A South Slavic language and Slovenia's official tongue — notable for preserving the rare grammatical dual number, used for exactly two of something.
Where it’s spoken
Slovene (slovenščina) is the official language of Slovenia and one of the official languages of the European Union. It is also recognized as a minority language in Italy (Friuli-Venezia Giulia), Austria (Carinthia), and Hungary. Slovenian-American and Slovenian-Argentine communities preserve the language abroad.
What it sounds like
Slovene preserves the grammatical dual number — verbs, pronouns, and nouns have specific dual forms for two of something, distinct from plural. It has a pitch accent system in some dialects and a notably tonal contour heard especially around Ljubljana. The vowel system features ə (schwa) as a phoneme.
How it’s written
Slovene uses the Latin alphabet plus č, š, and ž — the same háček-marked consonants found in Czech and Croatian. Spelling is largely phonemic, with a slight tradition of preserving etymological consonants in fast speech.
History
The 16th-century Reformer Primož Trubar wrote the first books in Slovene; Jurij Dalmatin produced the 1584 Bible translation. The 19th-century Slovenian national awakening centered on the poet France Prešeren. Slovenia’s 1991 independence elevated Slovene to the only national official language status.
Find more languages by letter
Slovene starts with S and ends with E. Browse other languages along the same letter.
Languages that contain a letter from "Slovene":