early integration period (6th century–833)
• koineization (833–907): The four phases of koineization correspond with the phases of development of Great Moravia.
• constitutive period (907–1110): The koiné was disintegrated, and the tribal system finally became extinct.

The arguments for this theory are mostly indirect.^[7]

The Proto-Slavic basis of Slovak included both West Slavic and Non-West Slavic features.^[8] Some West Slavic features are common for all Slovak dialects, but there are also Non-West Slavic features that are distributed over 70–75% of the territory. The Central Slovak dialects exhibits major deviations from what is generally thought of as West Slavic.^[9]

In the 10th century, Proto-Slavic ceased to exist, and Slovak began to emerge as an independent language.^[10][11] The most important early changes were the contraction, the loss and vocalization ofyers^[12] and the denasalization ofǫ andę. These changes affected the word structure and phonemes.^[11] The loss of yers differentiated future Slovak, Czech and Polish from neighboring Slavic regions, and the denasalization differentiated Slovak and Czech from Polish. Slovak was not affected by old Polish dispalatization in the 10th century, causing differences between the two languages such asžena vs. Polishżona (a woman, a wife),kvet vs. Polishkwiat, etc.^[6] It was also not affected by the old Czech syllabic depalatization before hard syllables, with differences such aspriateľ vs. Czech sg.přítel, pl.přátelé (a friend). Slovak preserved a difference betweendz/z (from Proto-Slavic */dj/ */gtj/), i.e.medźa (medza, a boundary),vítäź (víťaz, an elite warrior, a winner) whereas both phonemes were transformed to ź in old Czech and dź in old Polish.^[6] Contrary to Czech, a vowel mutation fromà toe did not occur in Slovak,^[13] i.e.ulica vs. Czechulice (a street). The differences between Slovak and Czech likeťažko/těžko,cudzí/cizí became stable later.^[14] Slovak developed only singler in contrast with Czech pairsr/ř and Polishr/rz.^[15] Slovak evolved as an independent language already from the 10th century, and there is strong evidence against theories of its early or late formation from other languages.^[15][a]

Contraction was a change caused by a loss ofj between vowels and their merging into one long vowel, for exampledobroje →dobré (good) andbojati sę →báť sa (to be afraid). The contraction originated in the territory ofGreat Moravia in the last years of its existence and divided the Slavic territory into contraction and non-contraction areas. In Proto-Slovak, the contraction occurred before the disappearance and vocalization of yers, but not uniformly. In later Western and Eastern Slovak dialects, the change was similar to other West Slavic languages. The Central Slovak shares some old features with the South-Slavic contraction peripheral territory. The Central Slovak preserved more non-contracted forms (i.e.moja,moje vs.má,mé,bojati sa /dialect/ vsbáť sa). The different process of contractionoje →oe →ô probably resulted also to the characteristic neuter adjective ending-ô (i.e.dobrô vs.dobré).

The disappearance of weak yers and the change of strong yers is reconstructed byHavlík's law. The back yer (ъ) was vocalized ase in the Proto-Slavic basis of Western and Eastern Slovak (pętъkъ →pátek: Friday) and aso in the Central Slovak area (piatok). The weak yers did not disappear in one syllable words, but the back yer changed toa, and the front yer, toä. This change occurred already in the 10th century like in other West Slavic languages, contrary to the neighboring East Slavic area.

The Proto-Slavic nasal vowelsǫ andę were denasalized in the 10th century.^[12] The nasal vowelǫ was replaced byu andú, i.e.zǫbъ > zub (a tooth),lǫka > lúka (a meadow) probably through an extinct nasal vowelų:ǫ > ų > u/ú. The denasalization ofę was similar:ę > ą̈ > ä/a̋. These forms from the 11th–12th centuries have been preserved in some Slovak dialects until the modern age (Orava, Gemer and Sotak dialects). The central Slovak dialects preserved only the short formä. In other dialects, they changed to wide range ofmonophthongs anddiphthongs.^[16]

