To compensate for the shortcomings of the standard orthography, Slovenian also uses standardized
diacritics or accent marks to denote
stress,
vowel length and
pitch accent, much like the closely related
Serbo-Croatian. However, as in Serbo-Croatian, use of such accent marks is restricted to dictionaries, language textbooks and linguistic publications. In normal writing, the diacritics are almost never used, except in a few minimal pairs where real ambiguity could arise. Two different and mutually incompatible systems of diacritics are used. The first is the simpler non-tonemic system, which can be applied to all Slovene dialects. It is more widely used and is the standard representation in dictionaries such as SSKJ. The tonemic system also includes tone as part of the representation. However, neither system reliably distinguishes schwa from the front mid-vowels, nor vocalised l from regular l . Some sources write these as
ə and
ł, respectively, but this is not as common.
Non-tonemic diacritics In the non-tonemic system, the distinction between the two mid-vowels is indicated, as well as the placement of stress and length of vowels: • Long stressed vowels are notated with an acute diacritic:
á é í ó ú ŕ (IPA: ). • However, the rarer long stressed low-mid vowels and are notated with a circumflex:
ê ô. • Short stressed vowels are notated with a grave:
à è ì ò ù (IPA: ). Some systems may also include
ə̀ for .
Tonemic diacritics The tonemic system uses the diacritics somewhat differently from the non-tonemic system. The high-mid vowels and are written
ẹ ọ with a subscript dot, while the low-mid vowels and are written as plain
e o. Pitch accent and length is indicated by four diacritical marks: • The
acute ( ´ ) indicates
long and low pitch:
á é ẹ́ í ó ọ́ ú ŕ (IPA: ). • The
inverted breve ( ̑ ) indicates
long and high pitch:
ȃ ȇ ẹ̑ ȋ ȏ ọ̑ ȗ ȓ (IPA: ). • The
grave ( ` ) indicates
short and low pitch. This occurs only on
è (IPA: ), optionally written as
ə̀. • The
double grave ( ̏ ) indicates
short and high pitch:
ȁ ȅ ȉ ȍ ȕ (IPA: á ɛ́ í ɔ́ ú).
ȅ is also used for , optionally written as
ə̏. The schwa vowel is written ambiguously as
e, but its accentuation will sometimes distinguish it: a long vowel mark can never appear on a schwa, while a grave accent can appear only on a schwa. Thus, only
ȅ and unstressed
e are truly ambiguous.
Others The writing in its usual form uses additional accentual marks, which are used to disambiguate similar words with different meanings. For example: • gòl (
naked) | gól (
goal), • jêsen (
ash (tree)) | jesén (
autumn), • kót (
angle,
corner) | kot (
as,
like), • kózjak (''goat's dung
) | kozják (goat-shed''), • med (
between) | méd (
brass) | méd (
honey), • pól (
pole) | pól (
half (of)) | pôl (
expresses a half an hour before the given hour), • prècej (
at once) | precéj (
a great deal (of))), • remí (
draw) | rémi (
rummy (- a card game)), • je (
he/she is) | jé (
he/she eats). == Foreign words ==