Slovene language

Classification

Slovene is an Indo-European language belonging to the Western subgroup of the South Slavic branch of the Slavic languages, together with Serbo-Croatian. It is close to the Chakavian and especially Kajkavian dialects of Serbo-Croatian, but genealogically more distant from the Shtokavian dialect, the basis for the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard languages. Slovene in general, and Prekmurje Slovene in particular, shares the highest level of mutual intelligibility with transitional Kajkavian dialects of Hrvatsko Zagorje and Međimurje. Furthermore, Slovene shares certain linguistic characteristics with all South Slavic languages, including those of the Eastern subgroup, namely Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Torlakian dialects.

Mutual intelligibility with varieties of Serbo-Croatian is hindered by differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, Kajkavian being firmly the most mutually intelligible. Slovene has some commonalities with the West Slavic languages that are not found in other South Slavic languages.

History

Early history

Like all Slavic languages, Slovene traces its roots to the same proto-Slavic group of languages that produced Old Church Slavonic. The earliest known examples of a distinct, written dialect connected to Slovene are from the Freising manuscripts, known in Slovene as Brižinski spomeniki. The consensus estimate of their date of origin is between 972 and 1039 CE (most likely before 1000). These religious writings are among the oldest surviving manuscripts in any Slavic language.

The Freising manuscripts are a record of a proto-Slovene that was spoken in a more scattered territory than modern Slovene, which included most of the present-day Austrian states of Carinthia and Styria, as well as East Tyrol, the Val Pusteria in South Tyrol, and some areas of Upper and Lower Austria.

Between the 9th and 12th century, proto-Slovene spread into northern Istria and in the areas around Trieste. By the 15th century, most of the northern areas were gradually Germanized: The northern border of the Slovene-speaking territory stabilized on the line going from north of Klagenfurt to south of Villach and east of Hermagor in Carinthia, while in Styria it was more or less identical with the current Austrian-Slovenian border. This linguistic border remained almost unchanged until the late 19th century, when a second process of Germanization took place, mostly in Carinthia.

During most of the Middle Ages, Slovene was a vernacular language of the peasantry, although it was also spoken in most of the towns on Slovenian territory, together with German or Italian. Although during this time German emerged as the spoken language of the nobility, Slovene had some role in the courtly life of the Carinthian, Carniolan, and Styrian nobility as well. This is proved by the survival of certain ritual formulas in Slovene (such as the ritual installation of the Dukes of Carinthia). The words Buge waz primi, gralva Venus! ('God be With You, Queen Venus!'), with which Bernhard von Spanheim greeted the poet Ulrich von Liechtenstein, who was travelling around Europe in guise of Venus, upon his arrival in Carinthia in 1227 (or 1238), is another example of some level of Slovene knowledge among high nobility in the region.

The first printed Slovene words, stara pravda (meaning 'old justice' or 'old laws'), appeared in 1515 in Vienna in a poem of the German mercenaries who suppressed the Slovene peasant revolt: the term was presented as the peasants' motto and battle cry. Standard Slovene emerged in the second half of the 16th century, thanks to the works of Slovene Lutheran authors, who were active during the Protestant Reformation. The most prominent authors from this period are Primož Trubar, who wrote the first books in Slovene; Adam Bohorič, the author of the first Slovene grammar; and Jurij Dalmatin, who translated the entire Bible into Slovene.

From the high Middle Ages up to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, in the territory of present-day Slovenia, German was the language of the elite, and Slovene was the language of the common people. During this period, German had a strong influence on Slovene; many Germanisms are preserved in contemporary colloquial Slovene. Many Slovene scientists before the 1920s also wrote in foreign languages, mostly German, which was the lingua franca of science throughout Central Europe at the time.

Recent history

During the rise of Romantic nationalism in the 19th century, the cultural movements of Illyrism and Pan-Slavism brought words from Serbo-Croatian, specifically Croatian dialects, and Czech into standard Slovene, mostly to replace words previously borrowed from German. Most of these innovations have remained, although some were dropped in later development. In the second half of the 19th century, many nationalist authors made an abundant use of Serbo-Croatian vocabulary but adapted it to Slovene orthography: among them were Fran Levstik and Josip Jurčič, who wrote the first novel in Slovene in 1866. This tendency was reversed in the Fin de siècle period by the first generation of modernist Slovene authors (most notably the writer Ivan Cankar), who resorted to a more purist and locally derived language without excessive Serbo-Croatian borrowings.