The Proto-Slavicquantity was associated with specific vowels (longa,u,i,y,ě,ę,ǫ vs. shorto,e,ъ,ь). The original quantity has disappeared or changed, creating pairs of short and long vowelsa/á,e/é, etc.^[17]

Early Slovak inherited thevelarg from Proto-Slavic. The velar was preserved in the early stage of development, but it changed toh approximately in the 12th century. Unlike Czech, this change was not complete, and the originalg has been preserved in the-zg consonant group at the end of words and on the border of morphemes, e.g.mozgy vs. Czechmozky (brains).^[18] The partial preservation ofg in the phonetic system allowed Slovak to adoptg in later loanwords, for examplegombík (a button).^[18]

In contrast to modern Slovak, early Slovak had three grammatical numbers inherited from Proto-Slavic,singular,plural anddual. Dual was probably never fully developed and was extinct already in the 14th century.^[19] Dual forms were recorded mostly in documents from Western and partially from Central Slovakia, but their usage in the 15th–16th centuries was limited to words that naturally come in pairs (ears, eyes, etc.) and words derived from the number two. However, they were already garbled or outnumbered by plural forms.^[20]

Simplification of grammatical tenses had been an overall trend in the development of Slovak. Old Proto-Slavic past tenses, theaorist, theimperfect and the oldpluperfect disappeared, probably in the 13th–14th centuries. Theperfect and the new pluperfect become stable. Different expressions for the future tense were simplified in one stable form, e.g.mám/chcu/začnu/budu robiti →budu robiti, laterbudem robiť (I will do).^[21]

Unlike neighbouring Slavic languages, Slovak retained only six out of seven Proto-Slavic grammatical cases. Thevocative merged with thenominative, but it has been preserved in archaic forms of some words related to family, e.g.otec →otče,syn →synu,kmotor →kmotre (O father/son/godfather) and to address God:Boh →Bože,Ježiš →Ježišu,Kristus →Kriste (O God/Jesus/Christ). Slovak retained basic principles of declension, but the evolution of declension paradigms had been strongly affected by the principle of analogy: less frequent declension suffixes were replaced by more frequent suffixes from other cases and paradigms.^[22] The outcome of this process was simplification and higher uniformity of declension patterns. This process was more intense compared to Czech. The independent development of Slovak naturally resulted in unique declension patterns.^[22]

The earliest written records of Slovak are represented by personal and place names, later by sentences, short notes and verses in Latin and Czech documents.^[23] Latin documents contain also mentions about a cultivation of the vernacular language. The complete texts are available since the 15th century.^[23] In the 15th century, Latin began to lose its privileged position in favor of Czech and cultural Slovak.^[24]

TheOld Church Slavonic became the literary and liturgical language, and theGlagolitic alphabet the corresponding script in Great Moravia until 885. Latin continues to be used in parallel. Some of the early Old Church Slavonic texts (based on emerging southern Slavic dialects) contain western Slavic elements of the language of the Slavic inhabitants ofGreat Moravia andPannonia, which were called the Sloviene (*Slověne) by Slavic texts at that time.The use of Old Church Slavonic in Great Moravia was prohibited byPope Stephen V in 885; consequently, Latin became the administrative and liturgical language again. Many followers and students of Constantine and Methodius fled toBulgaria,Croatia,Bohemia, theKievan Rus' and other countries.

From the 10th century onward, Slovak began to develop independently. Very few written records of Old Slovak remain, mainly from the 13th century onwards, consisting of groups of words or single sentences. Fuller Slovak texts appeared starting from 15th century. Old Slovak and its development can be researched mainly through old Slovak toponyms occurring in Latin texts. Examples includecrali (1113) >kráľ, 'king';dorz (1113) >dvorec, 'court';grinchar (1113) >hrnčiar, 'potter';mussenic (1113) >mučeník, 'martyr';scitar (1113) >štítar, 'shieldmaker';zaltinc (1156) >zlatník, 'goldmaker';duor (1156) >dvor, 'courtyard'; andotroč (1156) >otrok, 'slave, servant'. In 1294, the monk Ivanka fromKláštor pod Znievom wrote: "ad parvam arborem nystra slowenski breza ubi est meta".^[25] It is important mainly because it contains the oldest recorded adjectiveSlovak in Slovak, whose modern form isslovensky. Up until this point, all adjectives were recorded mainly in Latin, includingsclavus,slavus andsclavoniae.

