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What’s with this “Wren” thing?
The oldest extant version of the fable
we
are presenting here appeared in 1913 in the first volume of a two-volume anthology
of Low
Saxon folktales (Plattdeutsche
Volksmärchen “Low German Folktales”)
collected by Wilhelm Wisser (1843–1935). Read
more ...
Slovak
Slovakia,
where the Tatra Mountains are breathtaking
and Western Slavonic meets Eastern Slavonic
Language
information: Slovak is the official language of Slovakia. It is also widely used in the
Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Northern Serbia and Vojvodina (being
one the official languages of the Autonomous Province Vojvodina) and in some
other countries, as well as in Australia and in the Americas. Slovak has
absorbed many German influences, partly because its territory used to be
one of the Austro-Hungarian colonies in which German predominated.
Slovak is
closely related to Czech, and close coexistence of the two before the splitting
up
of Czechoslovakia has added mutual influences and shared vocabulary.
However, mutual comprehension between the two is by no means perfect, and the
two have rather distinctive features. Slovak also shares some features with
other West Slavonic languages, particularly with Polish, also with South Slavonic
varieties,
especially with Slovenian and Croatian, and lastly with some East Slavonic
varieties, particularly with Ukrainian and Rusyn (Ruthenian), both used by
minority communities
in Eastern Slovakia.
Like Czech,
Slovak distinguishes long and short vowels on the phonemic level, this being
a group-specific feature.
Genealogy: Indo-European > Slavic > West > Czecho-Slovak
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