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Slovene

Slovenski jezik

Number of native speakers

2.4 million

Official language in

Slovenia, EU

Minority language in

Austria, Italy, Hungary

Language of diaspora

Argentina, USA, Australia

Alphabet
25 letters
Grammatical cases
6
Language code
sl, slv
Linguistic typology
inflectional , pro-drop , SVO
Language family
Indo-European, Slavic, South Slavic
Number of dialects
About 50

Longest word

dialectic-materialistic

Curious word or sentence

the two of us
elected as the most beautiful Slovene word

History

The ancestors of modern Slovenes were Slavs who settled a region in the Eastern Alps, the territory of today’s Slovenia, South Hungary, South Austria and Nord-East Italy, starting from the 6th century. The first written evidence for the existence of the language dates back from the 10th century, when the oldest known documents written in Slovene appeared; they are also the oldest texts written in a Slavic language with the Latin alphabet. The first 50 books in Slovene were written by Protestant reformists in the 16th century; among them are the first grammar in 1550 and the first translation of the Bible. The modern literary language was born from various Slovene dialects and a tradition of writing in Slovene that dates back many centuries.

Freising manuscripts from the 10th century.

Dialects

In Slovenia, there are 7 dialect groups with 46 dialects in a relatively small geographical area. Slovene is therefore the richest Slavic language, from the point of view of dialects. There are several causes for this. The territory of Slovenia was settled from several directions. Four language groups (Germanic, Finno-Ugric, Romance and Slavic) meet in this place and each one influences its neighbours. The geographic conditions are also important, because many Alpine valleys and vast mountain forests historically were severe hindrances to contacts between peoples. All these conditions led to a rich linguistic heritage, with many local specific vocabulary and grammar forms that can be difficult to understand for speakers from other regions.

  • Gorenjska narečna skupina
  • Dolenjska narečna skupina
  • Štajerska narečna skupina
  • Panonska narečna skupina
  • Koroška narečna skupina
  • Primorska narečna skupina
  • Rovtarska narečna skupina
  1. šavrinsko narečje
  2. čiško narečje
  3. kostelsko narečje
  4. mešani kočevski govori
  5. severnobelokranjsko narečje
  6. južnobelokranjsko narečje

Writing system and pronunciation

  • 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

The orthography is a combination of phonetic and etymological principles with the latter being more prominent. For this reason, the same letter is not always read in the same way: for instance, L at the end of a word and after a vowel is pronounced as the English W: bil [biw]. V before a consonant is also pronounced as W: stavba [stawba], vhod [whod]. The 29 sounds of Slovene are written with 25 Latin letters, three of which have a diacritic (č = ch, š = sh, ž = zh).

The stress can be on any syllable. Words stressed on different syllables often have different meanings.

Grammar

In order to know what form a noun or an adjective should have, six cases, three genders and three numbers give 54 possibilities. The verbs can be conjugated in person (first, second and third), 4 tenses (present, future, perfect and pluperfect) and 3 numbers (singular, plural and dual). There are many irregular verbs, therefore it is not simple to know if a verb has a regular form or an irregular form that must be learned. Stress placement as well as dual and genitive forms are not only difficult for foreigners, but even the Slovenes themselves have problems with them.

The dual is a number used alongside singular and plural. If a noun refers to two people, objects or concepts, it should be declined in the dual, which is different from the singular and the plural. The dual is used not only for nouns, but also for adjectives and pronouns, and verbs conjugate not only in the singular and plural, but in the dual as well.

to go (iti)

Singular Dual Plural
1st person grem greva gremo
2nd person greš gresta greste
3rd person gre gresta gredo

husband (mož)

Singular Dual Plural
Nominative mož moža možje
Genitive moža mož mož
Dative možu možema možem
Accusative moža moža može
Locative pri možu pri možeh pri možeh
Instrumental z možem z možema z možmi

girl (deklica)

Singular Dual Plural
Nominative deklica deklici deklice
Genitive deklice deklic deklic
Dative deklici deklicama deklicam
Accusative deklico deklici deklice
Locative pri deklici pri deklicah pri deklicah
Instrumental z deklico z deklicama z deklicami

Word formation and lexicon

The Slovene language belongs to the Slavic languages and retained some archaic features of Proto-Slavic that have been lost in other Slavic languages.

The most prominent archaic feature is the dual, used only in the Slovene and the Sorbian languages in Germany. The other Slavic languages have only remnants of the dual.

Another archaic feature that has been preserved in Slovene is the system of pronouns, which is very regular. Few languages have something similar.

Interrogative (K) Demonstrative (T) Indefinite (VS) Negative (N)
kaj
what
to
that
vse
everything
nič
nothing
kdo
who
ta, tisti
this
vsak
every
nihče
nobody
kakšen
what kind of
takšen
such
vsakršen
every kind of
nikakršen
no
kje
where
tam
there
vsepovsod
everywhere
nikjer
nowhere
kdaj
when
takrat / tedaj
then
vedno / vsakokrat
always
nikoli
never
kako
how
tako
thus
vsekakor
in every way
nikakor
in no way
koliko
how many
toliko
so much
- nekoliko
some

The Slovene language creates new words based on native roots, therefore it has fewer loanwards than most other languages. But, of course, it also accepts foreign words, although they are adapted to the rules of the language (“euro” is evro).

Many languages call compact discs “CDs”, from the English abbreviation, but in Slovene they are called zgoščenka (although CD is sometimes used too), “computer” is računalnik, “smartphone” is dlančnik, etc.

Thematic words

Funny or odd traditional proverbs and idioms

Tongue twisters

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