Slovaks

The Slovaks, Slovak people (Slovak Slováci, singular Slovák, feminine Slovenka, plural Slovenky) are a West Slavic people that primarily inhabit Slovakia and speak the Slovak language.

Most Slovaks today live within the borders of the independent Slovakia (circa 5,410,836). There are Slovak minorities in Poland, Hungary, Serbia and sizeable populations of immigrants and their descendants in the Czech Republic, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Name

The name Slovak is derived from *Slověninъ, plural *Slověně, the old name of the Slavs. In the Slovak language; only the masculine noun Slověninъ, Slověn changed to Slovän, Slovan and finally (under Czech and Polish influence) to Slovák around 1400. The older form Sloven is preserved in all similar words in the Slovak language - the adjective "Slovak" is still slovenský, the feminine noun "Slovak" is still Slovenka and the country is Slovensko.

The first written mention about usage of the new form Slovak in the territory of present-day Slovakia is from Bardejov (1444) - "Nicoulaus Cossibor hauptman, Nicolaus Czech et Slowak, stipendiarii supremi". The mentions in Czech sources are older - 1375 and 1385. The change is not related to ethnogenesis of Slovaks, but exclusively to linguistic changes in the West Slavic languages. The word Slovak was also used later as a common name for all Slavs in Czech, Polish and also Slovak language in parallel with other forms.