Factors Favoring Slovene Language Maintenance

Abstract

Because there fewer than 2,000,000 Slovenes in Yugoslavia, an important issue for the Slovene community and for Slovene scholars is the preservation of the language. A major focus of Professor Lencek's career has been a deeper understanding of the complex sociolinguistic variables affecting Slovene language maintenance. Virtually all Slovene language issues, including standardization and dialect variation, writing and spelling, and linguistic borrowing, affect the future of the language within the federation of Yugoslavia. In recent years, many scholars and non-scholars alike have expressed concern for the future of the Slovene language. Without doubt, many factors seem to threaten the continued viability of Slovene. The steady increase in the non-Slovene population of guestworkers (priseljenci ;: juga) in Slovenia, the low birthrate among Slovenes, and established patterns of Slovene and Serbo-Croatian language use seem to favor the steady replacement of Slovene by Serbo-Croatian. Indeed, taking note of such factors, Paternost (1984:239) suggests that Slovene exists in spite of historical odds, and Toporisic (1984:256) fears that recent developments are undercutting its roots. Yet recent events do not warrant a purely pessimistic outlook, for not all changes in the Slovene language situation will damage the prospects for Slovene language maintenance. Therefore this article will examine factors which seem to favor the spread of Serbo-Croatian, and then outline evidence suggesting that, despite these factors, the underlying pattern of Slovene language use has not changed in recent years. A possible explanation for current uncertainty about the future of the language will be proposed. Though important reasons for concern exist, it will be argued that Slovene remains a stable, viable, and dynamic language which is successfully withstanding the sociolinguistic pressures imposed upon it by recent economic and demographic changes in Yugoslavia.