All Slovene dialects originate from Old Slovene (also referred to as Alpine Slovene), present around 1000–1200. Alpine Slovene itself was formed from two transitional languages, Northwestern and Southeastern
Alpine Slavic, which existed in 800–1000, when they both transitioned to Slovene.
Unification , written in Alpine Slavic Northwestern Alpine Slavic formed in what is today southern
Austria and eastern
Italy and was initially showing signs of it actually being a
West Slavic language, but the Southeastern was closer to Western
Kajkavian and
Chakavian, and was actually derived from the Southwestern Alpine-Western Panonian-Littoral
South Slavic, from which Western Kajkavian and Chakavian were also formed. They already featured some changes: In southeastern Alpine Slovene, , , , and got simplified into , , , and , respectively (
PS *modliti (sę) "to pray, to beg", NWAS , SEAS ,
SS ). Proto-Slavic
*vy- and
*jьz-, both meaning "from" did not both exist in Alpine Slavic anymore. Northwestern Alpine Slavic kept the *vy- while the Southeastern kept the other one (PS
*vy-bьrati /
*jьz-bьrati "to choose", NWAS , SEAS , SS ). Both forms then followed the same changes which then separated Slovene from other languages. All vowels could be long or short, stressed or unstressed. The Proto-Slavic vowel
*y merged with
*i. Additionally, there were also two syllabic sonorants, and , which formed from Proto-Slavic
*CьrC /
*CъrC, and
*CьlC /
*CъlC, respectively. It is however debated what was actually like. It might have sounded like (like displayed above) or like . The language also had the following consonants: Notes: • The labiodental fricative was rare and only appeared in loanwords. • was an
allophone of before a consonant, before a pause, or before the
back vowels.
Fragmentation The language then very quickly split into two dialects, splitting almost entirely along the former Northwestern Alpine Slavic–Southeastern Alpine Slavic
isogloss. The dialects then divided further into the northern, western, southern, and eastern dialect. After that, the dialects fragmented further, mostly influenced by geographical features and contact with other dialects and languages. In northwestern dialect, and stayed the same, while in the southeastern dialect, both were denasalized and first turned into and , and then into and . The nasal still exists only in
Jaun Valley dialect, but other have so-called
rinezem 'rhinism', in which the nasal vowel turns into a denasalized vowel and a nasal consonant; e.g., PS
*mě̋
sęcь "month",
Gail Valley , SS . The
yat () was pronounced as a near-open vowel in the northwestern dialect and then evolved first to and then to and it was pronounced as in the southern dialect, which then evolved into The long yat (), however,
diphthongized into in the northwestern and into the in the southeastern. Similarly, ō also diphthongized into and , respectively. The southeastern dialect also rounded the into and (partially) centralized into a vowel that was noted with (but not to be confused with the
Ramovš ). The dialects then in 13th and 14 century further subdivided depending on how short acute vowels and evolved. In the non-final syllables, all short vowels were turned into long acute vowels, except in eastern dialect. Northern Styrian dialect (which formed from the southern dialect), did not lengthen the vowels in syllables that were followed by two other. The short vowels in the last syllable evolved into short circumflex vowels in all dialects. The evolved into in west and most of the south dialect, but evolved into in the 14th century. This change happened after the lengthening, so it also affected those vowels.
Consonants Parallel to the vowel changes, consonants also evolved, however not as much. The changes were the following: Therefore, in Standard Slovene, both accents are allowed, but favoring the unshifted one. Other shifts that happened in fewer dialects were: • From short circumflex closed final syllables to the preceding syllable, turning it acute ( > ), which happened in some
Littoral,
Rovte,
Styrian, and
Lower Carniolan dialects in the 18th century. • From short circumflex closed final syllables to a vowel two syllables in a word before, turning it acute ( > ), which happened in
Karst,
Inner Carniolan,
Istrian, and in part
Kostel dialect. • From long circumflex syllable to a preceding syllable, shortening and turning it acute ( > ), which happened in many, not closely related and geographically separate dialects from the 18th century onwards. • From long acute syllable to a preceding syllable while also shortening the vowel ( > ), which happened in
Kostel and
North White Carniolan dialects. • From short acute first syllable in words with three syllables to a following syllable ( > ), which happened in a part of
Rosen Valley,
Jaun Valley,
Mežica,
North Pohorje-Remšnik,
Upper Savinja,
Kozjak subdialect, and a part of
Torre Valley dialect. • From long acute first syllable in words with two syllables to a following syllable, but the destressed vowel is still long and the new vowel is short and circumflex ( > ), which happened in a part of
Torre Valley dialect. == Classification ==