# Slovenian: Was standard language based on a specific dialect?



## Коста

Split from here.

To all: what is the standard literary Slovenian (Slovene) language based on? Is there a specific dialect that was used for standardization?


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## TriglavNationalPark

http://www.delo.si/clanek/78235


Коста said:


> To all: what is the standard literary Slovenian (Slovene) language based on? Is there a specific dialect that was used for standardization?



When Trubar first consolidated the Slovenian language in the 16th century, he used elements from several dialects, notably Gorenjska (Upper Carniola) and, most prominently, his native Dolenjska (Lower Carniola).


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## Коста

TriglavNationalPark said:


> When Trubar first consolidated the Slovenian language in the 16th century, he used elements from several dialects, notably Gorenjska (Upper Carniola) and, most prominently, his native Dolenjska (Lower Carniola).


 
Okay, thanks, but what _rationale_ was used in this quest? Believe it or not, I am trying to get to the bottom of this tread, which is about _olives_.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Коста said:


> Okay, thanks, but what _rationale_ was used in this quest? Believe it or not, I am trying to get to the bottom of this tread, which is about _olives_.



Well, besides the fact that Trubar was from Dolenjska, Carniola (Kranjska), of which Gorenjska and Dolenjska are the two most significant parts, was the heartland of the Slovene lands. It was the only Austrian crown land where ethnic Slovenians constituted the majority of the population; it also contained some of the most important Slovenian towns, including both Kranj and Ljubljana. (In other words, it was also the most central region and therefore also a logical place to start consolidating a language that would be understood by all Slovenians.)

In fact, the Slovenian language (*slovenščina*) was often referred to as *kranjščina*, particularly when a distinction needed to be made between it and other Slavic languages (the adjective *slovenski *could originally mean both "Slovenian" and "Slavic", depending on the context). At that time, other Slovenian dialects, which were spoken in crown lands where Slovenian was not the majority language, were somewhat peripheral. (Of course, that included the dialects of Primorska).


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## sokol

TriglavNationalPark said:


> In fact, the Slovenian language (*slovenščina*) was often referred to as *kranjščina ...*


In older texts "Krainer Sprache" even seems to have been the preferred name for Slovenian, but of course this term was restricted to the Crownland Kranj (Krain).
So Slovenians in Carinthia of course couldn't and wouldn't use the term "kranjščina".

But to go back to the original question: there was no specific "reasoning" behind Trubar's choice. His Slovene texts are just based on what he knew best; his main objective was to enable Slovenes to read the bible in their own language - but not to reunite Slovenes with a common standard language: the latter goal only was defined (and achieved) in the 19th century. At Trubar's time, in the 16th century, nationalism as we know it today didn't even exist.

So contrary to the history of BCS standard languages Slovene standard language was based on "ancient" Kranj dialects but from then on, basically, led a life of its own: certainly Ljubljana and its dialect(s)*), being both geographically and culturally the center of Slovenia, had an impact on standard language - but Ljubljana city dialect significantly differs from Slovenian standard language.

*) Technically the capital belongs to Upper Kranj dialect region, but the Lower Kranj dialect region just begins south of the city.


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## pikabu

sokol, in Slovenian media (which has the greatest impact on spoken language) the prevailing language is unfortunately the dialect of Ljubljana where it should be the standard slovenian language so many people don't even hear the difference between them.  

Just to add: I remember being taught in school that Trubar used the dialects od Gorenjska in Dolenjska in his book (as Triglav explained it well) but the dialect that is today the closest to the standard Slovenian is the language spoken in Celje and some nearest towns (like Žalec).


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## Mishe

pikabu said:


> sokol, in Slovenian media (which has the greatest impact on spoken language) the prevailing language is unfortunately the dialect of Ljubljana where it should be the standard slovenian language so many people don't even hear the difference between them.
> 
> Just to add: I remember being taught in school that Trubar used the dialects od Gorenjska in Dolenjska in his book (as Triglav explained it well) but the dialect that is today the closest to the standard Slovenian is the language spoken in Celje and some nearest towns (like Žalec).




Why do I keep hearing this from people who are not from Ljubljana? Ask anybody from Ljubljana if they think media uses Ljubljana dialect and they will disagree. Do you know how LJubljana dialect sounds? In fact there are many dialects and sociolects in Ljubljana so there really isn't one universal dialect, but they certainly DO NOT use the dialect on TV, they use the standard. Maybe people think it's the same because phonologically and actentually the standard and Ljubljana dialects are pretty close.


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## Mishe

@Kocta: Slovenian standard language is in fact a construct language, which nobody speaks. It's probably alive to the same extent as Latin . On the TV they tend to use the spoken variant of the standard which has some different features than the written variant. Standard literary language has a base in Gorenjska and Dolenjska (Upper and Lower Carniola dialects, but also has some elements of Štajerska and to the lesser extent Primorska dialects. Phonetics and accentuation is very central (based on central Carniola dialects).


