Re: Slovenia & Slovakia


Don Aitken skrev:

On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 15:33:47 -0700, Amicus@xxxxxxxxx (David / Amicus)
wrote:

Is Slovenian a distinct language or a dialect of say Croatian? Are the
Slovenians a distinct ethnic group?

Definitely a distinct language. Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian and
Macedonian are all more closely related to each other than any of them
is to Slovenian.

One may even argue tongue in cheek that Slovenian is less closely
related to Slovenian, than Serbian is to Croatian, or Bulgarian to
Macedonian. There is great dialectal variation within this small
language, and some dialects are mutually comprehensible only with a
considerable effort on the part of their respective speakers.

In many respects, Slovenian, although conventionally classified as a
South Slavonic language, is a linguistic intermediary between the true
South Slavonic languages (ex-Serbo-Croatian languages, Macedonian, and
Bulgarian) and West Slavonic languages (Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Upper
and Lower Sorbian, and Kashubian). It requires about as much practice
and effort for a Czech or a Slovakian to understand Slovenian, as it
takes for a Croatian.

Jan Böhme

.

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