Sinfo_10_2014

Autumn and winter days are approaching. And as the temperature cools and the days

grow shorter, more and more of us will prefer to stay indoors. So this is also the best

time of the year for reading books! Slovenians can take pride in the many beautiful

and interesting books written in their language, and much of the credit for this must

go to Primož Trubar, the author of the first printed books in Slovene. In September,

the National and University Library put on display Trubar’s Cerkovna ordninga

(Church Order).

Recently, moreover, a revised edition of the Dictionary of Standard Slovene has been

published. It confirms – through different words and phrases, their meanings and

examples thereof – the existence of the Slovene language and the Slovenian nation, it

describes the reality around us and presents our conceptual world. Language is most

certainly the most direct expression of the culture of a nation or national community,

so any view that seeks to deny language its priority role in the development of

cultural and national identity is simply not valid. This is a fact which Slovenians in

the United States are also well aware of. Their magazine Zarja (The Dawn), for

example, has been published for as many as 85 years.

Experts estimate that approximately half of the 5,000 languages currently spoken

around the world will disappear by the end of the 21st century. What impact will the

disappearance of languages have on the human species? Will we really turn into a

one-language planet and does this actually matter? Surely not, and Slovene, too, has

an important role to play in the great family of the world’s languages. The interview

with Dr Janez Dular will reveal how important the attitude towards our language is,

while Prof. Marko Stabej will speak about the Slovene language and the “liking” of

it.

Culture, as driving force of creative spirit, has transformed the Slovenians from a

people into a nation and then into a nation state. The independent Slovenian state

must thus be and remain a reliable guarantee for the preservation of the Slovenian

language. Our language is rich, and we must not allow it to go extinct, not today and

not tomorrow. It must not, in short, become an endangered language!