Slovak phonology

This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Slovak language.

Monophthongs


Non-native vowels are in parentheses.


 * Vowel length is not phonemic in Eastern dialects. In Western dialects, short vowels may be realized as long.
 * do not occur after soft consonants, when they are replaced by the corresponding diphthongs . The same is generally true for ( after soft consonants), but the sequence  may occur in some cases.
 * Native close vowels are variably transcribed as (without diacritics) and  (with a lowering diacritic). The purpose of the latter transcription is to show that they are rather lax, i.e. phonetically closer to . This article uses the former set for simplicity.
 * Native mid vowels are variably transcribed as and . This article uses the former set for simplicity. These vowels are phonetically mid,  transcribed in narrow IPA as  or .  may be even close-mid, though this realization is rare.
 * Long occurs only in loanwords, one native word (dcéra) and in adjective endings.
 * occur only in loanwords. are mid, transcribed in narrow IPA as  or . Among these vowels, only  is consistently realized in the correct manner.  and  are often either too back, which results in realizations that are phonetically too close to, respectively,  and, or too weakly rounded, yielding vowels phonetically too close to, respectively,  and . However, most speakers bilingual in Slovak and Hungarian (or German) pronounce the rounded front vowels correctly.
 * can only be short, and it occurs only after . Speakers often fail at attempts to pronounce, pronouncing a vowel that is phonetically too close to either or . Note that there is not a full agreement about its status in the standard language:
 * states that the correct pronunciation of is an important part of the high register, but in medium and low registers,  merges with, or (in some cases) with.
 * states that only about 5% of speakers have as a distinct phoneme, and that even when it is used in formal contexts, it is most often a dialect feature.
 * state that the use of is becoming rare, and that it often merges with.
 * are central, or somewhat more back .  In Standard Slovak, both variants are equally correct. Under Hungarian influence, some speakers pronounce the short  as rounded.

Diphthongs

 * These diphthongs are variably transcribed as, and . For simplicity, this article uses the first set of symbols.
 * In, the first element has more prominence.

Consonants

 * are unaspirated . Voiceless affricates are also unaspirated.
 * are fully voiced. Voiced affricates and fricatives are also fully voiced.
 * is apical alveolar or laminal denti-alveolar.
 * are laminal.
 * are alveolar or denti-alveolar.
 * are alveolar, but can be post-dental for some speakers.
 * Word-initial occurs only in two words: dzekať and dziny.
 * are alveolo-palatal.
 * As indicated in the transcription, are weakly affricated.
 * can also be dento-alveolo-palatal.
 * is palatalized laminal denti-alveolar, palatalized laminal alveolar or palatal . The palatal realization is the least common one.
 * are apical alveolar.
 * is either neutral or velarized.
 * Short is most often a tap.
 * Postalveolar are often pronounced with retroflexion, as in Russian and Polish.
 * occurs mainly in loanwords.
 * is realized as:
 * Voiced fricative in onsets before voiced obstruents;
 * Voiceless fricative in onsets before voiceless obstruents;
 * Variably as an approximant or a glide  in coda;
 * Approximant in all other cases.
 * is palatal or alveolo-palatal.

Some additional notes includes the following (transcriptions in IPA unless otherwise stated):
 * can be syllabic: . When they are long (indicated in the spelling with the acute accent: ŕ and ĺ), they are always syllabic, e.g. vlk (wolf), prst (finger), štvrť (quarter), krk (neck), bisyllabic vĺča—vĺ-ča (wolfling), vŕba—vŕ-ba (willow-tree), etc.
 * has the allophone in front of the labiodental fricatives  and.
 * in front of (post)alveolar fricatives has a postalveolar allophone.
 * can be in front of the velar plosives  and.

Stress
In the standard language, the stress is always on the first syllable of a word (or on the preceding preposition, see below). This is not the case in certain dialects. Eastern dialects have penultimate stresses which at times makes them difficult to understand for speakers of standard Slovak. Some of the north-central dialects have a weak stress on the first syllable, which becomes stronger and "moves" to the penultimate in certain cases. Monosyllabic conjunctions, monosyllabic short personal pronouns and auxiliary verb forms of the verb byť (to be) are, as a rule, not stressed.

Prepositions form a single prosodic unit with the following word, unless the word is long (four syllables or more) or the preposition stands at the beginning of a sentence.

Official transcriptions
Slovak linguists do not usually use IPA for phonetic transcription of their own language or others, but have their own system based on the Slovak alphabet. Many English language textbooks make use of this alternative system of 'phonetic' transcription, a factor which probably contributes to some Slovaks developing a particular ('incorrect') pronunciation of certain English phonemes. In the following table, pronunciation of each grapheme is given in this system as well as in the IPA.

Sample
The sample text is a reading of The North Wind and the Sun. The transcription is based on a recording of a 28-year-old female speaker of Standard Slovak from Bratislava.

Orthographic version
Raz sa severák a slnko hádali, kto z nich je silnejší. V tom zbadali pocestného, ktorý kráčal zakrytý plášťom. Dohodli sa, že silnejší je ten, kto ako prvý dokáže, aby si pocestný vyzliekol plášť. A tak začal severák fúkať zo všetkých síl, ale čím viac fúkal, tým viac sa pocestný zakrýval plášťom. Nakoniec sa severák vzdal zbytočnej námahy. Potom slnko začalo svietiť a hriať. Za malú chvíľku bolo pocestnému teplo a vyzliekol si plášť. Severák musel nakoniec uznať, že slnko je silnejšie ako on.