Wiktionary:About Slovene

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Slovene is the northernmost South Slavic language spoken in Slovenia, and also in some parts of Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Croatia, with major diaspora in Cleaveland, Ohio, and Argentina. It is quite closely related to the Kajkavian dialect of (Serbo-)Croatian, but a bit less so to the Štokavian dialect that is the base of the Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian and Montenegrin national standards. The language borders four major groups of "European" languages (Germanic to the north, Italic to the west, Slavic to the south and Uralic to the northeast), which combined with various different borders through the territory over the years has caused great dialectal diversity and a lot of regional words. The ancestor of all Slovene dialects is called Alpine Slovene, which existed somewhere between 1000 and 1200 AD.

Standards

Slovene has currently four standards. The most common form of Slovene is Standard Slovene (abbreviated SS). It has two standards, tonal (an accented vowel can be high- or low-pitched) and non-tonal (all vowels have the same pitch). The more common standard is non-tonal, however Wiktionary entries should be described in tonal as the only major difference between the two is that the tonal distinction is absent in the non-tonal standard, but otherwise, they use the same orthography, pronunciation, declension etc.

The other two current standards are used by Slovene-speaking communities in Italy. The Nediško narečje standard (SS nadiško narečje, also called po-našem) is spoken in the Municipality of Polfero and is based on the western Natisone Valley dialect. Resian is spoken in the Municipality of Resia and further has four sub-standards based on the four major settlements (San Giorno, Gniva, Oseacco, Stolvizza). The latter is practically unintelligible with the Standard Slovene.

In the past, Slovene had many more regional de facto standards that each had features of their own underlying dialects. These are: Prekmurje, Carinthian, Celje, Maribor, Slovenian Hills and Radgona literary varieties. These appeard in the 18th and 19th centuries and lasted up to 1848 with the reform of the Standard (nove oblike).

Since the majority of speakers use the Standard Slovene, it is the default standard used on Wiktionary, while other entries should be labeled as follows:

{{lb|sl|Resian}} for Resian standard
{{lb|sl|Natisone Valley}} for Nediško narečje standard
{{lb|sl|Prekmurje}} for old Prekmurje standard
{{lb|sl|old Maribor Standard}} for old Maribor standard
{{lb|sl|old Celje Standard}} for old Celje standard
{{lb|sl|old Carinthian Standard}} for old Carinthian standard
{{lb|sl|old Slovenian Hills Standard}} for old Slovenian Hills standard
{{lb|sl|old Radgona Standard}} for old Radgona standard

If an entry occurs in both Standard Slovene and at least one other standard, both can be grouped together by specifying both standards, e.g. {{lb|sl|Resian|Standard Slovene}}.

Possible entries

Unlike many Slovene dictionaries, Wiktionary is not bound by only including words and spellings as in the Standard language, but also allows for colloquial forms, as long as they meet Wiktionary's criteria for inclusion. These include colloquial spellings (e.g. dž instead of dež), or words not included in those dictionaries (e.g. frderbati). For those, it is especially recommended that citations are found.

Hence, there are many Slovene-specific labels to further specify how the word is used. For general colloquialisms,{{lb|sl|colloquial}} should be used, otherwise there are also specific labels for the dialecal groups (Littoral, Upper Carniolan, Lower Carniolan, Carinthian, Rovte, Styrian, Pannonian) dialects, as well as divisions by the cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) and the historical division of northwest and southeast dialects (used primarily for entries retaining the original *tl/*dl and *tn/*dn clusters)

In general, if the entry is not present in Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika or Slovenski pravopis (normative for standard Slovene), it should have some qualifier added to all definitions, except if they became really common since the publication of the dictionaries, or if they are proper nouns or their derivatives. There is also a generic label {{lb|sl|noSP}} if the specific qualifier is not known.

Orthography

Standard Slovene

The modern Standard Slovene alphabet uses Gajʼs Latin alphabet. It is deficient in several respects:

Accent and tone are not indicated.
The difference between closed /eː/ /oː/ and open /ɛː/ /ɔː/ is not indicated.
The phoneme /ə/ is not distinguished, and represented simply with the letter ⟨e⟩ or is in some cases before a sonorant not represented at all.
In syllable coda, the letter ⟨l⟩ can represent either /l/ or /ʋ/.
The difference beween /a/ and /ʌ/ is not indicated and only some speakers differentiate between the two.

