Slovak is a member of the West Slavic language family. Other languages in this language group include Polish and Czech. It is also an official language of European Union.
Slovak is very close to Czech. They are in fact mutually intelligible, although mutual intelligibility has declined since the break-up of Czechoslovakia.
A number of different languages have exerted influence on the development of the Slovak language, notably Polish, Hungarian, and German (as well as Czech). The German word “münzen” (coins) became “mince” in Slovak. In many cases loanwords take on Slovak spelling; hence, “weekend” has become “vikend” and “quality”=“kvalita”.
