Slovak belongs to the West Slavic language group, closely related to Czech and Polish. Slovak is spoken by over 5 million people in Slovakia and by Slovak communities abroad. The language uses the Latin alphabet with additional diacritical marks, such as č, š, and ž, to represent its distinctive sounds.
Slovak grammar is characterized by its use of six grammatical cases and three genders, making it a rich and expressive language. Slovak has a strong literary tradition, with notable writers like Ľudovít Štúr, who also played a key role in standardizing the language in the 19th century.