SLOVENIAN LANGUAGE

Slovenian or Slovene (slovenski jezik or slovenščina) is an Indo-European language that belongs to the family of South Slavic languages. It is spoken by approximately 2 million speakers worldwide. Slovenian is the national language of the Republic of Slovenia and Slovenian minorities in Austria, Italy and Hungary. It is also spoken by Slovenian immigrant groups in the USA, Canada, South America and Australia.

The first Slovenian book was printed in 1550 by Primož Trubar.

Slovenian is one of the few languages to have preserved the dual grammatical number from Proto-Indo-European. Also, Slovenian and Slovak are the two modern Slavic languages whose names for themselves literally mean "Slavic" (in old Slavonic). The Slovenian alphabet has 25 letters. It does not have the letters W, Q, X, Y. But you have to learn three new letters: Č (pronounced as ch in English), Š (sh), and Ž (zh, as in azure). The mark above the letters is called a carrot or, in Slovenian, strešica (literally: little roof).
The Slovenian language is also one of the official languages of the European Union.

Slovenia's two million people speak Slovenian, which in addition to the singular and plural has the special grammatical number dual, a rarity among world languages. So it is not the same in Slovenian if one, two or more people are talking, nor is it the same if men or women are doing it. In this country, preserving the Slovene language is an important matter, but the majority of people know at least one second language and will be able to talk to you in English, German or Italian.