Slovenian language

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Slovenian or Slovene language (Slovenian: slovenski jezik or slovenščina) is one of the Slavic languages. It is spoken by approximately two million speakers worldwide, most of whom live in Slovenia. It is one of the few languages to have preserved the dual grammatical number from Indo-European. Its grammar is reputedly extremely complex and the large number of named dialects compared to the number of speakers indicates a large amount of variation in the language.

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Official status

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Language codes

ISO 639-1

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ISO 639-2

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SIL

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History

The earliest known examples of a written Slovenian dialect are from the Freising manuscripts, known as the Brižinski spomeniki in Slovenian, which have been dated to somewhere between 972 and 1093, though these manuscipts are more likely to be from before 1000 than after it. These religious writings are the earliest known occurrence of a Slavic language being written using the Latin script. Moreover, they are now said to be one of the oldest existing manuscripts in any Slavic language.

The literary Slovenian emerged in the 16th century thanks to the works of Reformation activists Primoz Trubar, Adam Bohoric and Jurij Dalmatin. During the period when present-day Slovenia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, German was the language of the élíte, and Slovenian was the language of the common people. During this time, German had a strong impact on Slovenian, and many Germanisms are preserved in contemporary colloquial Slovenian. For example, in addition to the native Slovenian word blazina ("pillow"), the German word "Polster" is also used in colloquial Slovenian, wherein it is pronounced poušter, IPA {}). Similarly, Slovenian has both the native term izvijač ("screwdriver") and "šrauf'ncigr", IPA ) in technical colloquial jargon, from the German word for screwdriver: "Schraubenzieher." Many well known Slovenian scientists before the 1920s also wrote in foreign languages, mostly German, because of the political situation in Europe.

During the period of Illyrism and Pan-Slavism, some words crept into the language from Serbo-Croatian, being used even by some good authors, for example by Josip Jurčič, who wrote Deseti brat (The Tenth Brother) the first novel in Slovenian, published in 1866; however, many Croatisms used by such authors are entirely unfamiliar to Slovenians, especially the younger generation.

Slovenian was also shunned for a period during World War II when Slovenia was divided between the Axis Powers of Fascist Italy, the Nazi Germany and Hungary.

Following World War II, Slovenia became part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Slovenian was one of the official languages of the federation, although in practice, Serbo-Croatian was forcefully put forward. Slovenia gained independence in 1991 and Slovenian was made the official language. It is also one of the official languages of the European Union.

Nature of the language

Although Slovenian is reportedly very difficult for a foreigner to learn, it is nowadays very much alive. Proper Slovenian orthography and grammar are sanctified by the Orthographic Commission and the Fran Ramovš Institute of Slovenian Language, which are both part of Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti, SAZU). The newest reference book of proper Slovenian orthography and grammar is Slovenski pravopis. The latest printed edition was published in 2001 and contains more than 130,000 entries. In 2003, the electronic version was published. The official dictionary of modern Slovenian language, which is also prepared by SAZU, is called Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika (SSKJ; in English Dictionary of the Slovenian Standard Language). It was published in five books by Državna založba Slovenije between the years 1970 in 1991 and contains more than 100,000 entries and sub-entries in which the stress, grammar marks, common associations of words and different qualificators are included. In the 1990s, the dictionary was also published in electronic version and is available online.

The English linguist David Crystal said in an interview in the summer of 2003 for the newspaper Delo the following about the language: "No, Slovenian is not condemned to death. At least not in the foreseeable future. The number of speakers, two million, is big. Welsh has merely 500,000 speakers. Statistically, spoken Slovenian with two million speakers comes into the upper 10 per cent of the world's languages. Most languages of the world have very few speakers. Two million is a nice number: magnificent, brilliant. One probably would think this number is not much. But from the point of view of the whole world, this number has its weight. On the other hand, a language is never self-sufficient. It can disappear even in just one generation ..."

Slovenians are said to be 'a nation of poets' due to their language. Poet France Prešeren; and writer Ivan Cankar are two of the most famous Slovenian authors.

See Slovenian literature, List of Slovenian language poets.

The language's English name

Both "Slovenian" and "Slovene" have been used for a long time in English to refer to the Slovenian language. However, in recent times, Slovenian seems to be emerging as the preferred form in all English-speaking countries except the United Kingdom, where Slovene still enjoys a majority of usage. Although somewhat confusing, both terms are widely recognized and acceptable.

Classification

Slovenian is the westernmost language of the Western subgroup of the South Slavic branch of Slavic languages.

Geographic distribution

The language is spoken by round about 2.2 million people - there is a table of distribution of Slovenians in the world in the article Slovenians.

Slovenians mostly live in their native independent land Slovenia in Central Europe (1,727,360). In addition to those, the language has speakers in Venetian Slovenia (Beneška Slovenija) (Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Furlanija-Julijska krajina)) in Italy (100,000), in Austrian Carinthia (avstrijska Koroška) in Austria (50,000), in Croatian Istria (hrvaška Istra) in Croatia (11,800-13,100), in some southern parts of Hungary (6,000) and dispersed throughout Europe and the rest of the world (particularly German, American (including Kansas Slovenians), Canadian, Argentinian, Australian and South African Slovenians) (300,000).

