[[File:Slove dialects map-int 01.svg|thumb|400x400px|Map of Slovene dialect groups

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In a purely dialectological sense, Slovene dialects ( , ) are the regionally diverse varieties that evolved from old Slovene, a South Slavic language of which the standardized modern version is Standard Slovene. This also includes several dialects in Croatia, most notably the so-called Western Goran dialect, which is actually Kostel dialect. In reality, speakers in Croatia self-identify themselves as speaking Croatian, which is a result of a ten centuries old country border passing through the dialects since the Francia. In addition, two dialects situated in Slovene (and the speakers self identify as speaking Slovene) did not evolve from Slovene (left out in the map on the right). The Čičarija dialect is a Chakavian dialect and parts of White Carniola were populated by Serbs during the Turkish invasion and therefore Shtokavian is spoken there.

Spoken Slovene is often considered to have at least 48 dialects () and 13 subdialects (). The exact number of dialects is open to debate, ranging from as many as 50 to merely 7. According to the official chart, published by the Fran Ramovš Institute, there are 48 dialects and 13 subdialects, but that includes all dialects spoken in Slovene. Čičarija dialect is included as a separate dialect and Shtokavian in White Carniola is merged with South White Carniolan. However, the official chart was not updated to include Čabar dialect, which was only recently been discovered to have evolved differently than Kostel dialect, under which it was traditionally listed. Therefore, that division includes 48 dialects and 13 subdialects.

The various dialects are so different from each other that a speaker of one dialect may have a very difficult time understanding a speaker of another, particularly if they belong to different regional groups. Speakers of dialects that strongly differ accommodate each other by gravitating toward standard Slovene. The only exception to that is the Resian dialect, which is the most isolated dialect, and on top of that, the speakers were never able to attend Slovene schools and are therefore completely unfamiliar with Standard Slovene.

Slovene dialects are part of the South Slavic dialect continuum, transitioning into Croatian Kajkavian dialect to the southeast and Chakavian dialect to the southwest, but also bordering Friulian and Italian to the west, German to the north, and Hungarian to the northeast. The dialects are spoken primarily in Slovenia, but are extending in all neighboring countries Austria, Italy, Croatia, and Hungary.

History of research

Primož Trubar, the author of the first Slovene book has already been aware of the wide diversity among the Slovene speakers and has written that some speakers might have a hard time understanding the book. First attempt to classify the dialects was made in 1809 by Jernej Kopitar, writing about two dialects in his Grammatik der slavischen Sprache in Krain, Kärnten und Steyermark. He split the dialects into two groups depending if their pronunciation of is or . Fran Miklosich similarly split the language in two dialects, but focusing on the pronunciation of Proto-Slavic ě. In the western dialect, it is pronounced and in the eastern. Vatroslav Oblak split the two dialects by the evolution of long and , which divided Slovene into the southwestern dialect where they evolved to and northeastern dialect where they evolved to . This division was completely contradictory to Miklosich's one, so a conclusion that not enough data was gathered was reached.

Karel Glaser has made further divisions in 1898, dividing the varieties into the southeastern and northwestern dialect group, which were then subdivided into the Hungarian (now known as Panonian), Kajkavian (which he considered to be a Slovene dialect), other Styrian, Carinthian, Upper Carniolan, Lower Carniolan, Karst-Littoral, and Venetian dialects (now joined together as the Littoral dialect group) and was thus the first more serious attempt to classify the dialects.

Other attempts to classify the language were made by Izmail Sreznevsky in the early 19th century, followed by Jan Niecisław Baudouin de Courtenay (focusing on Resia, Venetian Slovenia, Cerkno, and Bled), Karel Štrekelj (focusing on the Karst), and Ivan Scheinig (focusing on Carinthia). This was followed by efforts by Ivan Grafenauer (Gail Valley), Josip Tominšek (Savinja Valley), and others.

Efforts before the Second World War were spearheaded by Lucien Tesnière, Fran Ramovš (which added the Rovte dialect group), and Aleksander Isachenko, and after the war by Tine Logar and Jakob Rigler (sl), which both made vital corrections to the Ramovš division. Eventually, the classification proposed by Ramovš was accepted with corrections and additions by Logar and Rigler, published in 1983 as the (Map of Slovenian Dialects).

Before the 21st century, it was known that Čičarija dialect was Chakavian, but it was only then discovered that the national borders also do not follow the Slovene–Serbo-Croatian border elsewhere. These changes are mostly accepted in Slovene and international literature, but not in Croatian, mainly because of the different institutes researching both countries and the speakers' self-identification.