WrittenCzech started to penetrate into present-day Slovakia through Czech clergy teaching in capitular schools in the 14th century.^[26] In the pre-standard period, Czech was used along with Latin and cultural Slovak as a cultural and liturgical language.^[26] The reasons for the use of Czech were the absence of a uniform Slovak standard due to the absence of a Slovak state, whereas Czech was a standardized language which enjoyed a certain degree of prestige, particularly in the context of the Protestant Reformation; the rise of the Slovak population in towns; the similarity to Slovak making it easier to learn; studies of many Slovaks at the University of Prague; the influence of the campaigns of the CzechHussites and ofJohn Giskra (Ján Jiskra) in Upper Hungary; and the temporary conquest of Moravia by the Hungarian kingMatthias Corvinus.^[26]

The usage of Czech in a Slovak environment resulted in Slovakized Czech, a variant of cultural Czech with Slovak elements. This variant existed from the penetration of Czech to present-day Slovakia and was used in city books and official correspondence. Early writings had a varying frequency of Slovak elements caused by a poor knowledge of standard Czech among many Slovak native speakers and the influence of vernacular language and cultural Slovak.^[27] The normalized form of Slovakized Czech existed from the 17th century. In it, Czech letters and words were systematically replaced by their Slovak equivalents (e.g.ř byr,ě bye,au byú,ou byú, etc.).^[28]

Czech was recognized as an official language of the Lutheran Church by the councils in 1610 and 1614^[29] and was used as a liturgical language even until the early 20th century. The official form was biblical Czech used in the CzechBible of Kralice. The orthography ofHussite "Brothers in the Law of Christ" was used also in Catholic publications but often adjusted to cultural Slovak.

Slovak humanistJán Kollár andAndrej Ľudovít Radlinský attempted to standardize a new standard language called Old Slovak (staroslovenčina), a version of Slovakized Czech. According to the contemporaryPan-Slavic views, the Slavic nation consisted of four tribes, the Czechoslovak, the Polish, the Russian and the Illyrian (Southern Slavs). Kollár assumed a common origin of Czechs and Slovaks. The original language, he claimed, is closer to Slovak, with Czech allegedly losing its beauty due to contact withGerman. After the suppressing of theHungarian Revolution of 1848, Kollár got an approval of the government inVienna to use "Old Slovak" as an administrative and educational language.^[28] The trial to create a common standard language for Czechs and Slovaks failed. Czechs had difficulties understanding Kollár's "improvements" of Czech by Slovakisms, and the younger Slovak generation preferred standardization of Slovak.

Catholics use Western Slovak (Cultured Western Slovak, Jesuit Slovak) based on the language used by educated people from the region ofTrnava, where the importantJesuit University of Trnava was founded in 1635, and in the profane sphere, especially in towns, Slovak influenced by the Czech is used even in written documents, often with a chaotic orthography.

My fojt Gal i boženíci, mister Andreas, Benediktus Nozer, Martin Messer, Zighel a jinší boženici vyznavame všem, ktož toto bude čisti a neb čtuce uslyše, (...) I jest nam Boh pomohol, že jsme učinili uplnou umlovu z Niklošem Polakem i z jeho synen Martinem a Miklošem Noskem a dal jest nam Polak summu penez 67 zlatych v zlate uhorskej vahy za ty všicky braky tisove, co mali činiti z bratrem našim z Hanesom Frolichem a o jinše všicky veci, což mali v jedno činiti. Prejednané a vykonané roku Pána 1451 v piatok pred sviatkom obratenia sv. Pavla. A dale my Peter Frulych a Peter Fyuger zlubujeme Polakovi 16 zl. zastupiti od Gloza s Tešina, tak, že ma Polak teho prazen byti.