Dialects

Main article:Slovenian dialects.

There are at least 32 main dialects and speeches of spoken Slovenian, which is a reasonably large number for any language. When considering the amount of speakers, this makes Slovenian one of the most diverse languages in the world.

Sounds

Slovenian has an average-sized phoneme set, with 21 consonants and 8 vowels.

Vowels

There are 8 distinct vowel sounds:

	Front	Centre	Back
High
Close-mid
Open-mid
Low

A
- a ()
E
- wide ê/è ()
- schwa ()
I
- i ()
O
- wide ô/ò ()
- narrow ó ()
U
- u ()

Long vowels are always stressed (á, í, ú, ê, ô, é, ó). Short vowels may be stressed (à, ì, ù, è, ò, ə) or not (a, i, u, e, o, ə).

Consonants

Consonants are sounds with a lesser degree of openness in articulation than vowels. It is characteristic of them that they themselves are not usually sufficient to form syllables. International Phonetic Alphabet symbols used.

	bilabial	labiodental	dental	alveolar	postalveolar	velar
plosive	¹		²
nasal		(;) ³				(;) ⁴
trill				() ⁵
tap				;
fricative					; ;
affricate			() ⁶		; (;) ⁶
lateral approximant

	labial-velar	palatal	velar
approximant	() ⁷

Notes:

P and B in front of M are replaced with faucal sounds; that is, the obtrusion is formed with the velum into the nasal cavity, such as in the word 'območje' (="area"). In front of F and V, they are replaced with labiodental sounds, such as in the word 'obvestilo' (="notice, message").
T and D in front of N are replaced with faucal sounds, such as in 'dnevnik' (="journal, diary"). In front of L, the obstruction is formed at the edges of the tongue, such as in 'metla' (="broom").
The phone is not a phoneme of Slovenian, but an allophone of that occurs before [f] and [v].
The phone is an allophone of before velar consonants , , and }}.
The trilled {{IPA|[r] occurs as an allophone of the flapped in sonorant environments.
The voiced affricates are allophones of their voiceless counterparts in sonorant environments. Palatalized and occur as allophones of and sequences in some environments (such as in 'Ljubljana').
The phoneme has several allophones:

If at the end of a word or preceding a consonant and at the same time following a vowel, it is a non-syllabic (siv (="grey"), volivca (=genitive of "voter")). The same rule is valid for compound word prefixes and for the first sound of a word if the previous word ends in a vowel. The letter U when used as a prefix is in certain cases pronounced in the same way (bi uvideli (="would realise")).
When not preceded by a vowel, V is articulated as a voiced approximant when followed by a voiced consonant, and voiceless when followed by a voiceless consonant. A regular (vowel) u is sometimes used instead in careful speech. The same rules apply for the prefix U (ubiti (="to kill"), ujeti (="to catch")) and the letter L in certain cases, most notably when at the end of the word (poslal je (="he sent"), čoln (="boat")).

The preposition "v" is always bound to the following word; however its phonetic realization follows the normal phonological rules for .

In Slovenian orthography, phonemes are ordinarily written using the same letter as the one used in IPA, with the exceptions of č, š, and ž, which are not IPA usage, but correspond to , and respectively. The phoneme is sometimes written i in foreign words.

The sonorant consonants of Slovenian are M, N, R, L, V and J. A mnemonic phrase to remember them is MLiNaRJeV (="of the miller").

The least open consonants are P & B, F, T & D, S & Z, C, Š & Ž, Č, K & G and H. A mnemonic phrase to remember the voiceless ones is "Ta SuHi ŠKaFeC PuŠČa" (="This dry bucket is leaking"). One will have noticed that the above letters are arranged in pairs, namely surds and sonants, or voiceless and voiced least open consonants (zveneči in nezveneči nezvočniki). F, C and H do not have suitable pairs; the pair for Č is the letter combination DŽ.

Surds are articulated in front of vowels and mid-open consonants both inside and between words, and at word ends followed by an intermission. Sonants are articulated in front of vowels and mid-open consonants in the same word. In pronunciation, it should be borne in mind that surds are preceded by surds, and sonants by sonants. Thus: od strahu (="of fear") , od zemlje (of soil) /. All sounds are thus assimilated.

letter	phones
b		beséda (="word")
c		césta (="road")
č		časopís (="newspaper")
d		dánes (="today")
f		fànt (="boy")
g		bogàt (="rich")
h		híša (="house")
j		diják (="secondary school pupil")
	kmèt (="peasant")
l		boléti (="to hurt")
m		dvòm (="doubt")
n		dán (="day")
p		gospód (="sir, gentleman")
r		bárva (="colour")
s		mísliti (="to think")
š		šóla (="school")
t		cvét (="bloom")
v		drevó (="tree")
z		míza (="table")
ž		róža (="flower")

Stress, length and tone

Slovenian uses diacritics or accent marks to denote what is called "dynamic accent" and tone. Standard Slovenian does not have lexical tone, and does not use the tone accents, but some dialects do.