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## pikabu

Mishe, there's no need to be upset. I've lived in Ljubljana for 8 years and after two years I'm back to central Slovenia (less than 30 km from LJ) so I do know more than well how this dialect (let's stick to this term) sounds. Since I am not originaly from here neither is my husband and we raise our child here (who is picking up the words of this dialect which I'm not very keen on) I am convinced to distict better this dialect from mine and my husband's as well as to standard slovene as I would if living here all my life. 
You have to admit that basicly all tv shows and commercial radio stations DON'T use standard slovene but generaly the dialect of Ljubljana (logically since most of the tv and radio presentators are from LJ and as soon as they're relaxed there's no place for a standard language, I suppose) ; exceptions are (the most of the programme of) slovenian RTV and informative broadcasts ("informatvne oddaje") of commercial tv stations. As soon as there's a slightest sense of humour or entertainement in the show, the standard slovene is dissapearing as if the standard slovene is reserved only to serious themes (and yes, I know the difference between the written and spoken standard slovene ).


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## TriglavNationalPark

pikabu said:


> Mishe, there's no need to be upset. I've lived in Ljubljana for 8 years and after two years I'm back to central Slovenia (less than 30 km from LJ) so I do know more than well how this dialect (let's stick to this term) sounds. Since I am not originaly from here neither is my husband and we raise our child here (who is picking up the words of this dialect which I'm not very keen on) I am convinced to distict better this dialect from mine and my husband's as well as to standard slovene as I would if living here all my life.
> You have to admit that basicly all tv shows and commercial radio stations DON'T use standard slovene but generaly the dialect of Ljubljana (logically since most of the tv and radio presentators are from LJ and as soon as they're relaxed there's no place for a standard language, I suppose) ; exceptions are (the most of the programme of) slovenian RTV and informative broadcasts ("informatvne oddaje") of commercial tv stations. As soon as there's a slightest sense of humour or entertainement in the show, the standard slovene is dissapearing as if the standard slovene is reserved only to serious themes (and yes, I know the difference between the written and spoken standard slovene ).


 
Fair enough. But while it makes sense for, say, news programming to be broadcast in standard Slovenian, the use of standard Slovenian in a comedy program would quickly begin to sound stilted and excessively formal. I can't imagine Jurij Zrnec and Lado Bizovičar, for instance, using standard Slovenian when they interview their guests -- that type of programming requires informality and spontaneity, and since no-one really speaks standard Slovenian in everyday contexts, a departure from standard Slovenian in such cases is not just understandable, but also desirable.

Of course, the use of colloquial speech, whatever the dialect, can quickly become annoying in improper contexts or if it's overdone. The key is therefore to find some sort of a middle ground between excessively formal standard Slovenian on one hand and streetwise Ljubljana slang (or, for that matter, a hard-to-understand rural dialect) on the other -- a somewhat genericized form of "colloquial Slovenian" that is still understood and accepted by other Slovenians.


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## Mishe

pikabu said:


> Mishe, there's no need to be upset. I've lived in Ljubljana for 8 years and after two years I'm back to central Slovenia (less than 30 km from LJ) so I do know more than well how this dialect (let's stick to this term) sounds. Since I am not originaly from here neither is my husband and we raise our child here (who is picking up the words of this dialect which I'm not very keen on) I am convinced to distict better this dialect from mine and my husband's as well as to standard slovene as I would if living here all my life.
> You have to admit that basicly all tv shows and commercial radio stations DON'T use standard slovene but generaly the dialect of Ljubljana (logically since most of the tv and radio presentators are from LJ and as soon as they're relaxed there's no place for a standard language, I suppose) ; exceptions are (the most of the programme of) slovenian RTV and informative broadcasts ("informatvne oddaje") of commercial tv stations. As soon as there's a slightest sense of humour or entertainement in the show, the standard slovene is dissapearing as if the standard slovene is reserved only to serious themes (and yes, I know the difference between the written and spoken standard slovene ).


 

I'm sorry if I sounded harsh or confrontational, it's just that your words reminded me of something I have heard and seen on so many occasions. I think you are quite reasonable within your views and I also think you have every right to dislike a certain dialect or an accent. However, I don't think there are mostly people from Ljubljana amongst TV hosts and journalists on the national television. What about people like Peter Poles or Mario Galunič? You can't say they speak in a Ljubljana dialect. And it is logical, like you've pointed out, that the largest urban centre and the political, cultural and economic hub will have a larger influence in such a small and centralized country like Slovenia. 

I think it's time for many Slovenian people to get "disattached" from their unhealthy and unsensible local patriotism, weird rural archetypes, good old "fovšija" and start using common sense and accept the importance of capital city for a small nation such as Slovenia and even be happy that Ljubljana developed from a relatively unimportant provincial town a hundred years ago into a fairly developed and growing middle-sized city nowadays.


