I was talking to someone from Slovakia last week. I felt a bit ignorant,not knowing anything about the place. Do they speak Slovakian? Is that a language?
Anyway, I had a look on my Europe road map and Wikipedia to find out about it, and this I shall share with you. Try not to get too excited.
Of course, Slovakia used to be part of Czechoslovakia until they split up a few years ago. They'd only been together since 1918 and before that they were part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Slovakia is east of the Czech republic and also has borders with Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and Austria. In fact, the capital, Bratislava is only about 70 km from Vienna. This guy came from Presov in the east of the country. That's really near to Poland and he says he can understand Polish without too much trouble. Czech is very similar too (apparently about as different as Scots English from English English), but Hungarian is a different kettle of fish and isn't related at all.
Wikipedia is really good for finding out about places. They have good relief maps - Slovakia is mostly mountainous - and lots about the language too. Did you know that the Slovak for yes and no are the exact opposite of the Korean for yes and no? You do now. Take special care if you are talking to both these nationalities at the same time.
Slovakia is a different place to Slovenia, though I think both names come from the same root; they're both Slavic countries.
Sorry this post is so educational. I will try and write something inane for the next one.
2 comments:
Looked at relief map and see what you mean about mountainous
My family came from Slovakia. My gransparents spoke Hungarian. My father understood it buyt could not speak it.
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