Dynamic accent marks lexical stress in a word as well as vowel duration. Stress placement in Slovenian is not predictable, so stress must be marked in the lexicon. Some compounds, but not all, have multiple stress. In the Slovenian writing system, dynamic accent marks may be placed on vowels or syllabic r, which in this case stands for two phonemes, ə and r, with the schwa stressed; for example, srce (heart) stressed as sŕce (common usage is srcé, however).

Dynamic accentuation uses three diacritic marks: the acute (´) (long and narrow), the circumflex (^) (long and wide) and the grave (`) (short and wide).

Tonal accentuation uses four: the acute (´) (long and low), the circumflex (^) (long and high), the grave (`) (short and low) and the double grave (``) (short and high).

Grammar

See Slovenian grammar

Vocabulary

Slovenian uses, much like German or French, separate forms of 'you' for formal and informal situations. The English thou can be translated as ti (used in common situations; that is, when speaking to one's peers or inferiors), and the English ye as vi (used in formal situations; that is, when speaking to one's superiors, generally any adult with whom one does not have a relationship more evolved than a simple acquaintanceship, as well as all adults who are in a higher position at work, and so forth), which is the second-person plural form. See the section on grammar for details.

Contrary to English's thou and ye, and as in French's tu and vous, ti and vi are widely used. And as in French, there is no difference between formal and informal second person of plural (vous (FR), vi (SL) but ye or you according to the context in English).

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

sposojenka (loan word) – fully assimilated (eg, pica (="pizza"))
tujka (foreign word) – partly assimilated, either in writing and syntax and/or in pronunciation (eg, jazz)
polcitatna beseda ali besedna zveza – partly assimilated, either in writing and syntax and/or in pronunciation (eg, Shakespeare)
citatna beseda ali besedna zveza – kept as in original, although pronunciation may be altered to fit into speech flow (eg, first lady)

In essence there are no definite or indefinite articles as in English (a, the) or German (der, die, das, ein, eine, ein). A whole verb or a noun is described without articles and the grammatical gender is found from the word's termination. It is enough to say barka (a or the barge) (ein or der Kahn), Noetova barka (Noah's ark) (die Arche Noahs). The gender is known in this case to be feminine. In declensions, endings are normally changed; see below. If one should like to somehow distinguish between definiteness or indefiniteness of the article, one would say for the barge as (prav/natanko/ravno) tista barka (that (exact) barge) or for a barge as neka/ena barka (one barge).

Place names

Many well known global places have their own special names. Some names are, therefore, quite different for sorting from what they are in English. Examples:

Countries and Territories (države in teritoriji)

Alžirija (Algeria),
Anglija (England),
Avstralija (Australia),

Cities (mesta)

Alžir (Algiers),
Atene (Athens),
Beljak (Villach),

Oceans (oceani), Seas (morja), Lakes (jezera), Rivers (reke)

Atlantski ocean (Atlantic Ocean),
Amazonka (Amazon River),
Črno morje (Black Sea),
Donava (Danube),
Evfrat (Euphrates),

For a longer list, see Slovenian alphabet.

Writing system

The language uses a modified Latin alphabet, and its modern alphabet consists of 25 unique lower- and uppercase letters:

a, b, c, č, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, š, t, u, v, z, ž,

A, B, C, Č, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, Š, T, U, V, Z, Ž.

This alphabet (abeceda) was derived in the mid 1840s from an arrangement of the Croatian national reviver and leader Ljudevit Gaj (1809–1872) for Croatians (alphabet called gajica or Croatian gajica, patterned on the Czech pattern of the 1830s). Before that Š was, for example, written as ∫, ∫∫ or ſ, Č as T∫CH, CZ, T∫CZ or TCZ, I sometimes as Y as a relict from now modern Russian 'yeri' Ы, J as Y, L as LL, V as W, Ž as ∫, ∫∫ or ∫z.

The writing itself in its pure form does not use any other signs, except, for instance, additional accentual marks, when it is necessary to distinguish between similar words with a different meaning. For example:

gòl (naked) | gól (goal),
jêsen (ash (tree)) | jesén (autumn),
kót (angle, corner) | kot (as, like),
kózjak (goat's dung) | kozják (goat-shed),
med (between) | méd (brass) | méd (honey),
pól (pole) | pól (half (of)) | pôl (expresses a half an hour before the given hour),
prècej (at once) | precéj (a great deal (of))),
remí (draw) | rémi (rummy (- a card game)).

Examples

Examples of the language in use are given at every topic in the Slovenian grammar article. It should be noted, however, that pronunciation differs greatly from area to area, and to use literary language in any context except a public presentation or on a very formal occasion is looked strangely upon.

External links

Slovenian language

History

Nature of the language

The language's English name

Classification

Geographic distribution

Dialects

Sounds

Vowels

Consonants

Stress, length and tone

Grammar

Vocabulary

Place names

Writing system

Examples

External links

General

Language history

Standard Slovenian language links

Slovenian as a second language