Dictionaries and other learning materials use extra characters/diacritics to compensate. Regarding vowels and length, there are two common but incompatible systems in use:

The tonal orthography resembles that used for Serbo-Croatian.
- Accented long vowels with low/rising tone use an acute accent ⟨á⟩.
- Accented long vowels with high/falling tone use an inverted breve ⟨ȃ⟩.
- Accented short vowels with low/rising tone use a grave accent ⟨à⟩. This occurs only on the schwa in Slovene.
- Accented short vowels with high/falling tone use a double grave accent ⟨ȁ⟩. All other accented short vowels are of this type.
- The distinction between closed and open e and o is denoted with a dot under the vowel. Open /ɛː/ and /ɔː/ are written as simply ⟨é⟩/⟨ȇ⟩ and ⟨ó⟩/⟨ȏ⟩, while closed /eː/ and /oː/ are written as ⟨ẹ́⟩/⟨ẹ̑⟩ and ⟨ọ́⟩/⟨ọ̑⟩.
The stress orthography indicates placement of the accent/stress and the distinction between closed and open mid-vowels, but it does not distinguish tones. It should not be used as it does not distinguish the tone. If the tone of an entry is not known, it can be used, but {{sl-non-tonal}} or {{sl-notone}} should be added.
- Accented long vowels are indicated with an acute accent ⟨á⟩.
- Accented short vowels with a grave accent ⟨à⟩.
- The signs ⟨é⟩ and ⟨ó⟩ denote the long closed vowels /eː/ and /oː/, while the open vowels /ɛː/ and /ɔː/ are written as ⟨ê⟩ and ⟨ô⟩ with a circumflex.

These representations are detailed further on Appendix:Slovene pronunciation.

Regarding these three orthographic representations, Wiktionary adopts the following practice for Slovene entries:

The names of entries use the common standard orthography, without any diacritics (apart from the haček which is normally part of the letters š, ž, č).
In the headword line, inflection tables and links to synonyms, derived terms or cognates in etymologies of other languages, the tonal orthography is used. It is more precise and gives more information than the stress orthography. Additionally, the symbol ⟨ə⟩ is used to indicate the schwa, and ⟨ł⟩ is used to indicate where the letter ⟨l⟩ is written but /ʋ/ is pronounced.
In the “Pronunciation” section the pronunciation is indicated in IPA using the {{IPA}} template. This should use IPA tone diacritics as well. The template {{sl-IPA}} can be used to automatically generate the IPA pronunciation.
In running text, such as usage examples, diacritics should be used as in the source (usually omitted), to reflect the language as it is actually written.

For example, the entry will be named "slovenščina", it is linked to using {{l|sl|slovẹ́nščina}}. The entry itself should have the full IPA transcription /slɔˈʋèːnʃt͡ʃina/ in the pronunciation section.

Resian

For Resian, some follow the renewed orthography while others follow the former Italian-made orthography. The latter should be specified using {{lb|sl|Resian|Italian orthography}} Additionally, acute (´) should be used to denote stress. For the four regional varieties, the diacritics used should be as defined in the renewed orthography. The entries should still retain the centralization diacritic (¨) in all instances of a word as it is normally written, while for the acute, the same rules as for SS diacritics apply.

Natisone Valley dialect

The standard orthography is defined by Nino Špehonja in Nediška gramatika. There are three diacritics additionally used in dictionaries to denote stress:

grave (`), used to denote long accent (ː)
acute (´), used to denote short accent
dot above (˙), used to denote extra-short vowels (◌̆)

These too, only appear in the same cases as the SS diacritics.

Archaic spellings

In the past, Bohorič, Danjko and Metelko alphabets were in use. Words written with Bohorič alphabet can be added as separate entries, but they need to actually exist, do not just transcribe everything into Bohorič alphabet. The entry should just be {{form of|sl|Bohorič spelling of|XY}}. Metelko and Danjko alphabet should not be included as they were used only for a short time, never gained much popularity, and not even all letters are encoded as of Unicode 16.0.

Prekmurje Slovene spelling

Prekmurje spelling uses the same diacritics for stress as non-tonal Slovene, but it has another diacritic, umlaut on ü and ö, which should be always included. The diacritics used are the same as for the SS and are written under the same circumbstances, but the distribution is different and there are no cases with circumflex (ô or ê).

Entry format

You are advised to read Wiktionary:Entry layout explained before continuing; it sets forth general formatting rules for entries.

Headers

Slovene entries should begin with the L2 header ==Slovene==.

Other headers are:

===Alternative forms===
===Etymology===
===Pronunciation===
===[part of speech]===
====Usage notes====
====Declension==== or ====Conjugation==== (for verbs and interjections)
====Derived terms====
====Related terms====
===See also===
===References===
===Further reading===
* {{R:sl:FR}}

Alternative forms

Relevant alternative forms should be listed as follows:

[any colloquial separate entries] {{lb|sl|colloquial}}
[any regional separate entries] {{lb|sl|[relevant label]}}
[Bohorič spellings], {{lb|sl|Bohorič}} [early Gaj spellings] {{lb|sl|early Gaj spelling}}, [form before 1848 reform]{{lb|sl|before 1848-1851 reform}}, [uncommon 1848 reform form] {{lb|sl|uncommon 1848–1851 reform form}}
[forms of different gender/declension, e.g. cokel–cokla; can include masculinized and feminized forms, e.g. drevo-drev-dreva] {{lb|sl|masculine/feminine/neuter/masculinized/feminized}}

Early Gaj spelling is generally only different in representing all /ə/, e.g. vert or čerta instead of vrt and črta, respectively. Uncommon 1848 reform forms are those proposed changes that did not catch on, e.g. dvignuti instead of dvigniti.

