Slovene Dialects

Slovene dialects (Slovene: slovenska narečja) are the regional spoken varieties of Slovene, a South Slavic language. Spoken Slovene is often considered to have at least 48 dialects (narečja) and subdialects (govori). The exact number of dialects is open to debate, ranging from as many as 50 to merely 7. 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. In such communication, standard Slovene is used per convention. Slovene dialects are part of the South Slavic dialect continuum, linked with Croatian to the south and bordering Friulian and Italian to the west, German to the north, and Hungarian to the east.