Slovene Language - Writing System

Writing System

Main articles: Slovene alphabet and Slovene braille See also: Bohorič alphabet, Metelko alphabet, and Dajnko alphabet

This alphabet (Slovene: abeceda) was derived in the mid-1840s from the system created by Croatianist Ljudevit Gaj. Intended for Serbo-Croatian language (in all its varieties), it was patterned on the Czech pattern of the 1830s. Before that /s/ was, for example, written as ⟨ʃ⟩, ⟨ʃʃ⟩ or ⟨ſ⟩; /tʃ/ as ⟨tʃch, ⟨cz⟩, ⟨tʃcz⟩ or ⟨tcz⟩; /i/ sometimes as ⟨y⟩ as a relic from now modern Russian yery ⟨ы⟩; /j/ as ⟨y⟩; /l/ as ⟨ll⟩; /ʋ/ as ⟨w⟩; /ʒ/ as ⟨ʃ⟩, ⟨ʃʃ⟩ or ⟨ʃz⟩.

The writing itself in its pure form does not use any letters beyond the letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet plus ⟨č⟩, ⟨š⟩, and ⟨ž⟩, except optional diacritics when it is necessary to distinguish between similar words with a different meaning. Note that these are usually not written and the reader is expected to gather the meaning of the word from the context. When diacritics are not used, the orthography underdifferentiates the phonemes /e/, /ɛ/ and /ə/, which are all written ⟨e⟩, and the phonemes /ɔ/ and /o/, which are both written ⟨o⟩. For example:

  • gòl /ɡəu/ ('naked') vs. gól /ɡol/('goal'),
  • jêsen /'jɛsən/ ('ash (tree)') vs. jesén /jɛ'sen/ ('autumn'),
  • kót /kot/ ('angle') vs. kot /kɔt/ ('as'),
  • med /mɛt/ ('between') vs. méd /met/ ('honey'),
  • pôl /pɔl/ ('half an hour before (the hour)') vs. pól /pol/ ('pole'),
  • prècej /'pretsɛj/ ('at once', archaic) vs. precèj /prɛ'tsɛj/ ('a great deal (of)'),
letter phoneme first letter in a word word pronunciation
A (a) /a/ abecéda ('alphabet')
B (b) /b/ beséda ('word')
C (c) /t͡s/ cvét ('bloom')
Č (č) /t͡ʃ/ časopís ('newspaper')
D (d) /d/ dánes ('today')
E (e) /e/, /ɛ/, /ə/ sédem ('seven'), rêči ('to say'), sem ('I am') ,
F (f) /f/ fànt ('boy')
G (g) /ɡ/ grad ('castle')
H (h) /x/ híša ('house')
I (i) /i/ iméti ('to have')
J (j) /j/ jábolko ('apple')
K (k) /k/ kmèt ('peasant')
L (l) /l/ ljubézen ('love')
M (m) /m/ mísliti ('to think')
N (n) /n/ novíce ('news')
O (o) /ɔ/, /o/ ôkno ('window'), ópica ('monkey) ,
P (p) /p/ pomóč ('help')
R (r) /r/ riž ('rice')
S (s) /s/ svét ('world')
Š (š) /ʃ/ šóla ('school')
T (t) /t/ tip ('type')
U (u) /u/ ùlica ('street')
V (v) /ʋ/ vôda ('water')
Z (z) /z/ zrélo ('mature')
Ž (ž) /ʒ/ življênje ('life')

Read more about this topic:  Slovene Language

Famous quotes containing the words writing and/or system:

    Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man, and in the South the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological.
    Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)

    Intimately concerned as we are with the system of Europe, it does not follow that we are therefore called upon to mix ourselves on every occasion, with a restless and meddling activity, in the concerns of the nations which surround us.
    George Canning (1770–1827)