Словен тілі: Оңтүстік славян тілдерінің бірі

South Slavic language spoken primarily in Slovenia

Slovene (/audio=En us Slovene. ogg/'/s//l//oʊ//v//iː//n/ or /s//l//oʊ/'/v//iː//n//, //s//l//ə// /) or Slovenian (/audio=En us Slovenian. ogg//s//l//oʊ/'/v//iː//n//i//ə//n//, //s//l//ə// /; slovenščina) is a Western member of South Slavic languages, which belong to the Balto Slavic branch of the Indo European language family. Most of its 2.5 million speakers are the inhabitants of Slovenia, 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 syntax is highly fusional and characterized by dual grammatical number. 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 a 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.

Standard Slovene is the national standard language that was formed in the 18th and 19th century, based on Upper and Lower Carniolan dialect groups, more specifically on language of Ljubljana and its adjacent areas. The Lower Carniolan dialect group was the dialect used in the 16th century by Primož Trubar for his writings, while he also used Slovene as spoken in Ljubljana, since he lived in the city for more than 20 years. It was the speech of Ljubljana that Trubar took as a foundation of what later became standard Slovene, with small addition of his native speech, that is Lower Carniolan dialect Trubar's choice was later adopted also by other Protestant writers in the 16th century, and ultimately led to the formation of more standard language. The Upper dialect was also used by most authors during the language revival in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and was also the language spoken by France Prešeren, who, like most of Slovene writers and poets, lived and worked in Ljubljana, where speech was growing closer to the Upper Carniolan dialect group. Furthermore, Slovene shares certain linguistic characteristics with all South Slavic languages, including those of the Eastern subgroup, such as Bulgarian. Mutual intelligibility with varieties of Serbo Croatian is hindered by differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, Kajkavian being the most mutually intelligible. Slovene has some commonalities with the West Slavic languages.

Like all Slavic languages, Slovene traces its roots to the same proto Slavic group of languages that produced Old Church Slavonic. The earliest known examples of a distinct, written dialect connected to Slovene are from the Freising manuscripts, known in Slovene as Brižinski spomeniki. The consensus estimate of their date of origin is between 972 and 1039 (most likely before 1000). These religious writings are among the oldest surviving manuscripts in any Slavic language. 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 and Lower Austria. By the 15th century, most of the northern areas were gradually Germanized: 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 pretty much 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. Between the 9th and 12th century, proto Slovene spread into northern Istria and in the areas around Trieste. 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. 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 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, and many Germanisms are preserved in contemporary colloquial Slovene. Many Slovene scientists 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 rise of Romantic nationalism in the 19th century, the cultural movements of Illyrism and Pan Slavism brought words from Serbo Croatian, specifically Croatian dialects, and Czech into standard Slovene, mostly to replace words previously borrowed from German. Most of these innovations have remained, although some were dropped in later development. In the second half of the 19th century, many nationalist authors made an abundant use of Serbo Croatian words: among them were Fran Levstik and Josip Jurčič, who wrote the first novel in Slovene in 1866. This tendency was reversed in the Fin de siècle period by the first generation of modernist Slovene authors (most notably the writer Ivan Cankar), who resorted to a more "pure" and simple language without excessive Serbo Croatian borrowings. 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 most fierce opponents of an excessive Serbo Croatian influence on Slovene were the intellectuals associated with the leftist journal Sodobnost, as well as some younger Catholic 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 examples, at the post offices, 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 submitted 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 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 Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Slovene was one of the official languages of the federation. 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 Slovenia's admission. Nonetheless, post breakup influence of Serbo Croatian onto 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 language is spoken by about 2.5 million people, mainly in Slovenia, but also by Slovene national minorities in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy (around 90,000 in Venetian Slovenia, Resia Valley, Canale Valley, Province of Trieste and in those municipalities of the Province of Gorizia bordering with Slovenia), in southern Carinthia, some parts of Styria in Austria (25,000) and in west part Croatian Istria bordering with Slovenia. It is also spoken in Rijeka and Zagreb (11,800 13,100), in southwestern Hungary (3 5,000), in Serbia (5,000), and by the Slovene diaspora throughout Europe and the rest of the world (around 300,000), particularly in the United States (most notably Ohio, home to an estimated 3,400 speakers), Canada, Argentina, Australia and South Africa. with different degrees of mutual intelligibility. Accounts of the number of dialects range from as few as seven dialects, often considered dialect groups or dialect bases that are further subdivided into as many as 50 dialects. Other sources characterize the number of dialects as nine or eight. The Slovene proverb "Every village has its own voice" (Vsaka vas ima svoj glas) depicts the differences in dialects. Although pronunciation differs greatly from area to area, those differences do not pose major obstacles to understanding. The standard language is mainly used in public presentations or on formal occasions. The Prekmurje dialect used to have a written norm of its own at one point. The Resian 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 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, kovter meaning blanket is odeja in Standard Slovene, but the latter term is very rarely used in speech, being considered inappropriate for non literary registers). Southwestern dialects incorporate many calques and loanwords from Italian, 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 has a phoneme set consisting of 21 consonants and 8 vowels.

There are no definite or indefinite articles as in English (a, an, the) or German (der, die, das, ein, eine). 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 a noun, one would say (prav/natanko/ravno) tista barka ('that/precise/exact barge') for 'the barge' and neka/ena barka ('some/a barge') for 'a barge'. Definiteness of a noun phrase can also be discernible through the ending of the accompanying adjective. One should say rdeči šotor ('[exactly that] 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.

Foreign words used in Slovene are of various types depending on the assimilation they have undergone. The types are:
sposojenka (loanword)fully assimilated; e. g. pica ('pizza'). tujka (foreign word)partly assimilated, either in writing and syntax or in pronunciation; e. g. jazz, wiki. polcitatna beseda ali besedna zveza (half quoted word or phrase) – partly assimilated, either in writing and syntax or in pronunciation; e. g. Shakespeare, but Shakespearja in genitive case. citatna beseda ali besedna zveza (quoted word or phrase)kept as in original, although pronunciation may be altered to fit into speech flow; e. g. first lady in all cases. The loanwords are mostly from German and Italian, while the more recently borrowed and less assimilated words are typically from English.

To compensate for the shortcomings of the standard orthography, Slovene also uses standardized diacritics or accent marks to denote stress, vowel length and pitch accent, much like the closely related Serbo Croatian. However, as in Serbo Croatian, use of such accent marks is restricted to dictionaries, language textbooks and linguistic publications. In normal writing, the diacritics are almost never used, except in a few minimal pairs where real ambiguity could arise. 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 sl's 1894/95 dictionary, write these as ə and ł, respectively, but this is not as common.