Slovenianlanguage

Slovenian language, or slovenščina, is a South Slavic language spoken mainly in Slovenia, where it is the official language. It is also used by Slovenian communities in neighboring countries and among the Slovenian diaspora, bringing the total number of speakers to about two million. The language is part of the South Slavic subgroup and is closely related to Croatian and Bosnian, though it forms a distinct standard variety.

Slovenian features a rich system of dialects, with the standard language based on central Slovene dialects. The writing system is the Latin alphabet, augmented with diacritics such as č, š, and ž to indicate phonemic distinctions. The standard language is codified and taught nationally, with continuous linguistic work conducted by Slovenian language authorities.

Slovenian is highly inflected, with three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and singular, dual, and plural numbers. Nouns decline across six cases, and verbs express aspect, tense, mood, voice, and agreement. The language distinguishes perfective and imperfective aspects and has present, past, and future tenses, with a variety of verbal conjugations. Slovenian also features a pitch-accent system similar to other South Slavic languages, contributing to distinctive pronunciation patterns.

In use, Slovenian serves as the language of instruction in schools, government, media, and public life in Slovenia. It is protected as the national language, while minority languages receive recognition in areas with ethnic communities in neighboring countries.