79 Slovenian

[under construction!]

Slovenian (or Slovene) is Kajkavian on steroids, or Kajkavian is simplified Slovenian — it's hard to tell. Luckily, an international border separates them conveniently, so it' easy to tell them apart...

Slovenian has many dialects, some of them spoken in Croatia (in Gorski kotar region, where they are called Kajkavian, but are actually much closer to Slovenian) and a standard language — that almost nobody speaks at home.

Slovenian has even weirder sounds than Kajkavian: there are three e's (/e/, /ë/ and /ə/ — the last one is the vowel of English "the", others are similar to Kajkavian), /w/ (spelled as u, v or l) etc. — the Slovenian spelling is not "write-as-you-speak"! The "disappearing" vowel is here /ə/, spelled as e, and 'yat' is closed e, spelled just as e too.

The "Final L rule" works, but the result is not o as in Štokavian dialects, but the sound /w/ (like in English "wind, water") but it's still spelled l. Likewise, initial u- and v before other consonant (e.g. vnuk) is actually pronounced /w/ as well.

As in Kajkavian, there is only one č (no ć), and no đ. However, there are some Slovenian dialects that have ć.

Sequence ol (pronounced /ow/ or /ou/) is found in many places instead of Croatian u; there are o's instead of some u's in come other words as well:

dolg adj. "long" {dug}
jabolko n "apple" {jabuka f}
poln adj. "full" {pun}
stolp "post, column" {stup}
volk "wolf" {vuk}
    golob "pidgeon" {golub}
mož "man, husband" {muž}
roka "hand" {ruka}
pot "way, path" {put}
sonce "sun" {sunce}

But the main difference that separates Slovenian is dual. You probably recall that dual in Croatian is just a special form of adjectives (and nouns) used with numbers 2, 3 and 4. Not so in Slovenian — dual is used only with number 2, but there are separate forms for various cases (so, nom.du., acc.du....) and there are separate forms for verbs as well! There are not many contemporary languages that have such feature; Arabic is another example I can think of.

Nouns

Noun types are similar to Standard Croatian, but there are more irregular nouns. This is the case pattern of Standard Slovenian:

casema-nounsmi-nounsn-nounsa-nounsi-nouns
nom.sg.---œ-a-
acc.sg.-a-o
dat./loc. sg.-u-i -i
gen.sg.-a-e
ins.sg.-œm-o-(i)jo
nom./acc.du.       -[œv]a-i
dat./ins.du.       -[œv]œma-œma-ama-(i)ma
nom. pl.       -[œv]i-a-e-i
acc. pl.       -[œv]e
dat. pl.       -[œv]œm-œm-am-im, -em
gen.du./pl.       -[œv]---i
ins.pl.       -[œv]i-i-ami-(i)mi
loc.du./pl.       -[œv]ih-ih-ah-ih, -eh

Slovenian developed separate nouns for many things, and is absolutely restrictive of foreign words. Some characteristic nouns, not found in Kajkavian:

zmaga "victory" {pobjëda}

[to be expanded]

Adjectives

casema       mi        n         f        
nom.sg.---œ-a
acc.sg.-a-o
dat. sg.-emu-i
gen.sg.-ega-e
ins.sg.-im-o
loc.sg.-em-i
nom./acc.du.-a-i
dat./ins.du.-ima
nom. pl.-i-a-e
acc. pl.-e
dat. pl.-im
gen./loc. du./pl.-ih
ins.pl.-imi

Verbs

The endings for present are (three classes + two forms "to be" + negative "to be"):

1st sg. -e-m -a-m -i-m sem /səm/ bom nisem /nisəm/
2nd sg. -e-š -a-š -i-š si boš nisi
3rd sg. -e -a -i je bo ni
1st du. -e-va -a-va -i-va sva bova nisva
2nd/3rd du. -e-ta -a-ta -i-ta sta bosta nista
1st pl. -e-mo -a-mo -i-mo smo bomo nismo
2nd pl. -e-te -a-te -i-te ste boste niste
3rd pl. -e-jo -a-jo -i-jo, -e so bodo, bojo niso

The verb "have not" is nimam. The past and infinitive of ne-verbs use ni instead of nu: dvignem, dvignil, dvignila, dvigniti.

Some characteristic verbs:

berem, bral "read" {čitam}
čutim "feel" {osjëćam}
jočem, jokal "cry" {plačem, plakao}
kličem, klical "call" {zovem, zvao}
pogrešam "miss, lack"
slišim, slišal "hear" {čujem, čuo}
štejem, štel "count" {brojim, brojao}
upam "hope" {nadam se}
vem*, vedel, vedela, veti (!) "know" {znam}
vprašam "ask" {pitam}

Some verbs differ just a bit from Croatian:

čakam "wait" {čekam}
plavam "swim" {plivam}

There are many verbs common with Čakavian or Kajkavian:

iščem, iskal "search"
grem, šel, šla, iti (!) "go"
spim, spal "sleep"

Verbs indicated with * change as bom, that is, have some specific endings.

Other Characteristics

[to be expanded]

Examples

[to be continued]

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