Slovenian language

Encyclopedia : S : SL : SLO : Slovenian language

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Slovenian or Slovene (slovenski jezik or shortly slovenščina) 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" (slověnskii in old Slavonic).

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 [poʊʃtər]). Similarly, Slovenian has both the native term izvijač ("screwdriver") and "šrauf'ncigr", IPA [ʃraʊfəntsɪgər]) 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, the lingua franca of science at the time.

The cultural movements of Illyrism and Pan-Slavism brought words from Serbo-Croatian into the language. For example, Josip Jurčič, who wrote the first novel in Slovenian (Deseti brat/The Tenth Brother, published 1866) used 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, although in practice, Serbo-Croatian was forcefully put forward, again introducing Croat elements into Slovenian. Slovenian has been used as official language in all areas of public life (including the army) only 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.

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 ..."

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.

Dialects

Main article: Slovenian dialects.

Slovenian is a highly varied language with many dialects that are mainly mutually intelligible. Linguists agree that there are about 48 dialects.

Literature

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.

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. 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. His linguistic claims are disputed by professor Stanko Klinar from Slovenia.

The shorter form is prevalent in the United Kingdom and in Ireland. The longer form is prevalent in the USA, Canada, Australia. 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 (2,002,354 (May 06)). In addition, the Slovene language has speakers in Venetian Slovenia (Beneška Slovenija) and other parts of Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Furlanija-Julijska krajina)) in Italy (100,000), in Carinthia (Avstrijska Koroška) and other parts of Austria (50,000), in the northern part of Istria (Hrvaška Istra) in Croatia (11,800-13,100), in southwestern Hungary (6,000) as well as dispersed throughout Europe and the rest of the world (particularly in the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia and South Africa) (300,000).

Common Phrases

Excuse me (, please) ... (To introduce a question.) Oprostite (, prosim) ... Pardon me. Pardon. That's O.K. Je že v redu. Oh, I am sorry. Oh, oprostite. Never mind. Nič hudega. Thank you. Hvala. You're welcome. Prosim. Thank you very much. Hvala lepa. Don't mention it. Ni za kaj. / Prosim. Thank you so much. Najlepša hvala. That's O.K. Je že v redu. Yes. Ja (coll.). / Da (lit.). No. Maybe. Probably. Ne. Mogoče. Verjetno. May I? Smem? You may not. Ne smete. / Ne smeš (fam.). Could I? Lahko? Please do. Prosim, izvolite (lit.). Do you mind if I smoke? Bi vas motilo, če kadim? Not at all. / I don't mind. Sploh ne. / Ne. Could you lend me ...? Mi lahko posodite ...? Of course. With pleasure. Seveda. Z veseljem. Could I borrow ...? Si lahko sposodim ...? Unfortunately not. Žal, ne. Enjoy your meal. Dober tek. Thank you. Same to you. Hvala, enako. Cheers. Na zdravje. / Živijo. I'm looking for ... Iščem ... I'd like ... Rad bi ... / Rada bi (f.) ... Who's there? Kdo je? (When answering a knock at the door.) Come in. Kar naprej. Can you help me? Mi lahko pomagate? Can I help you? Vam lahko pomagam?

Introductions

Let me introduce myself. Dovolite, da se predstavim. My name is John Blatnik. Jaz sem John Blatnik. Glad to meet you. Me veseli. I'd like you to meet my wife. Vam smem predstaviti svojo ženo? This is my daughter Jane. This is my son Alex. To je moja hčerka Jane. To je moj sin Aleks.

Personal Data

What's your name? Kako vam je ime? Are you Mr. Biggins? Ste vi gospod Biggins? What's your last name? Kako se pišete? Where do you live? Kje stanujete? Where are you staying? Kje stanujete tukaj? Where are you working? Kje delate? What do you do for a living? Kaj ste po poklicu? I am a lawyer, attorney. Pravnik, advokat sem.

Other possibilities

manager direktor/direktorica (f.) merchant/businessman trgovec/trgovka (f.) office worker uradnik/uradnica (f.) physician zdravnik/zdravnica (f.) priest/pastor duhovnik store clerk prodajalec/prodajalka (f.) salesman trgovski zastopnik student študent/študentka (f.) teacher učitelj/učiteljica (f.) worker delavec/delavka (f.) professor profesor/profesorica (f.) engineer inženir farmer kmet/kmetica (f.)