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## Коста

Mishe said:


> @Kocta: Slovenian standard language is in fact a construct language, which nobody speaks.


_In extremis_ that is, by necessity, true of all standard languages.


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## Mishe

Коста said:


> _In extremis_ that is, by necessity, trueies of all standard languages.




It varies greatly from language to language though. Standard English or standard Serbian are much closer to their everyday colloquial variants than Slovenian.


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## sokol

Mishe said:


> It varies greatly from language to language though. Standard English or standard Serbian are much closer to their everyday colloquial variants than Slovenian.


They are, but for different reasons.

The thing is, basically all Slovenians speak some kind of dialect, standard language as such is not the means of everyday communication.

Thus I'd say it is only natural that people use a "watered down" version of their native dialect in talk shows and such - which is (I guess) what this discussion is about: because I noticed a significant difference between everyday speech in LJ and the language spoken on RTV Slovenija when I was there (in the late 1990ies, for 2 months).

This is not so in English speaking nations where a considerable percentage of the population can be considered speakers of "standard language" who do not speak a specific dialect.

But very well, that would be again a different discussion topic. 

Just from the perspective of a learner of Slovenian however I can reassure you that I (as I've learned standard language only) had quite a hard time in understanding Ljubljančani when they spoke dialect (of course they tried to avoid dialect words as soon as they realised that I didn't understand them very well).
So at least I perceived a marked difference between formal Slovenian standard language and everyday speech in the streets of Ljubljana.


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## trance0

sokol said:


> Just from the perspective of a learner of Slovenian however I can reassure you that I (as I've learned standard language only) had quite a hard time in understanding Ljubljančani when they spoke dialect (of course they tried to avoid dialect words as soon as they realised that I didn't understand them very well).
> So at least I perceived a marked difference between formal Slovenian standard language and everyday speech in the streets of Ljubljana.



That is perfectly understandable, I am sure everyone would have the same trouble understanding the Ljubljana dialect with such a limited exposure to it. The problem here is, as you implied in your post, that Slovene literary language wasn`t really based on any actual dialect, instead it was artificially constructed by merging two central dialects and by adding a few characterstics from several other dialects. Consequently, no one truly speaks standard Slovene, except for journalists on TV and radio and people leading or participating in some of the most formal (state/public) commemorations, celebrations etc.


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## phosphore

But what about schools and universities?


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## skye

Most teachers speak in the spoken variety of the standard language and they generally have a trace of their hometown accent (more or less strong). 

You're supposed to use the standard language as a teacher.


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## trance0

But the standard spoken version also is not exactly the same as the 'pure' literary language.


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## Mishe

It is not, but even the spoken standard language is quite rare in everyday life situations, such as in the universities, although many educated people tend to speak close to standard, although it's not unusual to hear even university professors speaking in a thick dialect.


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## phosphore

But what is that so different in standard Slovene? Is that grammar, vocabulary, phonology?


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## sokol

phosphore said:


> But what is that so different in standard Slovene? Is that grammar, vocabulary, phonology?


Vocabulary definitely - many calques where colloquial language uses loans or dialect words of Slavic origin which are not considered appropriate for standard language use.

Phonology too - Slovene dialects may delete vowels, so for example supine is neutralised in many dialects because infinitive-ending "-i" is lost (kupiti > kupit; also with participle: kupili > kupil), or vowel changes; some dialects weaken many vowels to shwa while others don't, some have plenty of diphtongs, and so on.
Tonemic accent also differs from dialect to dialect.

Grammar, now, there I think the difference between standard language and dialect is rather small, but the neutralisation of supine and infinitive also should count for a grammar difference.


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## skye

sokol said:


> Grammar, now, there I think the difference between standard language and dialect is rather small, but the neutralisation of supine and infinitive also should count for a grammar difference.


 
Certain case endings end in a different vowel. It can happen that more cases share the same ending in a dialect than in the standard language. I know, I often had to listen to things like "You don't use any cases!" 

In my dialect the first and the fourth case ending of the first feminine declination are the same: -a, -a, but in the standard they are different: -a, -o.

Maybe there's also an example of case endings which are the same in the standard but different in a dialect. But I can't think of one now.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Informal internet comments are sometimes written in local dialects, so I found two short random excerpts and "translated" them to give people a very general idea of some of the differences between Slovenian dialects and the standard language:


*Ljubljana dialect:* "No, dons sm končno naredu še tazadn izpit k mi je manjku."

*Standard Slovenian:* "No, danes sem končno naredil še zadnji izpit, ki mi je manjkal."