Both forms then followed the same changes which then separated Slovene from other languages.

{| class="wikitable"

|+Vowels

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All vowels could be long or short, stressed or unstressed. The Proto-Slavic vowel *y merged with *i. Additionally, there were also two syllabic sonorants, and , which formed from Proto-Slavic *CьrC / *CъrC, and *CьlC / *CъlC, respectively. It is however debated what was actually like. It might have sounded like (like displayed above) or like .

The language also had the following consonants:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

|+Consonants

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!Labial

!Dental/

Alveolar

!Postalveolar

!Palatal/

Palatalized

!Dorsal

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! colspan="2" |Nasal

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! rowspan="2" |Plosive

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! colspan="2" |Affricate

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! rowspan="2" |Fricative

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! colspan="2" |Approximant

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! colspan="2" |Flap

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Notes:

  • The labiodental fricative was rare and only appeared in loanwords.
  • was an allophone of before a consonant, before a pause, or before the back vowels.

Fragmentation

The language then very quickly split into two dialects, splitting almost entirely along the former Northwestern Alpine Slavic–Southeastern Alpine Slavic isogloss. The dialects then divided further into the northern, western, southern, and eastern dialect. After that, the dialects fragmented further, mostly influenced by geographical features and contact with other dialects and languages.

In northwestern dialect, and stayed the same, while in the southeastern dialect, both were denasalized and first turned into and , and then into and . The nasal still exists only in Jaun Valley dialect, but other have so-called rinezem 'rhinism', in which the nasal vowel turns into a denasalized vowel and a nasal consonant; e.g., PS *mě̋sęcь "month", Gail Valley , SS .

The yat () was pronounced as a near-open vowel in the northwestern dialect and then evolved first to and then to and it was pronounced as in the southern dialect, which then evolved into The long yat (), however, diphthongized into in the northwestern and into the in the southeastern. Similarly, ō also diphthongized into and , respectively.

The southeastern dialect also rounded the into and (partially) centralized into a vowel that was noted with (but not to be confused with the Ramovš ).

{| class="wikitable"

|+Comparison of northwestern and southeastern Slovene dialects

!Proto-Slavic

!Old Slovene

!NW dialect

!SE dialect

!Standard Slovene

!Meaning

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|*pę̑tь

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|'five'

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|*mǫ̑žь

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|'husband'

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|*děvi̋ca

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|'virgin'

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|*stěna̍

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|'wall'

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|*mȏldostь

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|'youth'

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|*ža̋ba

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|'frog'

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|*sȗxь

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|'dry'

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The dialects then in 13th and 14 century further subdivided depending on how short acute vowels and evolved. In the non-final syllables, all short vowels were turned into long acute vowels, except in eastern dialect. Northern Styrian dialect (which formed from the southern dialect), did not lengthen the vowels in syllables that were followed by two other. The short vowels in the last syllable evolved into short circumflex vowels in all dialects. The evolved into in west and most of the south dialect, but evolved into in the 14th century. This change happened after the lengthening, so it also affected those vowels.

Consonants

Parallel to the vowel changes, consonants also evolved, however not as much. The changes were the following: Therefore, in Standard Slovene, both accents are allowed, but favoring the unshifted one.

Other shifts that happened in fewer dialects were: and those in vertical division are called "dialect bases" ().

The dialects can also have several subdialects (), and are further divided into microdialects (, lit. speeches).

Horizontal division

Horizontal division used today is a refined version of division proposed by Ramovš in 1935. He grouped the dialects by the general sound and feel of the dialect, as many Slovenes similarly divided the dialects prior to proper research.

