Challenges of Slovene as a
Medium-Sized Language Community
Maja Bitenc
bitencm@uni-lj.si
December 3 – Anniversaries

France Prešeren’s, the greatest Slovene poet’s, birthday (born 1800)

90th birthday of Slovene university – University of Ljubljana
Fran Ramovš – first lecture on historic grammar of Slovene
Geographical Position of Slovenia
Language Status
1991: Slovenia becomes independent

Slovene – official language of the Republic of Slovenia
 national language in all areas of public life
Constitution of Slovenia, Article 11:
“The official language in Slovenia is Slovene. In those municipalities
where Italian or Hungarian national communities reside, Italian or
Hungarian shall also be official languages.”
2004: Slovenia joins the European Union

Slovene – one of the 23 official languages of
the European Union
Slovene – South Slavic Language
Around 2,4 million speakers
Official language
Regional or local
official language
Slovenes also in
 European countries
Germany, France,
Sweden, Switzerland
 ex-Yugoslavia
Croatia, BiH, Serbia,
Montenegro, Macedonia
 overseas
USA, Canada, Argentina,
Australia
Demographic Data

2002 national census: 1 964 036 people in Slovenia,

Slovene mother tongue: 1 723 434 (87 %)
Slovene nationality: 1 631 363

the number of people with Slovene mother tongue – incerasing, but
slower than the population  the percentage of people with Slovene
mother tongue – decreasing
Population of Slovenia by Mother Tongue (2002)
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87 % Slovene (1 723 434)
7,9 % »Serbo-Croatian« (153 172): Croatian 2,8 %,
1,9 Serbo-Croatian %, Serbian 1,6 %, Bosnian 1,6 %
0,4 % Albanian (7177)
0,4 % Hungarian (7713)
0,2 % Italian (3762)
0,2 % Macedonian (4760)
0,2 % Romany (3834)
0,1 % German (1628)
Language(s) of Communication
At Home (2002)
In Public (1991)
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91,1 % Slovene
3,3 % Slovene and
»Serbo-Croatian«
1 % »Serbo-Croatian«
0,2 % Hungarian
0,2 % Slovene and Italian
0,2 % Slovene and Hungarian
0,1 % Italian
0,1 % Romany
0,1 % Albanian


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94,4 % Slovene
1,1 % Slovene and
»Serbo-Croatian«
0,9 % »Serbo-Croatian«
0,3 % Slovene and Italian
0,2 % Slovene and Hungarian
A Glimpse into the Past

The oldest Slovene written
text?

Freising Manuscripts,
around 1000

The first book in Slovene?

Primož Trubar: Catechism
and Spelling Book, 1550

The first translation of the
Bible?

Jurij Dalmatin, 1584

The first Slovene
Grammar?

Adam Bohorič, 1584
A Glimpse into the Past

endeavours for Slovene in all domains of public life in the
middle of the 19th century
 connected with the national movement, language as an element
of national cohesion
under Austro-Hungarian monarchy  Slovene gradually introduced into
educational system as a lanugage of instruction

1918 – the first Yugoslav state: »Serbo-Croatian-Slovene« language
in the Constitution

1945–1991 Yugoslavia – formally: languages have equal rights

1991: Slovene as the official language
Ideologies/Attitudes concerning Slovene
Classical controversy
traditional approach
defending position

language – value in itself
foreign languages – a threat
more liberal approach
diminished symbolic function of language
functional value of language(s)
Sociolinguistic Changes since 1991

language status

new domains

different status and prestige of languages of former Yugoslavia

increasing number of foreigners in Slovenia (refugees, immigrants)

increasing number of speakers of Slovene as a second/foreign
language
Sociolinguistic Changes since 2004

language status

globalisation, free flow of people and labour – reflected also in a
socio-cultural and communication sphere

Slovenia – attractive as a EU country  becoming more diverse

communication technology  English language words and patterens

warnings concerning increasing use of English
Sociolinguistic Changes since 2004

additional value of knowledge of Slovene because of its
status
 more speakers of Slovene as a second/foreign language

Slovene at universities abroad
 Slovene lectureship at 54 universities around the world
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broadening and enlarging the network of Slovene lanugage
teaching opportunities
translation into Slovene and from Slovene
widespread multilingualism in Slovenia
Language Policy

first years after 1991 – less active language policy

1994–2004: the first institutionalized frame of language policy activity:
a permanent working body for language policy and language planning
at the parliamentary committee for culture, education and sport

2000–2004: Committee for the Slovene Language
2004– Sector for the Slovene language at the Ministry of Culture

2004: Public Use of the Slovene Language Act
- long, controversial discussion about the drafts
- ideological construct of pure Slovene language as a value in itself
Language Policy
Resolution on National Programme for Language Policy
2007-2011
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the first integral document about language policy in the history
of Slovene lanugage community
strategic guidelines in different domains of language policy activities
12 main goals, 113 items

principal guideline: the importance and role of Slovene as the national

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lanugage, developing language competence and raising language
awareness
no profound analysis of the situation
! 250.375 € intended for attempts with sinhronisation of films
104.323 € for general and specialised reference books for Slovene
Infrastructure of Slovene

