Challenges of Slovene as a Medium-Sized Language Community

Maja Bitenc bitencm@uni-lj.si

December 3 AnniversariesFrance Preerens, the greatest Slovene poets, birthday (born 1800)90th birthday of Slovene university University of Ljubljana Fran Ramov first lecture on historic grammar of Slovene

Geographical Position of Slovenia

Language Status 1991: Slovenia becomes independent Slovene official language of the Republic of Slovenia national language in all areas of public life Constitution of Slovenia, Article 11:The official language in Slovenia is Slovene. In those municipalities where Italian or Hungarian national communities reside, Italian or Hungarian shall also be official languages.

2004: Slovenia joins the European Union Slovene one of the 23 official languages of the European Union

Slovene South Slavic Language

Slovenes also in European countries Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland ex-Yugoslavia Croatia, BiH, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia overseas USA, Canada, Argentina, Australia Regional or local official language Around 2,4 million speakersOfficial language

Demographic Data2002 national census: 1 964 036 people in Slovenia, Slovene mother tongue: 1 723 434 (87 %) Slovene nationality: 1 631 363the number of people with Slovene mother tongue incerasing, but slower than the population the percentage of people with Slovene mother tongue decreasing

Population of Slovenia by Mother Tongue (2002) 87 % Slovene (1 723 434)7,9 % Serbo-Croatian (153 172): Croatian 2,8 %, 1,9 Serbo-Croatian %, Serbian 1,6 %, Bosnian 1,6 %0,4 % Albanian (7177)0,4 % Hungarian (7713)0,2 % Italian (3762)0,2 % Macedonian (4760) 0,2 % Romany (3834) 0,1 % German (1628)

Language(s) of CommunicationAt Home (2002)

91,1 % Slovene3,3 % Slovene and Serbo-Croatian1 % Serbo-Croatian 0,2 % Hungarian 0,2 % Slovene and Italian 0,2 % Slovene and Hungarian 0,1 % Italian 0,1 % Romany 0,1 % Albanian

In Public (1991)

94,4 % Slovene 1,1 % Slovene and Serbo-Croatian0,9 % Serbo-Croatian 0,3 % Slovene and Italian 0,2 % Slovene and Hungarian

A Glimpse into the Past The oldest Slovene written text?

The first book in Slovene?

The first translation of the Bible?

The first Slovene Grammar? Freising Manuscripts, around 1000

Primo Trubar: Catechism and Spelling Book, 1550

Jurij Dalmatin, 1584

Adam Bohori, 1584

A Glimpse into the Pastendeavours for Slovene in all domains of public life in the middle of the 19th century connected with the national movement, language as an element of national cohesionunder Austro-Hungarian monarchy Slovene gradually introduced into educational system as a lanugage of instruction1918 the first Yugoslav state: Serbo-Croatian-Slovene language in the Constitution19451991 Yugoslavia formally: languages have equal rights1991: Slovene as the official language

Ideologies/Attitudes concerning Slovene

Classical controversytraditional approachdefending positionlanguage value in itselfforeign languages a threat

more liberal approachdiminished symbolic function of languagefunctional value of language(s)

Sociolinguistic Changes since 1991language statusnew domainsdifferent status and prestige of languages of former Yugoslaviaincreasing number of foreigners in Slovenia (refugees, immigrants)increasing number of speakers of Slovene as a second/foreign language

Sociolinguistic Changes since 2004 language status globalisation, free flow of people and labour reflected also in a socio-cultural and communication sphereSlovenia attractive as a EU country becoming more diverse communication technology English language words and patterenswarnings concerning increasing use of English

Sociolinguistic Changes since 2004 additional value of knowledge of Slovene because of its status more speakers of Slovene as a second/foreign languageSlovene at universities abroad Slovene lectureship at 54 universities around the world broadening and enlarging the network of Slovene lanugage teaching opportunities translation into Slovene and from Slovene widespread multilingualism in Slovenia

Language Policy first years after 1991 less active language policy19942004: the first institutionalized frame of language policy activity: a permanent working body for language policy and language planning at the parliamentary committee for culture, education and sport20002004: Committee for the Slovene Language 2004 Sector for the Slovene language at the Ministry of Culture2004: Public Use of the Slovene Language Act - long, controversial discussion about the drafts- ideological construct of pure Slovene language as a value in itself

