About the language / Introduction

The Slovak national language is intensively researched at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, which was founded in 1943 as the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts. One of the first academic institutes established was the Linguistic Institute, which is engaged in:

basic research on the Slovak language,
compilation of general, translation, and specialised dictionaries,
popularisation of language culture and language education.

During the sixty-five years of its existence, the institute has focused on theoretical and methodological issues in linguistic research and in the research of the (standard) Slovak language, the methods and dynamics surrounding its system, on the research of dialects and social varieties of Slovak, on Slovak's internal and external history, and on the synchrony and diachrony of the language. Later on, it extended its work to the etymological research of the Slovak language and the research of the contacts and relationships between Slovak and other (particularly neighbouring) languages. In accordance with so-called communication-pragmatic turn, studies of sociolinguistic and culturological issues have received increased emphasis since the 1990s. In recent years, computational and corpus linguistics have been implemented at the institute, with considerable success (the database of the Slovak National Corpus comprises 600 million textual units).

There are presently seven departments in operation at the Institute: 1. Department of Contemporary Lexicology and Lexicography, 2. Department of Language Culture and Terminology, 3. Dialectological Department, 4. Department of History of Slovak, 5. Department of Contemporary Language, 6. Department of Linguistic Data Processing and 7. Department of Slovak National Corpus.

Slovak Studies research is also carried out at universities in Bratislava, Prešov, Košice, Banská Bystrica, Nitra, Trnava, and Ružomberok in their departments of the Slovak language. In 1941, the Slovak Linguistic Society was founded. It brings together scientists and professionals from the fields of Slovak studies, general linguistics, and related disciplines.