Slovene orthography and grammar
 sanctioned by the Orthographic Commission and the Fran Ramovš
Institute of Slovenian Language, both part of the Slovenian Academy of
Sciences and Arts
- Slovene Orthography, 2001
- Dictionary of Standard Slovene, 1-5, 1970-1991, single volume 1994,
available online
- Slovenian Grammar, 1976, 1984, 1991, 2000

serious deficiencies
Infrastructure of Slovene

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shortage of contemporary, user-friendly reference books
strong tradition of language revision/proof-reading
 the responsibility of the author vs. proffesional language reviser?
 speakers – not self-confident, not independent

language consultancies, newspaper columns
e-consultancies  democratic consultancies
Corpora
Monolingual
 FIDA plus – 600 million words, referential corpus of Slovene
(Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana,
Jožef Stefan Institute)
 Nova beseda – 240 milion words
(Fran Ramovš Institute of Slovenian Language)
Bilingual
 Evrokorpus – 222 million words, Slovene parallel corpus
(Translation Unit of the Slovenian Government Office for European Affairs,
the Secretariat-General of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia)
“Communication in Slovene” Project –
an Example of Good Practice

June 2008 – December 2013
Activities:
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Spoken Corpus of Slovene – 1 million words
Written Corpus of Slovene – 1 billion words
Corpus Interface for Pedagogical Purposes
Training Corpus
Lexicon of Inflected Forms
Slovene Lexical Database
New Didactics of Slovene Language Teaching
Pedagogical Corpus-based Grammar
Manual of Style
Foreign Languages in Slovenia
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a lot of experiences with multilingualism and plurilingualism
foreign lanugages – popular
 economic interests, size of the country, national multilingualism with
Hungarian and Italian, historical lanugage ties
the question of foreign lanugages is stressed afer 2004
in primary education: in 2011/2012
- 1st foreign lanugage in the first grade of primary school
- compulsory 2nd foreign language in the last three years of
primary school
(at the moment: 2nd foreign lanugage as an optional subject in the last
three years: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Latin, German, Italian,
Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian)
Foreign Languages in Slovenia
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Ability to communicate in
Serbo-Croatian (59 %), English (57 %), German (50 %)
Most useful langages: English (78 %), German (61 %), Italian (12 %)
French (4 %), Spanish (2 %), Russian (1 %)
Use of foreign languages (2009, N=700)
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in business
communication
65 % no
25 % English
15 % German
13 % languages of
former Yugoslavia
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private sphere
32 % no
34 % languages of
former Yugoslavia
32 % English
25 % German
22 % Italian
Case Study 1:
Slovene in Science and Higher Education

discussions about language in this domain – often polarized
Legislation

Higher Education Act (Article 8) – protects Slovene as the language of
instruction in higer education
 the following may be provided in a foreign language:
- foreign-language study programmes
- parts of study programmes, if visiting teachers participate in the
provision thereof or if significant numbers of foreign students are
enrolled therein
- study programmes if they are also provided in Slovene
Slovene in Science and Higher Education

Strategy of the University of Ljubljana ( Bologna declaration
and Frame of economic and social reforms for bigger prosperity in
Slovenia):
10 % foreign students
10 % programmes carried out by foreign professors
Problematic
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increasing use of English in certain classes of certain study programmes
textbooks, scientific newspapers, terminology – deficiencies
Slovene scientific achievements only get half of all available points
according to the proposal of the document entitled Measures for the
election in the title of university teachers, scientific workers and
university co-workers
Slovene in Science and Higher Education
Resolution on National Programme for Language Policy 2007-2011
 Goal 10: For the consolidation of Slovene in higher education and science
- university subject »professional-scientific variety of standard Slovene«
- university textbooks in Slovene
- promotion of publishing scientific papers in Slovene and using
Slovene at international conferences in Slovenia
- parallel study programmes in English and Slovene
– but no financial support!

finding appropriate balance between local and global
Conclusion
Optimistic ☺
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Slovene – the strongest status ever
the number of people with Slovene mother tongue – increasing
Slovene as a second/foreign language
production in Slovene
translation into Slovene and from Slovene
Conclusion
Challenges

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infrastucture of Slovene (user-friendly reference books, dictionaries)
reducing defensive discurses and ideologies
proactive language policy
 searching answers to questions of living in a multicultural and
multlingual community
 opportunities for learning Slovene
 integration of immigrants
 appropriate balance between Slovene and English in scientific discourse

Slovene language revitalisation among Slovene minorities and

Slovenes around the world
vitality of language and self-confident speakers
Thank you for your attention!
Maja Bitenc
bitencm@uni-lj.si