Spoken in: Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and emigrant groups in various countries.

Total speakers: 2.2 million.

Language family: Indo-European, Balto-Slavic, Slavic, South Slavic, Western South Slavic, Slovenian/Slovene.

Official status
Official language in: Slovenia, European Union;
Regional or local official language in: Austria, Hungary, Italy.

Regulated by: Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Slovenian or Slovene (slovenski jezik or slovenščina) is an Indo-European language that belongs to the family of South Slavic languages. It is spoken by approximately 2 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. Slovenian is one of the few languages to have preserved the dual grammatical number from Proto-Indo-European. Also, Slovenian and Slovak are the two modern Slavic languages whose names for themselves literally mean "Slavic" (slověnüskú in old Slavonic). Slovenian is also one of the official languages of the European Union.


History

Early history

Like all Slavic languages, Slovenian traces its roots to the same proto-Slavic group of languages that produced Old Church Slavonic. The earliest known examples of a distinct, written Slovenian dialect are from the Freising manuscripts, known as the Brižinski spomeniki in Slovenian; the consensus estimate of their age is between 972 and 1093 (most likely in the later years of the range). These religious writings are the earliest known occurrence of any Slavic language being written using the Latin script (Carolingian minuscule). Moreover, they are among the oldest surviving manuscripts in any Slavic language.

Literary Slovenian emerged in the 16th century thanks to the works of Reformation activists Primož Trubar, Adam Bohorič 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 Austrian-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 Slovenian scientists before the 1920s also wrote in foreign languages, mostly German, the lingua franca of science at the time.

The cultural movements of Illyrism and Pan-Slavism brought words from Serbo-Croatian and Czech into the language. For example, Josip Jurčič, who wrote the first novel in Slovenian (Deseti brat/The Tenth Brother, published 1866) used Serbo-Croat words in his writing.

Recent history

During World War II, when Slovenia was divided between the Axis Powers of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Hungary, the occupying powers suppressed the Slovenian language. The Germans were particularly emphatic, issuing propaganda suggesting that German-speaking Slovenes would be treated equally with native-born Germans.

Following World War II, Slovenia became part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Slovenian was one of the official languages of the federation. On the territory of Slovenia, it was commonly used in most areas of public life. One important exception was the Yugoslav army where Serbo-Croatian was used exclusively even in Slovenia. Slovenian has been used as official language in all areas of public life (including the army) from 1991 when Slovenia gained independence. National independence has revitalized the language. It became one of the official languages of the European Union upon Slovenia's admission.

Slovenians often assert that their language is endangered, despite the fact that it now has more speakers than at any point in its history. The British 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 ..."

Nature of the language

Slovenian belongs to the Western subgroup of the South Slavic branch of Slavic languages.


Regulation

Proper Slovenian orthography and grammar are sanctioned by the Orthographic Commission and the Fran Ramovš Institute of Slovenian Language, which are both part of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti, SAZU). The newest reference book of proper Slovenian orthography (and to some extent also grammar) is Slovenski pravopis (Slovenian Orthography). The latest printed edition was published in 2001 (reprinted in 2003 with some corrections) and contains more than 130,000 entries. In 2003, an 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 Standard Slovenian 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, an electronic version of the dictionary was published and is available online.


Slovenian dialects

Slovenian is a highly varied language with many dialects, with different grades of mutual intelligibility. Linguists agree that there are about 48 dialects.


Literature

Slovenians are said to be 'a nation of poets' due to their language. Poets France Prešeren and Edvard Kocbek and writer Ivan Cankar are three of the most prominent Slovenian authors, while Vladimir Bartol, Srečko Kosovel, Tomaž Šalamun, Boris Pahor, Drago Jančar and Aleš Debeljak are among the most famous.


Name in English

The terms Slovenian and Slovene refer to anything related to Slovenia and its inhabitants. Both have been used for a long time in English, and are comparable to the parallel short and long forms Serb/Serbian and Croat/Croatian. A Slovenian Canadian scholar Edward Gobetz claims that the shorter form was carried over into English through French, once the language of diplomacy and that the longer form is the one naturally formed by native speakers of English.

The shorter form is sometimes said to be prevalent in the United Kingdom and in Ireland and the longer form in the US, Canada, Australia. Others claim that the shorter form should be used as a noun (e.g., Slovenes) and the longer form as an adjective (e.g., Slovenian people). In practice, it is difficult to claim any such pattern. Although somewhat confusing, both terms are widely recognized and acceptable.


Geographic distribution

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

Slovenes live mainly in Slovenia in Central Europe (about 2,000,000 in 2006). In addition, the Slovene language has speakers in Venetian Slovenia (Beneška Slovenija) and other parts of Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Furlanija-Julijska krajina) in Italy (more than 100,000), in Carinthia (avstrijska Koroška) and other parts of Austria (25,000), throughout Croatia, especially in Istria, Rijeka and Zagreb (11,800-13,100), in southwestern Hungary (6,000), in Serbia (5,000), as well as dispersed throughout Europe and the rest of the world (around 300,000), particularly in the United States, Canada, Argentina (30,000), Australia and South Africa).


Vocabulary

T-V distinction
Slovenian uses, much like German or French, separate forms of 'you' for formal and informal situations. The archaic English thou can be translated as ti (used in common situations; that is, when speaking to one's peers or inferiors), and the archaic 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 thou and ye, and as in French tu and vous, ti and vi are widely used. There is a difference between formal and informal second person of plural in the form of the verb that follows or replaces the auxiliary vi (e.g. boste delal(-a), thou will work; informal) or verb in plural (boste delali, ye will work).

Slovenian also has two special verbs to describe the use of ti and vi.
- tikati means to refer to someone as "ti", i.e., to be on familiar terms with someone.
- vikati means to refer to someone as "vi", i.e., to be on formal terms with someone.