Oh Slovenian has you beat here. We have 2 words with only consonants and 6 letters. That being vzbrst and sntntn. So yeah…
Edit: I just remembered zmrzlina also used to be the word for ice cream here about 200 years ago. Similar to it we also then have zmrznjen (frozen) for 6 conconants in a row with basicaly the same root of the word.
Oh yeah sadly not wirh many high scoring letters. We also have a bunch of other words with just consonants. Like čmrlj, smrt, vrt, prt… Probably many more I just cannot think of.
It’s because of R and L and to a lesser extent S. These are “syllabic consonants” (other languages have different ones, depends on pronunciation) which can take up the role vowels usually do because they can be stretched to an arbitrary length unlike other consonants.
Apparently English also has these, such as the M in rhythm or L in awful (the U is silent, so it falls on the L to form the syllable).
Honestly one of my life’s greatest achievements in life was that I once used this to convince a Brazillian guy that Czech does actually make sense =D
Slovak has the word for ice cream which is zmzrlina with 5 consonants in a row
Oh Slovenian has you beat here. We have 2 words with only consonants and 6 letters. That being vzbrst and sntntn. So yeah…
Edit: I just remembered zmrzlina also used to be the word for ice cream here about 200 years ago. Similar to it we also then have zmrznjen (frozen) for 6 conconants in a row with basicaly the same root of the word.
Oh yeah sadly not wirh many high scoring letters. We also have a bunch of other words with just consonants. Like čmrlj, smrt, vrt, prt… Probably many more I just cannot think of.
Tsk tsk, Hobbes.
Just two? Cute. Czech has entire sentences without consonants.
Oh well I forgot to say they are 6 letter words but sure give me an example of such a sentence.
Chrt pln skvrn vtrhl skrz trs chrp v čtvrť Krč.
or
Blb vlk pln žbrnd zdrhl hrd z mlh Brd skrz vrch Smrk v čtvrť srn Krč.
The most commonly known one is
Strč prst skrz krk.
Cool. Still no 6 letter word with only conconants.
Čtvrtsmršť, scvrnkls, čtvrthrst, cmrndls, zmrzls… take your pick.
I’m curious why slovak and czech language developed to use mainly consonants?
It’s because of R and L and to a lesser extent S. These are “syllabic consonants” (other languages have different ones, depends on pronunciation) which can take up the role vowels usually do because they can be stretched to an arbitrary length unlike other consonants.
Apparently English also has these, such as the M in rhythm or L in awful (the U is silent, so it falls on the L to form the syllable).
Honestly one of my life’s greatest achievements in life was that I once used this to convince a Brazillian guy that Czech does actually make sense =D
Well, thanks for the thorough answer!