Lingualia LingualiaEurope’s regional and minority languages

Languages · Slavic languages

Slovak

Spoken in : Austria

01. Data about the language

At a glance

Speakers
3,343 declared speakers (2001 Austrian census, the last to record the language used)1
Education
190 pupils learn Slovak at the Komenský school in Vienna (2023–24)1
Identifiers
ISO 639-3 slk · Glottolog slov1269

Language group

Indo-European / Slavic

Area

Approximately one third of this group continues to commute on a weekly basis, the remainder have definitively settled in Vienna. The Burgenland Croats in Vienna are Approximately one third of the ethnic group lives in Lower Austria. The majority lives in Vienna. The rest of the ethnic group lives is dispersed all over Austria, although there is a tendency to congregate in the states of Upper Austria and Styria.

Slovak presence in theses villages goes back to Thirty Years War (1618-48), when numerous Slovaks worked as seasonal workers in farms, and afterwards in industry. At the creation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867), Slovakia was part of the Hungarian part of the empire, and was Magyarised a lot, which induced an important migration from Slovaks.

Updated, sourced data, checked on 14 October 2026 · scope : Autriche (Vienne, Basse-Autriche) · Get updates for this language

Numerical strength

The last census to record the language of everyday use ("Umgangssprache") was in 2001: 3,343 Austrian citizens then declared Slovak1. Register-based censuses, since 2011, no longer collect this information1.

Status

In Austria, the language is protected by Part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages1. Federal support for the ethnic groups was doubled from 2021 and reached €7.6 million in 2023 for the Federal Chancellery alone1.

Education

In Vienna, the private Komenský school, whose teachers' salaries are paid by the Land of Vienna and the Ministry of Education, offered Slovak teaching to 190 pupils in 2023–24 (157 in 2020–21)1. Slovak is also offered in first-language teaching by the Vienna education directorate, in adult education centres and at the University of Vienna, which trains secondary teachers1.

Media

Since September 2022 the ORF has produced the fortnightly TV magazine "WIR | Češi, Hrvati, Magyarok, Roma, Slováci, Slovenci", broadcast on ORF 2 and ORF III in the ethnic-group languages with German subtitles; in 2024, ORF Burgenland and ORF Carinthia produced about 100 hours of television and over 4,000 hours of radio in these languages1. Since 2021 one "lead medium" per ethnic group has received specific federal funding1. For the Slovaks, this lead medium is the quarterly Pohľady; ORF Burgenland broadcasts the TV magazine Slovenské Ozveny six times a year, and the weekly radio magazine Radio Dia:Tón can be received in and around Vienna1.

02. Poem

Original Translation
Marína
Marína
Ja sladké túžby, túžby po kráse spievam peknotou nadšený, a v tomto duše mojej ohlase svet môj je celý zavrený; z výsosti Tatier ona mi svieti, ona mi z ohňov nebeských letí, ona mi svety pohýna; ona mi kýva zo sto životov: No centrom, živlom, nebom, jednotou krás mojich moja Marína!
I sing sweet longings, longings for beauty, inspired by loveliness, and in this echo of my soul my whole world is enclosed; from the heights of the Tatras she shines on me, she flies to me from heavenly fires, she sets the worlds in motion for me; she beckons to me from a hundred lives: but the centre, the element, the heaven, the unity of my beauties is my Marína!
Ako vy, Tatry, keď oblak zlatý na hory svoje hodíte: tak ona duchom svojím mi šatí tône života úsvite. Ako vy tamhor', božie plamene, svetiel ste žriedla, fakle, korene: ona blesk myšlienky mojej! - Ako vy, večné svetov zákony, harmónij božích čarovné tóny: tak tá mne os, zenit, kolej!
As you, Tatras, when you cast a golden cloud upon your mountains: so she, with her spirit, clothes for me the shadows of life at dawn. As you up there, divine flames, are the springs, the torches, the roots of lights: she is the lightning of my thought! As you, eternal laws of the worlds, enchanting tones of divine harmonies: so she is my axis, zenith, orbit!
Jestli sa city moje rozlejú po srdciach v Tatrách žijúcich; jestli ohlasy moje zavejú kradmo do časov budúcich: rodáci mojej duše, krajiny! objímte obraz mojej Maríny ľúbosťou svätých predmetov; toho, čo spieva krásy dejiny, nejali Lady rozmaríny, on ľúbi ľúbosť všesvetov.
If my feelings flow out into the hearts living in the Tatras; if my echoes drift stealthily into times to come: countrymen of my soul, lands! embrace the image of my Marína with the love of holy things; he who sings the history of beauty was not captured by Lada's rosemary, he loves the love of all worlds.
Andrej Sládkovič (1820-1872)
Excerpt: stanzas 1 to 3 of the poem (1846)
Original text: Slovak Wikisource (public domain)
Translation: Lingualia (2026)

03. Linguistic description

Slovak, a West Slavic language, uses a single word, ruka, for both 'hand' and 'arm'1. Like Czech or Russian, it calls tea čaj, from Chinese cha, transmitted overland1,2.

Sources

The 2003 CD had no description of this language: this text was written for the site from the sources below.

  1. WALS Online – Slovak, World Atlas of Language Structures, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 2013 (v2026).
  2. Ö. Dahl, « Tea », chapitre 138 du WALS, World Atlas of Language Structures, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 2013.

04. Cartoon

O troch prasiatkach | Rozprávka | Po slovensky | Príbehy pre deti | Kreslené rozprávky | Animované
Cartoon · 6 min 33 s · channel: Hankina Hudba pre deti · YouTube

Video hosted on YouTube and published by the channel shown; its author may remove it at any time.