# Slovenian: olive



## Riveritos

My dictionary says that olive in Slovenian is "oljke" but in some sites I also find "olive". Is that correct? Can I call it olive in Slovenian?
Thanks in advance


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## TriglavNationalPark

*Oliva* (dual *olivi*, plural *olive*) was once the most common term for the olive fruit itself, while *oljka* (du. *oljki*, pl. *oljke*) tended to be used primarily for the olive tree. In recent years, however, *oljka* has also become an increasingly common term for the olive fruit. This is mostly because *oljka* is etymologically Slovenian (from *olje* = oil, i.e. "oil fruit"), whereas *oliva* is a borrowing from Italian.

In other words, you can call the olive fruit either *oliva* or *oljka *(knowing that the former was the standard term until recently, while the latter is more liguistically "pure" and trendy) but you _must_ call the olive tree *oljka* in all contexts.

By the way, olive oil was once knows as *olivno olje* in Slovenian, but *oljčno olje* is now more common; that's what most Slovenian olive oil producers and the government now use (example, example).


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## Riveritos

Thank you so much.


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## robi386

TriglavNationalPark said:


> By the way, olive oil was once knows as *olivno olje* in Slovenian, but *oljčno olje* is now more common; that's what most Slovenian olive oil producers and the government now use (example, example).


Just a small comment...

"olivno olje" gets more results on google than "oljčno olje", even tho I agree that the latter is more "official" now.

Personally, I prefer 'oliva' and 'olivno olje'. Tho I might be "biased" a bit, because I'm from the western Slovenia.

But what bothers me most are some other slovenian versions of names, especially from latin origin. For example Neapelj and Pulj. I find those two more difficult to pronounce than Napoli and Pula. And I bet it's like this for most slovenians.

Offtopic, I know... just saying that I think sometimes we go too far in trying to make things sound more "slovenian".


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## TriglavNationalPark

robi386 said:


> Just a small comment...
> 
> "olivno olje" gets more results on google than "oljčno olje", even tho I agree that the latter is more "official" now.



Good point. I would say that "olivno olje" is (still) considerably more common than "oljčno olje" in everyday speech. The shift to "oljčno olje" is limited primarily to books, documents, the news media, and more formal speech. In those areas, however, it seems to be rapidly displacing "olivno olje" as the preferred term for olive oil.


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## Mishe

I just hate these language interventions such as this one.

If 99,99% people use "olive" and are familiar with that term (there is also a distiction between oljka-the tree, oliva-the fruit) then I really DO NOT understand why forcefully change the name of the fruit. This part of Slovenian language policy is so dumb and that's why so many people feel alienated from the standard language: it just doesn't take into account what the speakers of the language actually use, it is just self-sufficient (and that's what a language should never be, or it is IMO doomed). Things are changing though, but too slowly if you ask me. 

BTW, all etiquettes on jars have "OLIVE" on them . Guess capitalists don't care about language purism.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Mishe said:


> BTW, all etiquettes on jars have "OLIVE" on them . Guess capitalists don't care about language purism.



I tend to agree with you about language purism, but it seems that the more expensive, "fancy" kinds of olives are sometimes labeled "OLJKE" instead:

http://www.bazilika.si/izdelki/oljke-v-slanici/

http://www.km.fgg.uni-lj.si/vanja/kaj_nudimo-produktid=7.htm


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## skye

I find it really strange to call the fruit "oljka". 

A boš še eno oljko? Jaz bi pa eno pico z oljkami.

But if the dictionary says so ... then ok. I won't be using it any time soon though.


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## Mishe

skye said:


> I find it really strange to call the fruit "oljka".
> 
> A boš še eno oljko? Jaz bi pa eno pico z oljkami.
> 
> But if the dictionary says so ... then ok. I won't be using it any time soon though.



The ironic thing is this little "reform" actually took away a word from Slovenian vocabulary. Before we had a distinction between the fruit and the tree, now we have "oljka" and what... "oljčno drevo"?!


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## skye

Mishe said:


> The ironic thing is this little "reform" actually took away a word from Slovenian vocabulary. Before we had a distinction between the fruit and the tree, now we have "oljka" and what... "oljčno drevo"?!


 
Now it's the same thing as with hruška and češnja and other fruit I guess. 

I'm sticking to the old ways for now.


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## pikabu

Mishe, I totally agree with you about this forced changes in the language but not 100% in this case. 