After the defeat of the Turks near Vienna in 1683, many Slovaks gradually emigrated to the Lower Lands, territories in present-day Hungary, Serbia (later to Croatia and Bulgaria), and Romania was depopulated after the Turkish occupation. They have preserved their particular Slovak dialects until today. In eastern Slovakia, a Slovakized standard Polish is used sometimes (besides Czech, Slovak and Latin) for the same purposes and reasons as Czech is used in the remaining Slovakia. Latin continues to be used, especially in state administration.

Efforts to establish Slovak as the standard language emerged as early as in the 17th century. For example, inThe Czech Grammar (1603),Vavrinec Benedikt of Nedožery incites the Slovaks to deepen their knowledge of Slovak.Matej Bel in the introduction to theGramatica Slavico-Bohemica (1745) ofPavel Doležal compares Slovak with other recognized languages. Literary activity in Slovak flourished during the second half of the seventeenth century and continued into the next century. In the mid-18th centuryCamaldolese monkstranslated the Bible ina variant of language named after them, while Romuald Hadvabný ofČervený Kláštor proposed a detailed (Western Slovak) language codification in hisLatin-Slovak Dictionary (1763) with an outline of the Slovak grammar. The first adventure novel in Slovak, theRené mláďenca príhodi a skúsenosťi, was published in 1783 byJozef Ignác Bajza in Western Slovak.

Anton Bernolák, a Catholic priest (1762–1813), published theDissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum in 1787, in which he codified a Slovak standard based on the Western Slovak of the University of Trnava but contains also some central Slovak elements, e.g. soft consonantsď,ť,ň,ľ and many words. The orthography is strictly diacritical.^[30] The language is often called Bernolák's language. Bernolák continued his codification work in other books in the 1780s and 1790s and especially in his huge six-volumeSlovak-Czech-Latin-German-Hungarian Dictionary, in print from 1825 to 1927. In the 1820s, the Bernolák standard was revised, and Central Slovak elements were systematically replaced by their Western Slovak equivalents.^[31]

This was the first successful establishment of a standard Slovak. Bernolák's language was used by Slovak Catholics, especially by the writersJuraj Fándly andJán Hollý, but Protestants still wrote in Czech in its old form used inBohemia until the 17th century.

In 1843, young Slovak LutheranProtestants, led byĽudovít Štúr, decided to establish and discuss the central Slovak dialect as the new Slovak standard instead of both Bernolák's language used by the Catholics and Czech used by older Slovak Lutheran Protestants. The new standard was also accepted by some users of Bernolák's language led by Ján Hollý, but was initially criticized by the older Lutheran Protestants led byJán Kollár (died 1852). This language formed the basis of the later standard Slovak that is used today. The first Slovak grammar of the new language was published by Ľudovít Štúr in 1846 with the titleNauka reči Slovenskej (The Theory of the Slovak Language).

In 1844, theHungarian Diet ofPozsony (today Bratislava) replaced Latin, used since theMiddle Ages, withHungarian as the official language of Hungary, which included at the time what later became Slovakia.

In 1851, the supporters of Bernolák and Štúr made a compromise and agreed on the reform of the Štúr's standard.^[32] The new standard respected etymological principles instead of Štúr's phonetic-phonological transcription and used a Slovak orthography closer to other Slavic languages, especially Czech. The new grammar was published byMartin Hattala in 1852.^[33]

The Martin period lasted from the abolishment of the Slovak national and cultural institutionMatica slovenská until the foundation of Czechoslovakia in 1918. The name comes fromTurčiansky Svätý Martin, the contemporary Slovak cultural center. The usage of Slovak in education and culture was significantly reduced during forcedMagyarization after theAustro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867.

The Martin practice (Slovak:martinský úzus) was ade facto standard partially formed already before the abolishment of Matica and influenced by the dialect spoken in Martin. In 1902,Samuel Czambel published new language standard. Czambel's codification favored the forms used in spoken language to archaisms from Hattala's codification and synchronized spoken and written language. Czambel's codification was partially revised and extended byJozef Škultéty.

