Dialects make Slovenian the most diverse Slavic language

Officially, there are 37 dialects in Slovenia, but the way that people speak often differs from one village to another. This diversity is well captured in the proverb "Vsaka vas ima svoj glas", meaning "Every village has its own voice".

Sometimes dialects can be so different from one another that it is hard for people from different parts of Slovenia to understand each other.

There are even dictionaries of Slovenian dialects, which can be divided into seven groups: Dolenjska in the south of the country, Gorenjska just north of the centre, Koroška in the extreme north, Panonska in the north-east, Primorska in the south-west, Rovtarska, just west of centre and Štajerska north-east of centre.

The reason for such dialectological diversity of Slovenia lays in the history of settling the land, its geographical barriers, administrative borders and to some extent the...