zdravo!
I am a foreigner that has begun learning Slovenian recently as I wanted to get to know the Slavic languages and Slovenian seemed like a very interesting Slavic language linguistically with a cozy country attached to it.
One of the predominant features that attracted me, not counting the dual, was the pitch accent. As far as I understand it, the pitch accent (like in e.g Japanese) is in the minority in Slovenia, and the stress accent (like in English, French, etc.) is more common. However, because apparently pitch accent is retained in the middle of the country in the region of Ljubljana, the standard language does have a pitch variant which apparently is more prestigious than the stress accent standard. I am interested in learning the pitch accent because from other languages I know it to sound very melodic and in addition I want to be able to pronounce it so that I can apply it to Ancient Greek (I am a Classics major).
In studying so far I have been able to find plenty of resources mentioning the pitch accent and where it should be; in that regard, I am sure I will be able to study the pitch accent. However, there is one key feature missing; pronunciation. I myself come from a stress-based language and while I am able to pronounce the tones of Mandarin and can hear the pitch accent of Japanese in slow speech, I am not sure if I am hearing it correctly for Slovenian.
I have the feeling that the speakers in the following two videos employ it, but I am unsure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_r53bkXF5g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aifLtm_aR-c
My question is; can anybody confirm the above speakers usse a pitch accent? and is anybody able to point me to cartoons, news anchors, vloggers, whatever that use the pitch accent? This would be invaluable for me. It would be even more precious if someone knows of an explanatory video for foreigners, though it seems pitch accent is usually avoided since the stress accent is also seen as valid.
hvala!
P.S. for those wondering what the pitch accent is, apparently it is called "tonemski naglas" in Slovenian. The idea of pitch-accent is described on this page: Pitch-accent language – Wikipedia.
by ConiglioCaro
3 comments
You will have more luck finding more extreme forms in this handy interactive map of Slovene dialects: [https://narecja.si/](https://narecja.si/) Not all but many are equipped with an IPA transcription.
As for the proper way a pitch accent works, I suppose someone will be able to explain better than me. I am one of those with a thick old Ljubljana region accent and just by ear of how I say it the example of “Gori na Gori Gori.” – “It is burning on top of the mountain.” the first two do not stress but pitch. Maybe someone with a linguistic background can confirm or deny it.
Well, I am Slovenian and cannot hear pitch accents, I think even my teacher of Slovenian language (who came from the same area as us) couldn’t pronounce it so that we would hear it. If you are from a part of the country that doesn’t use it, it’s all very baffling. 🙂
But admittedly, I’m not very talented in this respect, I don’t have a good ear for music, so this might be linked to it.
It’s not important to speak with the pitch accent and Slovenian speakers of stress accents can’t really learn it properly. I think they are both pitch, but the first is very dialectal. If you want, try to learn the language from Ljubljana speakers. Most people from Gorenjska and Dolenjska and the capital have this accent but there are some exceptions.
Chinese is probably a very hard language to learn for the foreigners because of all the crazy pitches.