With the establishment ofCzechoslovakia in 1918, Slovak became anofficial language for the first time in history along with Czech. TheCzechoslovak Constitution of 1920 and theconstitutional law on minorities which was adopted alongside the constitution on the same day established theCzechoslovak language as an official language Since the Czechoslovak language did not exist, the law recognized its two variants, Czech and Slovak. Czech was usually used in administration in the Czech lands; Slovak, in Slovakia. In practice, the position of languages was not equal. Along with political reasons, this situation was caused by a different historical experience and numerous Czech teachers and clerks in Slovakia, who helped to restore the educational system and administration because Slovaks educated in Slovak were missing.

In 1931, theMatica slovenská published a new standard Slovak prepared by Czech linguistVáclav Vážný, the head of the Department of Linguistics of Matica. In contrast with older works including those published in Czechoslovakia, the standard had an official character and was approved and recommended by the Ministry of Education led by Slovak ministerIvan Dérer. The standard was inspired by the official ideology ofCzechoslovakism and tried to align both languages by the codification of numerous Czech words and forms not existing in Slovak.^[34] It raised negative reactions, and the board of Matica promised its revision. Although a new official standard was not published before the breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1939, a new standard of Matica was used along with Vážný's standard.

The six-volumeSlovník slovenského jazyka (Slovak Dictionary, SSJ) was written during 1959–1968. Thefederalization of Czechoslovakia in 1968 confirmed equal rights for Slovak and Czech in theSocialist Republic of Czechoslovakia and later theFifth Republic of Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia split intoSlovakia and theCzech Republic in 1993. Slovak became the official language of Slovakia.

• Slovak literature
• History of the Czech language

• Gabzdilová, Soňa (2014).Školský systém na Slovensku v medzivojnovej Československej republike (1918–1938) [The school system in Slovakia in the mid-war Czechoslovak republic (1918–1938)](PDF) (in Slovak). Košice: Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach.ISBN 978-80-7079-813-3.
• Kačala, Ján; Krajčovič, Rudolf (2006).Prehlad dejín spisovnej slovenčiny [An Overview of the History of the Literal Slovak Language] (in Slovak). Martin: [Matica slovenská].ISBN 80-7090-813-0.
• Kováč, Dušan; et al. (1998).Kronika Slovenska 1 (Chronicle of Slovakia 1). Chronicle of Slovakia (in Slovak) (1st ed.). Bratislava, Slovakia: FortunaPrint.ISBN 80-7153-174-X.
• Krajčovič, Rudolf (1980).Svedectvo dejin o slovenčine [History's evidence about Slovak] (in Slovak). Martin: Matica slovenská.
• Krajčovič, Rudolf (1988).Vývoj slovenského jazyka a dialektológia [The Development of the Slovak Language and Dialectology] (in Slovak). Bratislava: Slovenské pedagogické nakladeteľstvo.
• Krško, Jaromír (2013). "Niekoľko poznámok ku kontrakcii v slovenčine" [Comments on contraction in Slovak]. In Múcsková, Gabriela (ed.).Philologica LXXII (in Slovak). Bratislava: Univerzita Komenského.ISBN 978-80-223-3562-1.
• Pukanec, Martin (2013).Svätoplukovo kniežatstvo a stará slovenčina [The Principality of Svätopluk and Old Slovak] (in Slovak). Nitra: Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre, Filozofická fakulta.ISBN 978-80-558-0363-0.
• Pukanec, Martin (2008). "Prečo nie je migračno-integračná teória o pôvode slovenčiny migračno-integračná" [Why is not the Migration-Integration Theory of the Origin of Slovak Migration-Integration]. In Gálisová, Anna; Chomová, Alexandra (eds.).Varia XV: zborník materiálov z XV. kolokvia mladých jazykovedcov (in Slovak). Banská Bystrica: Slovenská jazykovedná spoločnosť pri SAV, Katedra slovenského jazyka a literatúry FHV UMB v Banskej Bystrici.ISBN 978-80-89037-04-9.

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