During the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the 1920s and 1930s, the influence of Serbo-Croatian increased again. This was opposed by the younger generations of Slovene authors and intellectuals; among the fiercest opponents of an excessive Serbo-Croatian influence on Slovene were the intellectuals associated with the leftist journal Sodobnost, as well as some younger Catholic activists and authors. After 1945, numerous Serbo-Croatian words that had been used in the previous decades were dropped. The result was that a Slovene text from the 1910s is frequently closer to modern Slovene than a text from the 1920s and 1930s.

Between 1920 and 1941, the official language of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was defined as "Serbo-Croato-Slovene", which was in practice merely Serbo-Croatian. In Slovenia, however, Slovene remained in use in education and administration. Many state institutions used only Serbo-Croatian, and a Slovene–Serbo-Croatian bilingualism was applied in many spheres of public life in Slovenia. For example, at post offices, on railways, and in administrative offices, Serbo-Croatian was used alongside Slovene. However, state employees were expected to be able to speak Slovene in Slovenia.

During the same time, western Slovenia (the Slovenian Littoral and the western districts of Inner Carniola) was under Italian administration and subjected to a violent policy of Fascist Italianization; the same policy was applied to Slovene speakers in Venetian Slovenia, Gorizia, and Trieste. Between 1923 and 1943, all public use of Slovene in these territories was strictly prohibited, and Slovene-language activists were persecuted by the state.

After the Carinthian Plebiscite of 1920, a less severe policy of Germanization took place in the Slovene-speaking areas of southern Carinthia which remained under Austrian administration. After the Anschluss of 1938, the use of Slovene was strictly forbidden in Carinthia as well. This accelerated a process of language shift in Carinthia, which continued throughout the second half of the 20th century: according to the Austro-Hungarian census of 1910, around 21% of inhabitants of Carinthia spoke Slovene in their daily communication; by 1951, this figure had dropped to less than 10%, and by 2001 to a mere 2.8%.

During World War II, Slovenia was divided among the Axis powers of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Hungary. Each of the occupying powers tried to either discourage or entirely suppress Slovene.

Following World War II, Slovenia became part of the Federal Yugoslavia. While there was no official language at federal level, Serbo-Croatian dominated as prestige dialect in all aspects whereas Slovene remained confined to now federal Slovenia where it was made an official language recognized once again. In the territory of Slovenia, it was commonly used in almost all areas of public life. One important exception was the Yugoslav army, where Serbo-Croatian was used exclusively, even in Slovenia.

National independence has further fortified the language: since 1991, when Slovenia gained independence, Slovene has been used as an official language in all areas of public life. In 2004, it became one of the official languages of the European Union upon the admission of Slovenia.

Nonetheless, the post-breakup influence of Serbo-Croatian on Slovene continued to a lesser extent, most prominently in slang in colloquial language.

Joža Mahnič, a literary historian and president of the publishing house Slovenska matica, said in February 2008 that Slovene is a language rich enough to express everything, including the most sophisticated and specialised texts. In February 2010, Janez Dular, a prominent Slovene linguist, commented that, although Slovene is not an endangered language, its scope has been shrinking, especially in science and higher education.

Geographic distribution

The language is spoken by about 2.5 million people, mainly in Slovenia, but also by Slovene ethnolinguistic minorities in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy (around 60,000 in Venetian Slovenia, Resia Valley, Canale Valley, Province of Trieste, and in those municipalities of the Province of Gorizia bordering Slovenia), in southern Carinthia, some parts of Styria in Austria (25,000), and in the western part of Croatian Istria bordering Slovenia. It is also spoken in Rijeka and Zagreb (11,800-13,100), in southwestern Hungary (3–4,000), in Serbia (5,000), and by the Slovene diaspora throughout Europe and the rest of the world (around 300,000), particularly in the United States (most notably Ohio, home to an estimated 3,400 speakers), Canada, Argentina, Australia, and South Africa.

Dialects

Slovene is sometimes characterized as the most diverse Slavic language in terms of its dialects, with different degrees of mutual intelligibility. Accounts of the number of dialects range from as few as seven dialects, often considered dialect groups or dialect bases that are further subdivided into as many as 50 dialects. Other sources characterize the number of dialects as nine or eight. The Slovene proverb "Every village has its own voice" (Vsaka vas ima svoj glas) depicts the differences in dialects.

The Prekmurje dialect used to have a written norm of its own at one point. The Resian dialects have an independent written norm that is used by their regional state institutions. Speakers of those two dialects have considerable difficulties with being understood by speakers of other varieties of Slovene, needing to code-switch to Standard Slovene. Other dialects are mutually intelligible when speakers avoid the excessive usage of regionalisms.

