The purpose of this blog is to document my progress (or complete and total failure) in learning Slovak, a language brought to North America by my mother's kin but later discontinued by her parents, who decided not to pass it on to their children but rather use it as a "secret language" instead, for purposes of communication between each other when discussing topics not intended for the young'uns.

Within the last few years, contact to distant relatives on the European side of my family's migration story was established, and one of my mother's siblings got to know some of the "folks back home" in their village in eastern Slovakia.

I am eager to learn as much of the language as possible as quickly as possible, say two semesters worth of material by the end of 2009 (probably overly ambitious, considering I already have many ongoing projects as it is with school), and I'm inviting anyone out there with similar interests in learning Slovak to come along for the ride. Someday, with hope within a year or two, I can make use of whatever basic competency I achieve and visit our "Old World folks" myself.