All listed alternative forms except the last bullet should as definitions only have a {{form of}} template with relevant description. Forms from the last bullet should be treated similarly, but sometimes they can have different meanings, e.g. dekle-dekla, in which case the definitions are given separately.

Do not add dialectal words written in scientific notation as separate entries. These should be included in {{sl-pronounce-dial}}.

Pronunciation

For pronunciation, the {{sl-pron}} is used, which automatically provides IPA transcription. The Rigler transcription can be added in the same line using {{SNPT}}. The first template unfortunately only works with tonal diacritics. If tone is unknown, the transcription has to be entered manually. Do not guess the tone. Although most borrowings bear high tone, there are also exceptions. In that case, add {{sl-non-tonal}} directly below the L2 heading.

In cases with more pronunciations, they can be further specified using qualifiers if the distribution of the pronunciation is known. In particular, words with acute semivowel, e.g. mə̀gla or cvə̀sti should have this pronunciation listed before the məglȁ or cvəstȉ forms, which should have an additional qualifier {{lb|sl|megla}}.

Additionally, multiple other pronunciations not found in normative dictionaries can be added, with appropriate labels. They should not be too specific, known for only one dialect, but rather general colloquial, prominent in a bigger region or obsolete. There are multiple labels with links to Wikipedia articles.

Additional forms should be added in moderation so as not to clutter the entry. Particularly welcome are forms with vowel reduction, e.g. {{lb|sl|reduction}} {{sl-IPA|brə̏t}} in the entry for brat, and forms with vocalized semivowel, e.g. {{lb|sl|noSP}} {{sl-IPA|deževáti}} or {{lb|sl|noSP}} {{sl-IPA|mégla}} for dəževati and məgla, respectively. When providing pronunciation for dialects with tʼ–č distinction, use much more common /t͡ɕ/ for proto-slavic *tʼ as the original pronunciation is retained in only a small part of Istrian dialect.

After this, the rhymes, homophones and hyphenation templates can be added. After that, {{sl-pronounce-dial}} can be placed, where dialectal pronunciations and other features can be more thoroughly explained.

Part of speech

For parts of speech, templates such as {{sl-noun}} should be used. In the entry, additional diacritics should be placed to indicate the stress and tone. The second parameter is gender (and animacy) for nouns, comparative and superlative for adjectives, and aspect for verbs. For nouns for places, template {{sl-at-to}} can be added to specify the correct prepositions. Instead of the part of speech termed povedkovnik in Slovenski pravopis, the corresponding classification in Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika is very strongly preferred.

Inflection tables

Inflection tables can, and do, include more forms than can be found in normative dictionaries. Regarding the addition of other forms, please follow these guidelines:

Forms with colloquial or historical spellings are not included.
The form should be present in a larger speaking area, not in just two or three dialects. This rule excludes special declension in Brdo dialect.
Plural forms should not be included for dual (although loss of dual is in some cases pretty common).
Forms that could be derived, but are not attested (e.g. plural forms from singularia tantum etc.) are not added.
Forms that evolved from simplification of one of the forms (e.g. gospodu/gaspodov instead of gospodov), loss of the final vowel (e.g. šol instead of šoli) or any other phonetically-based change (e.g. mestu instead of mesto) are also not added.
Feminized or masculinized forms that do not change the endings are excluded.
Resian and Natisone Valley inflection can also be added, if enough data is gathered.
Aorist and imperfect forms can be added, but a special template needs to be made first.

Styllistically marked forms, as well as forms not included in normative dictionaries, but still used or understood should be just italicized, obsolete forms that are not understood anymore (mostly limited to former vocative endings and former forms of verbs for 1st sing. for present) should have a superscript ✝ placed before them. Verbs following accentual type IIA should not have their fixed accent forms in l-participle italicized.

In cases when an entry has more possible paradigms, they should be each in its own inflection table for clarity. The whole paradigm can also be marked whith a qualifier.

The preferred templates are:

For nouns, use of {{sl-decl-noun-table3}} and {{sl-decl-noun-table3unc}} (for uncountable nouns) is preferred.
For adjectives, use of {{sl-infl-adj}} is preferred.
For verbs, use of {{sl-infl-verb-2-head}}, {{sl-infl-verb-2-inf|}} {{sl-infl-verb-2-inf-2d}} and {{sl-infl-verb-2-pres}} in that order, is preferred. If providing all required forms with accents is beyond the editor's knowledge, use {{sl-infl-verb-manual}} instead, which does not support all accentual changes.
For numerals, use of {{sl-decl-num2}} (numerals ending in 1–4) and {{sl-decl-num}} is preferred.
For interjections which conjugate, e.g. na, use {{Sl-infl-int}}.

If only a single form has unknown accent, then {{sl-notone}} should be placed. Accent and tone often change throughout the inflection, so do not use the same accent without checking if the accent changes when manually adding forms.

For help with paradigms, see Appendix:Slovene nouns, as well as Slovene declension and Slovene verbs articles on Wikipedia.