Word formation and lexicon

The Slovene language belongs to the Slavic languages and retained some archaic features of Proto-Slavic that have been lost in other Slavic languages.

The most prominent archaic feature is the dual, used only in the Slovene and the Sorbian languages in Germany. The other Slavic languages have only remnants of the dual.

Another archaic feature that has been preserved in Slovene is the system of pronouns, which is very regular. Few languages have something similar.

Interrogative (K) Demonstrative (T) Indefinite (VS) Negative (N) kaj

what to

that vse

everything nič

nothing kdo

who ta, tisti

this vsak

every nihče

nobody kakšen

what kind of takšen

such vsakršen

every kind of nikakršen

no kje

where tam

there vsepovsod

everywhere nikjer

nowhere kdaj

when takrat / tedaj

then vedno / vsakokrat

always nikoli

never kako

how tako

thus vsekakor

in every way nikakor

in no way koliko

how many toliko

so much - nekoliko

some

The Slovene language creates new words based on native roots, therefore it has fewer loanwards than most other languages. But, of course, it also accepts foreign words, although they are adapted to the rules of the language (“euro” is evro).

Many languages call compact discs “CDs”, from the English abbreviation, but in Slovene they are called zgoščenka (although CD is sometimes used too), “computer” is računalnik, “smartphone” is dlančnik, etc.