  1. The Littoral dialect group (), spoken in most of the Slovenian Littoral (except for the area around Tolmin and Cerkno, where Rovte dialects are spoken) and in the western part of Inner Carniola; it is also spoken by Slovenes in the Italian provinces of Trieste and Gorizia, and in the mountainous areas of eastern Friuli (Venetian Slovenia and Resia). This group includes very heterogeneous dialects. Among other features, it is characterized by diphthongization of yat > and > ', which were also borrowed by southern dialect. The western dialects in this group have preserved pitch accent whereas the others have a non-tonal stress accent and some do not even differentiate between long and short vowels.
  2. The Rovte dialect group (), spoken in the mountainous areas of west-central Slovenia, on the border between the Slovenian Littoral, Upper Carniola, and Inner Carniola, in a triangle between the towns of Tolmin, Škofja Loka, and Vrhnika. Among other features, this group is characterized by shortening of long diphthongal ' and ', akanye, and general development of to .
  3. The Upper Carniolan dialect group (), spoken in most of Upper Carniola and in Ljubljana. Among other features, this group is characterized by monophthongal stressed vowels, an acute semivowel, pitch accent, standard circumflex shift, and two accentual retractions with some exceptions. It features narrowing of and in preaccentual position, akanye (reduction of to ) in postaccentual position, and strong syncope. There is a partial development of to , preservation of bilabial , and general hardening of soft and .
  4. The Lower Carniolan dialect group (), spoken in most of Lower Carniola and in the eastern half of Inner Carniola. Among other features, this group is characterized by pitch accent, extensive diphththongization (, , ), an -colored , shift of > , and partial akanye.
  5. The Styrian dialect group (), spoken in central and eastern Slovenian Styria and in the Lower Sava Valley and Central Sava Valley. Among other features, this group is characterized by loss of pitch accent, tonemically high and lengthened accented syllables, lengthening of accented short syllables, and frequent development of > , and > in the eastern part of the territory.
  6. The Pannonian dialect group (), or northeastern dialect group, spoken in northeastern Slovenia (Prekmurje, in the eastern areas of Slovenian Styria), and among the Hungarian Slovenes. Among other features, this group is characterized by loss of pitch accent, non-lengthened short syllables, and a new acute on short syllables.

The horizontal division is in professional literature based on various non-linguistic and linguistic factors. Non-linguistic factors include settlement patterns and geographical features (rivers, mountains) that helped shape various isoglosses. Linguistic factors include language contact with non-Slavic languages to some extent, phonological and prosodic elements in particular, and to a lesser extent word-formational, lexical, and inflectional elements.

Vertical division

right|frameless|717x717px

The dialects can be split into eight dialect bases that formed from the 15th century onward, emerging from the four dialects. The bases are: (from which the first Slovene term listed in parentheses is taken), with additions of Matej Šekli and other sources.

{|

! colspan="2" |frameless|651x651px|center|Dialects.

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  • Carinthian dialect group (, ):
  • North Pohorje–Remšnik dialect ()
  • Mežica dialect (, )
  • Jaun Valley dialect (, )
  • Ebriach dialect (, )
  • Rosen Valley dialect (, )
  • Gail Valley dialect (, )
  • Kranjska Gora subdialect ()
  • Littoral dialect group (primorska narečna skupina):
  • Resia(n) dialect (, )
  • Soča dialect ()
  • Torre Valley dialect (, )
  • Natisone Valley dialect (, )
  • Brda dialect (, )
  • Karst dialect (, )
  • Banjšice subdialect (, )
  • Istrian dialect (, )
  • Rižana subdialect ()
  • Šavrin Hills subdialect (, )
  • Inner Carniolan dialect (, )
  • Rovte dialect group (, ):
  • Tolmin dialect (, )
  • Bača subdialect ()
  • Cerkno dialect (, )
  • Škofja Loka dialect (, )
  • Črni Vrh dialect (, )
  • Horjul dialect (, )

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  • Upper Carniolan dialect group ():
  • Upper Carniolan dialect (, )
  • Eastern Upper Carniolan subdialect (, )
  • Selca dialect (, )
  • Lower Carniolan dialect group ():
  • Lower Carniolan dialect (, )
  • Eastern Lower Carniolan subdialect (, )
  • Čabranka dialect (,)
  • Kostel dialect (, ,)
  • Mixed Kočevje subdialects ()
  • Styrian dialect group (, ):
  • Central Savinja dialect (, )
  • Upper Savinja dialect (, )
  • Kozjak subdialect ()
  • Kozje-Bizeljsko dialect ()
  • Lower Sava Valley dialect (, )
  • Zagorje-Trbovlje subdialect ()
  • Laško subdialect ()
  • Sevnica-Krško subdialect ()
  • Pannonian dialect group ():
  • Prekmurje Slovene (, ) ()
  • Slovenian Hills dialect (, , )
  • Prlekija dialect (, )
  • Haloze dialect (, )

|}

See also

  • The official chart of Slovene dialects and other Slavic dialects spoken in Slovenia (in Slovene)
  • Interactive chart of Slovene dialects and other Slavic dialects spoken in Slovenia with audio examples (in Slovene)

References

Bibliography