*Prlekija dialect:* "Künštni Prleki se malo za hec, malo pa tüdi za resen, sprovimo k fsakšemi deli. Tolamo takše pa drgočiše nasvete, prikazüvlemo liden naše šege pa navode, stora opravila, prprosto živleje..."; "Fsen tistin, keri še ne znote, nej poven, ka se okoli po Prlekiji klotijo 'Künštni Prleki'"
*
Standard Slovenian:* "Bistri Prleki se malo za šalo, malo pa tudi zares, spravimo k vsakemu delu. Delimo takšne in drugačne nasvete, prikazujemo ljudjem naše šege in navade, stara opravila, preprosto življenje..."; "Vsem tistim, ki še ne veste, naj povem, da se okoli po Prlekiji klatijo 'Bistri Prleki'"


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## phosphore

Interesting. Do dialects in big cities such as Kranj, Maribor, Celje, Novo Mesto, differ greatly from that spoken in Ljubljana?


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## trance0

It depends, certainly intonation is completelely different, and part of vocabulary and some of the grammar. Cities have less distinct dialects, they are nowday more or less classified as 'town speeches', but they are still different from standard Slovene, some towns differ more from it more than the other.


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## TriglavNationalPark

As I wrote in another thread, there are Slovenian dialects that have virtually no neuter, dialects that have no dual, some obscure dialects that use masculine forms for females, dialects that are transitional to Croatian, dialects that are transitional to West Slavic, dialects that still use the aorist, dialects that pronounce the letter "g" more like an "h", dialects that transform all "l"s, not just the word-final ones, into "u" or "w"s (*pršwa* instead of *prišla* = "she came"), dialects with merged feminine cases, and so on.


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## vianie

pikabu said:


> sokol, in Slovenian media (which has the greatest impact on spoken language) the prevailing language is unfortunately the dialect of Ljubljana where it should be the standard slovenian language so many people don't even hear the difference between them.


 
 Do not worry, congeneric situation is in Slovakia. 
 I have no reason not to any dialects and intonations however effusive indication of Bratislava accent (alas not unfrequently used in Slovak media) could reliably "saw" my ears.


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## Slaven

TriglavNationalPark said:


> As I wrote in another thread, there are Slovenian dialects that have virtually no neuter, dialects that have no dual, some obscure dialects that use masculine forms for females, dialects that are transitional to Croatian, dialects that are transitional to West Slavic, dialects that still use the aorist, dialects that pronounce the letter "g" more like an "h", dialects that transform all "l"s, not just the word-final ones, into "u" or "w"s (*pršwa* instead of *prišla* = "she came"), dialects with merged feminine cases, and so on.



Sound like a mix of features of all Slavic languages to be sure.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Slaven said:


> Sound like a mix of features of all Slavic languages to be sure.


 
Indeed. For example, Slavists often categorize Slavic languages based on how they handle *tl*/*dl* clusters. Well, Slovenian has:

A.) Dialects that, like BCS, have lost nearly all *tl*/*dl* clusters (poje*l*a, pre*l*a, pome*l*a, mo*l*iti, kri*l*o)

B.) Dialects that, like the West Slavic languages, have retained all *tl*/*dl* clusters (poje*dl*a, pre*dl*a, pome*tl*a, mo*dl*iti, kri*dl*o)

C.) Dialects (including standard Slovenian) that have retained _some_ *tl*/*dl* clusters and lost others (poje*dl*a, pre*dl*a, pome*tl*a, mo*l*iti, kri*l*o).


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## vianie

Another comeback into the scope of this thread.



Slaven said:


> Sound like a mix of features of all Slavic languages to be sure.



Indeed, I have heard from carload of diverse, mixed or mutually unconsonant Slovenian dialects few times.

On the other hand it’s not just my notion, the Slavic language that the most dearly consolidates features of three basic Slavic branches not only in its dialectal level is Slovak.



TriglavNationalPark said:


> Indeed. For example, Slavists often categorize Slavic languages based on how they handle *tl*/*dl* clusters. Well, Slovenian has:
> 
> A.) Dialects that, like BCS, have lost nearly all *tl*/*dl* clusters (poje*l*a, pre*l*a, pome*l*a, mo*l*iti, kri*l*o)
> 
> B.) Dialects that, like the West Slavic languages, have retained all *tl*/*dl* clusters (poje*dl*a, pre*dl*a, pome*tl*a, mo*dl*iti, kri*dl*o)
> 
> C.) Dialects (including standard Slovenian) that have retained _some_ *tl*/*dl* clusters and lost others (poje*dl*a, pre*dl*a, pome*tl*a, mo*l*iti, kri*l*o).



There is also similarity with Nitra and Trenčín dialects here. We can take notice of it:

mydlo – myllo
vedľa – vella
jedno – jenno

Liquid consonants "l" or "n" are pronounced mackled "ll" or "nn" - they behaves as in Polish (inny), in Italian (giallo) or in Finnish (sello). (I’ve forgot illustrative wiki link)


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