Regionalisms are mostly limited to culinary and agricultural expressions, although there are many exceptions. Some loanwords have become so deeply rooted in the local language that people have considerable difficulties in finding a standard expression for the dialect term (for instance, kremšnita meaning a type of custard cake is kremna rezina in Standard Slovene, but the latter term is very rarely used in speech, being considered inappropriate for non-literary registers). Southwestern dialects incorporate many calques and loanwords from Italian, whereas eastern and northwestern dialects are replete with lexemes of German origin. Usage of such words hinders intelligibility between dialects and is greatly discouraged in formal situations.

Phonology

Slovene has a phoneme set consisting of 21 consonants and 8 vowels.

Consonants

Slovene has 21 distinctive consonant phonemes.

All voiced obstruents are devoiced at the end of words unless immediately followed by a word beginning with a vowel or a voiced consonant. In consonant clusters, the voicing distinction is neutralized and all consonants assimilate the voicing of the rightmost segment, i.e., the final consonant in the cluster. In this context, , , and may occur as voiced allophones of , , and , respectively (e.g., vŕh drevésa ).

has several allophones depending on context.

• Before a vowel, pronunciation is labiodental, (also described as ).
• After a vowel, pronunciation is bilabial and forms a diphthong.
• At the beginning of a syllable, before a consonant (e.g., in vsi "all"), the pronunciation varies more widely by speaker and area. Many speakers convert into a full vowel in this position. For those speakers who retain a consonantal pronunciation, it is pronounced before a voiced consonant and before a voiceless consonant. Thus, vsi may be pronounced as disyllabic or monosyllabic .

The sequences , , and occur only before a vowel. Before a consonant or word-finally, they are reduced to , , and , respectively. This is reflected in the spelling in the case of , but not for and .

Under certain (somewhat unpredictable) circumstances, at the end of a syllable may become , merging with the allophone of in that position.

Vowels

Slovene has an eight-vowel (or, according to Peter Jurgec, nine-vowel) system, in comparison to the five-vowel system of Serbo-Croatian.

Grammar

Nouns

Slovene nouns retain six of the seven Slavic noun cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, and instrumental. There is no distinct vocative; the nominative is used in that role. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns have three numbers: singular, dual, and plural.

Nouns in Slovene are either masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. In addition, there is a distinction between animate and inanimate nouns. This is only relevant for masculine nouns and only in the singular, at odds with some other Slavic languages, e.g., Russian, for which it is also relevant in the plural for all genders. Animate nouns have an accusative singular form that is identical to the genitive, while for inanimate nouns the accusative singular is the same as the nominative. Animacy is based mostly on semantics and is less rigid than gender. Generally speaking, a noun is animate if it refers to something that is generally thought to have free will or the ability to move of its own accord. This includes all nouns for people and animals. All other nouns are inanimate, including plants and other non-moving life forms, and also groups of people or animals. However, there are some nouns for inanimate objects that are generally animate, which mostly include inanimate objects that are named after people or animals. This includes:

• Dead people or animals
• Makes of cars
• Certain diseases (named after animals)
• Certain devices (named after animals or people)
• Works of art (named after their creator)
• Chess pieces and playing cards (named for the people they represent)
• Wines and mushrooms (named as demonyms)

Definiteness

There are no definite or indefinite articles as in English (the, a, an) or German (der, die, das, ein, eine). A noun is described without articles; the grammatical gender is shown by the ending of the word. It is enough to say barka ('a' or 'the barge'), Noetova barka ('Noah's ark'). The gender is known in this case to be feminine. In declensions, endings are normally changed; see below. If one would like to somehow distinguish between the definiteness or indefiniteness of a noun, one would say (prav/natanko/ravno) tista barka ('that/precise/exact barge') for 'the barge' and neka/ena barka ('some/a barge') for 'a barge'.

The definiteness of a noun phrase can also be discerned through the ending of the accompanying adjective. One should say rdeči šotor ('[exactly that] red tent') or rdeč šotor ('[a] red tent'). This difference is observable only for masculine nouns in nominative or accusative case. Because of the lack of article in Slovene and audibly insignificant difference between the masculine adjective forms, most dialects do not distinguish between definite and indefinite variants of the adjective, leading to hypercorrection when speakers try to use Standard Slovene.

