Slovenia and Slovenian Language from the Perspective of a Non-native

The size of Slovenia is 20,273 km2 and ranks the 153rd[1] place in the world. However, despite its smallness, it offers much to explore and see, starting from the population size to the most popular foods. As we all know, it’s best to see things with your own eyes and form your own opinions. In the next paragraphs, you can find different points of view of non-natives who have spent some time in Slovenia or simply people who have their own stereotypes to briefly show different perceptions about Slovenia and its national language. One way how many people might get to know about a country is from what they hear from other people, which results in forming stereotypes that can be true as well as misleading.
For a country that has a population of 2,062,874[1] people, Slovenia has a lot of tourists and thus different nationalities have different views on this particular southern European country. On the other hand, comparing to other nationalities, there aren’t that many stereotypes about Slavs residing there.
The majority of people do not know where Slovenia is located. In other cases, it is often mistaken for Slovakia. It is a common misconception by those who do not have a lot of knowledge about the two countries. Indeed, these countries do have more in common than just the name and relatively close location, but it is highly unlikely that any country would like to be mistaken for another country.
Germans think that Slovenia is one of the best places to go for holidays, they especially like their coast (42 km long), which runs alongside the Adriatic Sea and includes towns such as Piran, Portorož, Izola and Koper. For Germans, such crystal clear and bright blue water is not common in their homeland and they enjoy the warm climate while on holiday.
Slovenia is rich not only in spectacular water but also forests and mountains. These are one of the first things you notice if you are using a plane or some type of road transport. It doesn’t come as a surprise that Slovenia seems really natural since, according to the Slovenian Forest Service, 58.02% (2005)[2] of Slovenia is covered with forests. This means that it is the third most forested European country after Finland (74.02%[3]) and Sweden (68.7%[4]).
When exploring the streets and markets in Slovenia, another noticeable thing is their small dolls that are a part of their folklore and have similarities with other Slavic states such as Poland, Russia, etc. Their characteristic is the use of bright colors and mainly floral designs.
For people coming from the countries far away such as America, Slovenia might not even seem a proper country, as many Americans have not even heard about it (same applies for many other countries). One of the suggestions how to raise their curiosity is with festivals, for example, the Eurovision Song Contest or sports competitions.
For Czech and Slovak people, their opinion is quite deep-rooted as they not only know where Slovenia is located but also have obtained some more information about this Slavic country. This is quite normal in cases where countries share geographical proximity and have some common historical similarities such as becoming independent countries after dissolution of larger countries Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. They also like Slovenia’s coastline, especially due to the fact that they do not have a sea coast themselves. However, one of the main disadvantages for them is Slovenian beer as Laško and Union are quite expensive compared to their prices and the quality is rather poor compared to Czech beer (Pils beer, Pilsner Urquell, Budejovicky Budvar[5], etc.). Perhaps things are to change as Laško company (Pivovarna Laško) has been bought by the Dutch brewing company Heineken International. Latvians have a similar point of view as beer is their most popular alcoholic drink, but they have also noticed that Slovenians have much higher vine consumption. This is due to the fact that Slovenia is wine-growing country with many vineyards. Not all countries have a suitable climate. For grapes a warm, sunny weather is needed, which is not characteristic of the Northern countries. And since indoor cultivation is not highly popular, the wine culture closer to North is not as popular and present as in Slovenia.
Regarding the Slovenian language, it is an “Indo-European language of the South Slavic language branch”[6]. For some of the non-natives it is quite easy to distinguish the language similarities to Polish, Russian, Czech that come from the same Slovak language branch. .The language itself has quite frequent use of vowels with monophthongization (a diphthong becomes a monophthong) and changing the sound. With this feature, the language is more expressive and sounds more vivid. The Latvian language is quite the opposite. Despite the fact that the Latvian language has a common use of letters like š, ž, č, there is usually no tendency to use rising or falling tones but keep neutral speech, and the language is more monotone and flowing.
The Slovene language, identity and the country itself are perceived differently in the eyes of different nationalities. Most likely there is no consensus about them even among Slovenes themselves. For some, the coast side might seem really magnificent and for others it can be the most ordinary thing. However, one thing is clear – as long as there will be Slovenians, their country and language will be a part of the world with the power to make their voice heard outside its borders.

 
Source: Stereotypes about Slovenians           Source: The Stereotypical Slovene


[1] Population number and structure. Accessed from :http://www.stat.si/StatWeb/en/field-overview?id=104&headerbar=13 [Retrieved 7 July 2015]
[2] Forestation and variety of forests. Accessed from: http://www.zgs.si/eng/slovenian_forests/forests_in_slovenia/forestation_and_variety_of_forests/index.html  [Retrieved 7 July 2015]
[3] Finland – Forests and Forestry. Accessed from:  http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Sweden.html [Retrieved 7 July 2015]
[4] Sweden Forest Information and Data. Accessed from: http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Sweden.html  [Retrieved 7 July 2015]
[5] Original Czech beers. Accessed from: http://www.originalczechbeers.com/ [Retrieved 8 July 2015]
[6] Slovenian language. Accessed from: http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/slovenian-language [Retrieved 8 July 2015]

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