What is criticism? To a speaker of English the question might seem hopelessly broad, prompting the reply, In what context? After all, building on the Greek root krisis we have other lexemes—such as “critic,” “to criticize,” “to critique,” and “critical”—the semantic domains of which vary beyond their parts of speech. These might include a person who evaluates (such as an art, theater, or literary critic), the act of finding fault, rigorous analysis, and something essential or in a state of crisis. These terms might all further evoke assumptions based on a person's experience with criticism: a tool of accountability, an act that disrupts or even damages social relations, or regularized practices that demand their own professional training and ethic. This brief account of meanings in English, of course, might not hold for other discursive communities. For instance, in Ancient Greece the lexeme krisis evoked decision, judgment, distinction, and separation (where for English speakers it would now evoke a state of emergency or danger). Within the Indo-European language family, aspects of the English “criticism” might also be captured with other terms, such as the Greek parrhesia, or frank speech.

Slovak is a language that shares with English many common roots in Greek and Latin. More recent common historical experiences and forms of cultural contact, such as the Enlightenment and other intellectual trends, have layered shared suppositions and perspectives, making a semantic domain of criticism similar for Slovak speakers.