T–V distinction

Slovene, like most other European languages, has a T–V distinction, or two forms of 'you' for formal and informal situations. Although informal address using the 2nd person singular ti form (known as tikanje) is officially limited to friends and family, talk among children, and addressing animals, it is increasingly used among the middle generation to signal a relaxed attitude or lifestyle instead of its polite or formal counterpart using the 2nd person plural vi form (known as vikanje).

An additional nonstandard but widespread use of a singular participle combined with a plural auxiliary verb (known as polvikanje) signals a somewhat more friendly and less formal attitude while maintaining politeness:

• Vi ga niste videli. ('You did not see him': both the auxiliary verb niste and the participle videli are plural masculine. Standard usage.)
• Vi ga niste videl/videla. ('You did not see him': the auxiliary verb niste is plural but the participle videl/videla is singular masculine/feminine. Nonstandard usage.)

The use of nonstandard forms (polvikanje) might be frowned upon by many people and would not likely be used in a formal setting.

The use of the 3rd person plural oni ('they') form (known as onikanje in both direct address and indirect reference; this is similar to using Sie in German) as an ultra-polite form is now archaic or dialectal. It is associated with servant-master relationships in older literature, the child-parent relationship in certain conservative rural communities, and parishioner-priest relationships.

Vocabulary

Numbers

Foreign words

Foreign words used in Slovene are of various types depending on the assimilation they have undergone. The types are:

• sposojenka (loanword) – fully assimilated; e.g., pica ('pizza').
• tujka (foreign word) – partly assimilated, either in writing and syntax or in pronunciation; e.g., jazz, wiki.
• polcitatna beseda ali besedna zveza (half-quoted word or phrase) – partly assimilated, either in writing and syntax or in pronunciation; e.g., Shakespeare, but Shakespearja in genitive case.
• citatna beseda ali besedna zveza (quoted word or phrase) – kept as in original, although pronunciation may be altered to fit into speech flow; e.g., first lady in all cases.

The loanwords are mostly from German and Italian, while the more recently borrowed and less assimilated words are typically from English. Among the earliest borrowings in Slovene vocabulary are Romanisms, which began to enter the Slovene language with the settlement of Slovenia by the Slavs and continued during the Middle Ages. These are primarily toponyms: Latin Capris / Caprae → Koper, Latin Sontius → Soča. In addition, there are words such as jambor 'mast' < Latin arbor 'tree', golida 'milking pail' < Vulgar Latin galeda, hlače 'trousers' < Medieval Latin calcae, fant 'boy, lad' < Italian fante.

Slovene vocabulary also contains a large number of Germanisms, borrowed from the 8th to the 19th centuries: flinta 'rifle' < German Flinte, gmajna 'community, common land' < Middle High German gemeine, krompir 'potato' < German Grundbirne. Through German mediation, vocabulary of Latin and Greek origin also entered Slovene: klošter 'monastery', škrinja 'chest', špital 'hospital'.

Writing system

This alphabet (abeceda) was derived in the mid-1840s from the system created by the Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj. Intended for the Serbo-Croatian language (in all its varieties), it was patterned on the Czech alphabet of the 1830s. Before that was, for example, written as ⟨ʃ⟩, ⟨ʃʃ⟩, or ⟨ſ⟩; as ⟨tʃch⟩, ⟨cz⟩, ⟨tʃcz⟩, or ⟨tcz⟩; sometimes as ⟨y⟩; as ⟨y⟩; as ⟨ll⟩; as ⟨w⟩; as ⟨ʃ⟩, ⟨ʃʃ⟩, or ⟨ʃz⟩.

The standard Slovene orthography, employed in almost all situations, uses only the letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet plus ⟨č⟩, ⟨š⟩, and ⟨ž⟩. The letters ⟨q⟩, ⟨w⟩, ⟨x⟩, and ⟨y⟩ are not included:

The orthography thus underdifferentiates several phonemic distinctions:

• Stress, vowel length and tone are not distinguished, except with optional diacritics when it is necessary to distinguish between similar words with a different meaning.
• The two distinct mid-vowels are also not distinguished, both written as simply ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩.
• The schwa is also written as ⟨e⟩. However, the combination is written as simply ⟨r⟩ between consonants and is thus distinguishable.
• Vocalized l is written also as ⟨l⟩, but cannot be predictably distinguished from in that position.

In the tonemic varieties of Slovene, the ambiguity is even greater: ⟨e⟩ in a final syllable can stand for any of (although is rare; and Slovene, except in some dialects, does not distinguish tonemic accentuation).

