Slovak alphabet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (February 2009) |
The Slovak alphabet uses a modification of the Latin alphabet. The modifications include the four diacriticals (ˇ, ´, ¨, ^) placed above certain letters.
The lexicographic ordering of the Slovak alphabet is very similar to that of English: A B C D DZ E F G H CH I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z. The complete alphabet, however, allows for characters with diacritics (the character with diacritics always comes after the same character without diacritics) and is as follows: a á ä b c č d ď dz dž e é f g h ch i í j k l ľ ĺ m n ň o ó ô p q r ŕ s š t ť u ú v w x y ý z ž. Note that dz, dž and ch are considered single letters and that ch follows the h (not the c). The letters "q", "w", "x" are only used in loanwords, never in native Slovak words.
The names of the letters (like in English ey, bee, cee, dee …) are: a (á), á (dlhé á), ä (prehlasované á; á s dvoma bodkami, široké e), bé, cé, čé, dé, ďé, dzé, džé, e (é), é (dlhé é), ef, gé, há, chá, i (í), í (dlhé í), jé, ká, el, eľ, dlhé el, em, en, eň, o (ó), ó (dlhé ó), ô (ó s vokáňom), pé, kvé, er, dlhé er, es, eš, té, ťé, u (ú), ú (dlhé ú), vé, dvojité vé, iks, ypsilon (ý), dlhé ý, zet, žet (for pronunciation see below)
The characters are divided as follows:
- Vowels are: a á ä e é i í o ó y ý u ú (+ r ŕ l ĺ).
- Diphthongs are: ia, ie, iu, ô.
- Consonants are: b c č d ď dz dž f g h ch j k l ľ ĺ m n ň p q r ŕ s š t ť v w x z ž. The consonants r, l, ŕ, ĺ are considered vowels in certain cases (see Pronunciation).
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.
