Slovak
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Fact corner
- Language: Slovak
- Alternate names: slovenčina, slovenský jazyk, Slovakian
- SIL-code: Ethnologue:slk
- Language family: Indo-European, Slavic, West, Czech-Slovak
- Number of speakers: 5,011,120
- Script: Latin script
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Introduction
The Slovak language is an Indo-European language belonging to the West Slavic languages (together with Czech, Polish, Silesian, Kashubian and Sorbian). Slovak is mutually intelligible with Czech.
The verb
Slovak verbs express three absolute tenses - past, present and future. Relativity can be expressed by the aspect, sentence constructions and participles.
Like in other Slavic languages, Slovak verbs are distinguished by aspect, they are either perfective or imperfective. Perfective verbs indicate the finality of the process. Therefore, they cannot express the present tense.
Sample verb: volať
Present
The present tense can be expressed in imperfective verbs only.
| Person | |
| Sg.1 | volám |
| Sg.2 | voláš |
| Sg.3 | volá |
| Pl.1 | voláme |
| Pl.2 | voláte |
| Pl.3 | volajú |