I have a trade. Imam obrt. What are you doing here? Kaj počnete tukaj? I am a tourist. Turist sem. / Turistka sem (f.). I am on business. Potujem službeno. I am visiting relatives. Sem na obisku pri sorodnikih.

Sounds

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

Vowels

Older analysis of Slovenian concluded that it features phonemic vowel length, but more recent studies have rejected this statement for the majority of speakers. The current analysis is that stressed vowels are long while unstressed vowels are short. All vowels can be either stressed or unstressed. However, unstressed /e/ and /o/ are restricted to a few grammatical words like bo "will", an auxiliary verb for the future tense.

Consonants

	Bilabial		Labio dental		Dental		Alveolar		Palato- alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Plosives
Nasals
Affricates
Tap
Fricatives
Approximants

All voiced obstruent are devoiced at the end of words unless immediately followed by a word beginning with a vowel or a voiced consonant. /ʋ/ has several allophones depending on context:

• Before a vowel: [ʋ]
• At the end of a syllable or before a consonant: [u]
• At the beginning of a syllable before a voiced consonant: [w]
• At the beginning of a syllable before a voiceless consonant: [ʍ]

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

Prosody

Slovenian uses diacritics or accent marks to denote what is called "dynamic accent" and tone. Standard Slovenian has two varieties, tonal and non-tonal.

Dynamic accent marks lexical stress in a word as well as vowel duration. Stress placement in Slovenian is predictable: any long vowel is automatically stressed, and in words with no long vowels, the stress falls to the final syllable. The only exception is schwa, which is always short, and can be stressed in non-final postition. Some compounds, but not all, have multiple stress. In the Slovenian writing system, dynamic accent marks may be placed on all vowels, as well as r (which is never syllabic in Standard Slovenian, but is used for schwa + r sequences, when in consonantal environment); for example, vrt (garden) stressed as vŕt.

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 high), the inverted breve (  ̑) or the circumflex (^) (long and low), the grave (`) (short and high) and the double grave (``) (short and low), marking the narrow ‘e’ or ‘o’ with the dot below (  ̣).

Grammar

See Slovenian grammar

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), you 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.

For more information on formality and informality, refer to T-V distinction.

Foreign words

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

• sposojenka (loan word) – fully assimilated (e.g. pica (="pizza"))
• tujka (foreign word) – partly assimilated, either in writing and syntax and/or in pronunciation (e.g. jazz, wiki)
• polcitatna beseda ali besedna zveza – partly assimilated, either in writing and syntax and/or in pronunciation (e.g. Shakespeare)
• citatna beseda ali besedna zveza – kept as in original, although pronunciation may be altered to fit into speech flow (e.g. 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), 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 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). Another soulution is in the ending of the adjective acompanying the noun (rdeči šotor, exactly that red tent or for a special (red) type of tent) or (rdeč šotor, a red tent)

Writing system

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. Note that these are usually not written and the reader is expected to gather the meaning of the word from the context. For example:

• gòl (naked) | gól (goal),
• jêsen (ash (tree)) | jesén (autumn),
• kót (angle, corner) | kot (as, like),
• med (between) | méd (honey),
• polovíca (half (of)) | pôl (expresses a half an hour before the given hour | pól (pole, as in northern pole),
• prècej (at once, archaic) | precéj (a great deal (of))),

letter	phoneme	phones	first letter in a word	word pronunciation
A (a)			abecéda (="alphabet")
B (b)			beséda (="word")
C (c)			cvét (="bloom")
Č (č)			časopís (="newspaper")
D (d)			dánes (="today")
E (e)			sédem (="seven" or "I sit down")
F (f)			fànt (="boy")
'''G (g)			grad (="castle")
H (h)			híša (="house")
I (i)			imèti (="to have")
J (j)			jábolko (="apple")
K (k)			kmèt (="peasant")
L (l)			ljubézèn (="love")
M (m)			mísliti (="to think")
N (n)			novíce (="news")
O (o)			oblák (="cloud")
P (p)			pomóč (="help")
R (r)			rokenrol (="rock'n'roll")
S (s)			svet (="world")
Š (š)			šóla (="school")
T (t)			tip (="type")
U (u)			ulica (="street")
V (v)			vôda (="water")
Z (z)			zrèlo (="mature")
Ž (ž)			življenje (="life")

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.

References