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Slovene ( or ) or Slovenian ( ; slovenščina ) is a South Slavic language of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Most of its 2.5 million speakers are the inhabitants of Slovenia, the majority of them ethnic Slovenes. As Slovenia is part of the European Union, Slovene is also one of its 24 official and working languages. Its grammar is highly fusional, and it has a dual grammatical number, an archaic feature shared with some other Indo-European languages. Two accentual norms (one characterized by pitch accent) are used. Its flexible word order is often adjusted for emphasis or stylistic reasons, although basically it is an SVO language. It has a T–V distinction: the use of the V-form demonstrates a respectful attitude towards superiors and the elderly, while it can be sidestepped through the passive form.
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.
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 Austria and Lower Austria.Bogo Grafenauer, Karantanija: izbrane razprave in članki (Ljubljana: Slovenska matica, 2000)
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 Germanization: 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.Kalin Golob, Monika (2025). 9789282323502, European Parliament Information Office for Slovenia, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Government Office for European Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia. ISBN 9789282323502
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 language 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 Germanization are preserved in contemporary colloquial Slovene. Many Slovene before the 1920s also wrote in foreign languages, mostly German, which was the lingua franca of science throughout Central Europe at the time.
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 Catholicism 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.
The Prekmurje dialect used to have a written norm of its own at one point. The Resian dialect 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-switching 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 Cremeschnitte 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 and from Italian language, 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.
| + Slovene consonant phonemes |
All voiced 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 [[allophone]]s depending on context.
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.
| + Slovene vowels |
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 language, 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:
The definiteness of a noun phrase can also be discerned through the ending of the accompanying adjective. One should say rdeči šotor ('exactly 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.
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:
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.
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'.
The standard Slovene orthography, employed in almost all situations, uses only the letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet plus , , and . The letters , , , and are not included:
| , dȃn , abecẹ̑da |
| , besẹ̑da |
| , cvẹ̑t |
| , časopı̑s |
| , dánəs |
| , sẹ́dəm , réči , médved , sə̏m |
| , fȁnt |
| , grȃd |
| , híša |
| , bíti , imẹ́ti |
| , jábołko |
| , kmȅt |
| "airplane" |
| , mísliti |
| , novíce |
| , ọ̑pica , ókno , gospá |
| , pomọ̑č |
| , rȋž , tȓg |
| , svẹ̑t |
| , šọ̑la |
| , tȋp |
| , úlica , mȃmut |
| , vóda , lȅv |
| , zíma |
| , življénje |
The orthography thus underdifferentiates several phonemic distinctions:
In the tonemic varieties of Slovene, the ambiguity is even greater: 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:
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.
Pitch accent and vowel length is indicated by four diacritical marks:
The schwa vowel is written ambiguously as , 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 and unstressed are truly ambiguous.
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.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:
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