Language Policy Resolution on National Programme for Language Policy 2007-2011

the first integral document about language policy in the history of Slovene lanugage community strategic guidelines in different domains of language policy activities 12 main goals, 113 itemsprincipal guideline: the importance and role of Slovene as the national lanugage, developing language competence and raising language awarenessno profound analysis of the situation ! 250.375 intended for attempts with sinhronisation of films104.323 for general and specialised reference books for Slovene

Infrastructure of SloveneSlovene orthography and grammar sanctioned by the Orthographic Commission and the Fran Ramov Institute of Slovenian Language, both part of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts - Slovene Orthography, 2001 - Dictionary of Standard Slovene, 1-5, 1970-1991, single volume 1994, available online- Slovenian Grammar, 1976, 1984, 1991, 2000

serious deficiencies

Infrastructure of Sloveneshortage of contemporary, user-friendly reference books

strong tradition of language revision/proof-reading the responsibility of the author vs. proffesional language reviser?

speakers not self-confident, not independent

language consultancies, newspaper columnse-consultancies democratic consultancies

CorporaMonolingual FIDA plus 600 million words, referential corpus of Slovene(Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana, Joef Stefan Institute) Nova beseda 240 milion words (Fran Ramov Institute of Slovenian Language)

Bilingual Evrokorpus 222 million words, Slovene parallel corpus(Translation Unit of the Slovenian Government Office for European Affairs, the Secretariat-General of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia)

Communication in Slovene Project an Example of Good Practice June 2008 December 2013Activities: Spoken Corpus of Slovene 1 million wordsWritten Corpus of Slovene 1 billion wordsCorpus Interface for Pedagogical PurposesTraining Corpus Lexicon of Inflected Forms Slovene Lexical Database New Didactics of Slovene Language TeachingPedagogical Corpus-based Grammar Manual of Style

Foreign Languages in Slovenia a lot of experiences with multilingualism and plurilingualism foreign lanugages popular economic interests, size of the country, national multilingualism with Hungarian and Italian, historical lanugage ties the question of foreign lanugages is stressed afer 2004in primary education: in 2011/2012- 1st foreign lanugage in the first grade of primary school - compulsory 2nd foreign language in the last three years of primary school (at the moment: 2nd foreign lanugage as an optional subject in the last three years: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Latin, German, Italian, Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian)

Foreign Languages in SloveniaAbility to communicate in Serbo-Croatian (59 %), English (57 %), German (50 %)Most useful langages: English (78 %), German (61 %), Italian (12 %) French (4 %), Spanish (2 %), Russian (1 %) Use of foreign languages (2009, N=700)

in business communication65 % no 25 % English 15 % German 13 % languages of former Yugoslaviaprivate sphere32 % no34 % languages of former Yugoslavia 32 % English 25 % German22 % Italian

Case Study 1:Slovene in Science and Higher Educationdiscussions about language in this domain often polarizedLegislationHigher Education Act (Article 8) protects Slovene as the language of instruction in higer education the following may be provided in a foreign language: - foreign-language study programmes - parts of study programmes, if visiting teachers participate in the provision thereof or if significant numbers of foreign students are enrolled therein - study programmes if they are also provided in Slovene

Slovene in Science and Higher EducationStrategy of the University of Ljubljana ( Bologna declaration and Frame of economic and social reforms for bigger prosperity in Slovenia): 10 % foreign students10 % programmes carried out by foreign professors Problematicincreasing use of English in certain classes of certain study programmes textbooks, scientific newspapers, terminology deficiencies Slovene scientific achievements only get half of all available points according to the proposal of the document entitled Measures for the election in the title of university teachers, scientific workers and university co-workers

Slovene in Science and Higher EducationResolution on National Programme for Language Policy 2007-2011 Goal 10: For the consolidation of Slovene in higher education and science- university subject professional-scientific variety of standard Slovene - university textbooks in Slovene- promotion of publishing scientific papers in Slovene and using Slovene at international conferences in Slovenia- parallel study programmes in English and Slovene but no financial support!finding appropriate balance between local and global

ConclusionOptimistic

Slovene the strongest status ever the number of people with Slovene mother tongue increasingSlovene as a second/foreign languageproduction in Slovene translation into Slovene and from Slovene

ConclusionChallenges

infrastucture of Slovene (user-friendly reference books, dictionaries)reducing defensive discurses and ideologies proactive language policy searching answers to questions of living in a multicultural and multlingual community opportunities for learning Slovene integration of immigrants appropriate balance between Slovene and English in scientific discourseSlovene language revitalisation among Slovene minorities and Slovenes around the worldvitality of language and self-confident speakers

Thank you for your attention! Maja Bitenc bitencm@uni-lj.si