The Slovak language is a West Slavic language primarily spoken in Slovakia. It is the official language of the country and is used by approximately 5 million people. Slovak is closely related to Czech and Polish, sharing many similarities in vocabulary and grammar. Slovak uses the Latin alphabet, consisting of 46 letters, including special characters like č, ď, and š. The language has a rich literary tradition, with notable authors such as Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav and Jozef Gregor Tajovský. Slovak is also recognized as a minority language in some neighboring countries.