The reader is expected to gather the interpretation of the word from the context, as in these examples:

• gol:
  • gȍł "naked"
  • gọ̑l "goal"
• jesen:
  • jésen "ash tree"
  • jesẹ̑n "autumn"
• kot
  • kọ́t "angle"
  • kot "as"
• med
  • med "between"
  • mẹ̑d "honey"
• pol
  • pọ̑l "pole"
  • pọ̑ł "half"
• precej
  • prȅcej "at once" (archaic)
  • precẹ̑j or precȅj "a great deal (of)"

Diacritics

To compensate for the shortcomings of the standard orthography, Slovene also uses standardized diacritics or accent marks to denote stress, vowel length, and pitch accent, much like the closely related Serbo-Croatian. However, as in Serbo-Croatian, use of such accent marks is restricted to dictionaries, language textbooks, and linguistic publications. In normal writing, the diacritics are almost never used, except in a few minimal pairs where real ambiguity could arise.

Two different and mutually-incompatible systems of diacritics are used. The first is the simpler non-tonemic system, which can be applied to all Slovene dialects. It is more widely used and is the standard representation in dictionaries such as SSKJ. The tonemic system also includes tone as part of the representation. However, neither system reliably distinguishes schwa from the front mid-vowels, nor vocalised l from regular l . Some sources, such as Maks Pleteršnik's 1894/95 dictionary, write these as ə and ł, respectively, but this is not as common.

Non-tonemic diacritics

In the non-tonemic system, the distinction between the two mid-vowels is indicated, as well as the placement of stress and the length of vowels:

• Long stressed vowels are notated with an acute diacritic: ⟨á é í ó ú ŕ⟩ (IPA: ).
• However, the rarer long stressed low-mid vowels and are notated with a circumflex: ⟨ê ô⟩.
• Short stressed vowels are notated with a grave: ⟨à è ì ò ù⟩ (IPA: ). Some systems may also include ⟨ə̀⟩ for .

Tonemic diacritics

The tonemic system uses the diacritics somewhat differently from the non-tonemic system. The high-mid vowels and are written ⟨ẹ ọ⟩ with a subscript dot, while the low-mid vowels and are written as plain ⟨e o⟩.

Pitch accent and vowel length is indicated by four diacritical marks:

• The acute ( ´ ) indicates long and low pitch: ⟨á é ẹ́ í ó ọ́ ú ŕ⟩ (IPA: ).
• The inverted breve ( ̑ ) indicates long and high pitch: ⟨ȃ ȇ ẹ̑ ȋ ȏ ọ̑ ȗ ȓ⟩ (IPA: ).
• The grave ( ` ) indicates short and low pitch. This occurs only on ⟨è⟩ (IPA: ), optionally written as ⟨ə̀⟩.
• The double grave ( ̏ ) indicates short and high pitch: ⟨ȁ ȅ ȉ ȍ ȕ⟩ (IPA: ). ⟨ȅ⟩ is also used for , optionally written as ⟨ə̏⟩.

The schwa vowel is written ambiguously as ⟨e⟩, but its accentuation will sometimes distinguish it: a long vowel mark can never appear on a schwa, while a grave accent can appear only on a schwa. Thus, only ⟨ȅ⟩ and unstressed ⟨e⟩ are truly ambiguous.

Regulation

Standard Slovene spelling and grammar are defined by the Orthographic Committee and the Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovene Language, which are both part of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti, SAZU). The newest reference book of standard Slovene spelling (and to some extent also grammar) is the Slovenski pravopis (SP2001; Slovene Normative Guide). The latest printed edition was published in 2001 (reprinted in 2003 with some corrections) and contains more than 130,000 dictionary entries. In 2003, an electronic version was published.

The official dictionary of modern Slovene, which was also prepared by SAZU, is Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika (SSKJ; Standard Slovene Dictionary). It was published in five volumes by Državna Založba Slovenije between 1970 and 1991 and contains more than 100,000 entries and subentries with accentuation, part-of-speech labels, common collocations, and various qualifiers. In the 1990s, an electronic version of the dictionary was published and is available online.

The SAZU considers SP2001 to be the normative source on Slovene. When dictionary entries in SP2001 and SSKJ differ, the SP2001 entry takes precedence. SP2001 is called a Spelling Dictionary by the European Network of e-Lexicography.

Sample text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Slovene and English.

Slovene: Vsi ljudje se rodijo svobodni ter imajo enako dostojanstvo in pravice. Dana sta jim razum in vest, in bi morali drug z drugim ravnati v duhu bratstva.

English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.