Few years ago I read an article in (I think it was ) Ona  signed by a member of "Združenje slovenskih pridelovalcev oljk" (or something like that that implied some credibility) about this "oliva-oljka" dilemma. The main idea was that the people who grow them (mostly Primorci) use the word "oljka" (something like I-know-this-thing-best-so-you-should-listen-to-me; similar to famous "Beltinci" case: "On je iz Beltinec" instead of "normal" "On je iz Beltincev"). The other argument was that the word "oljka" is a proper Slovenian word while "oliva" is of Latin(?) origin. I am convinced that Primorci (specially those who don't live in a cities) use "oljčno olje" in their everyday life instead of "olivno".  (Anyway, my husband who is from Coast always uses the "olive, olivno olje" but 1) he's a "city-man" and he never had a real contact with a rural vocabulary of the area 2) his parents are not locals so they wouldn't use "oljka" for fruits.)

But I like the distinction between these words ("oljka" for tree and "oliva" for fruit) and I think that the use of "oljka" in both cases will cause some unnecessary confusions.


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## Mishe

pikabu said:


> Mishe, I totally agree with you about this forced changes in the language but not 100% in this case.
> 
> Few years ago I read an article in (I think it was ) Ona  signed by a member of "Združenje slovenskih pridelovalcev oljk" (or something like that that implied some credibility) about this "oliva-oljka" dilemma. The main idea was that the people who grow them (mostly Primorci) use the word "oljka" (something like I-know-this-thing-best-so-you-should-listen-to-me; similar to famous "Beltinci" case: "On je iz Beltinec" instead of "normal" "On je iz Beltincev"). The other argument was that the word "oljka" is a proper Slovenian word while "oliva" is of Latin(?) origin. I am convinced that Primorci (specially those who don't live in a cities) use "oljčno olje" in their everyday life instead of "olivno".  (Anyway, my husband who is from Coast always uses the "olive, olivno olje" but 1) he's a "city-man" and he never had a real contact with a rural vocabulary of the area 2) his parents are not locals so they wouldn't use "oljka" for fruits.)
> 
> But I like the distinction between these words ("oljka" for tree and "oliva" for fruit) and I think that the use of "oljka" in both cases will cause some unnecessary confusions.




Hmm, weird that people from Primorska would use "oljka" instead of "oliva", especially since the latter comes from Italian and they use a whole lot of Italianisms. Anyways, I strongly disagree with this kind of language purism. What, now we're going to delete all borowed words and replace them with some kind of weird regionalisms or archaisms. Smells like Croatian language politics from the early 1990s... 

Concerning "I-know-better-than-you-so-you should-listen-to-me" case: I had an interesting discussion with a good friend of mine who is a linguist just a few weeks ago. We were talking about cases like Beltinci you mentioned above and in fact, every village, town and city in Slovenia applies to this rule: that's why we have to say NA Jesenicah or NA Ptuju or na Vrhniki, instead of V, which would be much more natural and according to the rules of the standard language. So the rule is using prepositions used by the locals, which is in my humble opinion, a bit schitzophrenic; the STANDARD variant of a language should follow standard grammatical rules to avoid confusion and unnecessary exceptions. If not, then why not take into account all the dialectal, jargon and slang vocabulary? I'm sure it's much more natural for someone from Nova Gorica to say Gorica with a soft g or whatever that sound is than with a standard g. Do you see where I'm going? Make standard equal for all the speakers.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Here is an interesting article from _Delo_ about the use of "oljka" and "oliva".

Two quotes:

_"Slovaropisca Megiser in Alasia, ki sta na prehodu iz 16. v 17. stoletje popisala tudi besednjak slovenskega etničnega ozemlja, sta tu naletela na oliko, tudi Gutsman je v 18. stoletju na naših tleh slišal izraza, ki ju je zapisal olika in oleika. Stare dokumentirane oblike pridevnikov so oljikin, oljikov, oljičen in oljski, oljčen. V Slovenski Istri so oljki (drevesu in njegovim plodovom) vedno rekli tako [...]"_

_"Vmesni čas je bil tudi zaradi zgodovinskih okoliščin povezan z močnim italijanskim vplivom, tudi jezikovnim. Vendar je izraz oliva (v italijanščini je sadež oliva, drevo ulivo in olivo latinsko pa je v obeh primerih oliva) v fini jezik oz. govorico višjih slojev, ki niso imeli pravega stika z zemljo, prek t. i. kulturne izmenjave prišel že prej, delno tudi s severa z nemščino."_


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## pikabu

Mishe, I agree with you and I also see exactly where you're going with your post. But there's a very thin line between the purism on one hand and suppression of dialect(s) on the other. The use of word "suppression" is perhaps exaggerated but the diversity of Slovenian dialects shouldn't be trampled on by some rigid grammar rules. Grammatics don't have an easy job determining which dialectal word is "allowed" to join the others in f.e. Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika, specially with this Slovenian "vsaka vas ima svoj glas" variety.  
But I am, of course, strongly in favour of a standard language, that every Slovenian should know when and where to use it (just like f.e. Prekmurci which are able to switch instantly from their dialect to a standard language).


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