Slovene dialects
[1] In reality, speakers in Croatia self-identify themselves as speaking Croatian, which is a result of a ten centuries old country border passing through the dialects since the Francia.
Speakers of dialects that strongly differ accommodate each other by gravitating toward standard Slovene.
The dialects are spoken primarily in Slovenia, but are extending in all neighboring countries Austria, Italy, Croatia, and Hungary.
Fran Miklosich similarly split the language in two dialects, but focusing on the pronunciation of Proto-Slavic ê.
Efforts before the Second World War were spearheaded by Lucien Tesnière, Fran Ramovš (which added the Rovte dialect group), and Aleksander Isachenko, and after the war by Tine Logar and Jakob Rigler (sl), which both made vital corrections to the Ramovš division.
[17] Eventually, the classification proposed by Ramovš was accepted with corrections and additions by Logar and Rigler, published in 1983 as the Karta slovenskih narečij (Map of Slovenian Dialects).
[19] These changes are mostly accepted in Slovene and international literature, but not in Croatian, mainly because of the different institutes researching both countries and the speakers' self-identification.
Proto-Slavic *vy- and *jьz-, both meaning "from" did not both exist in Alpine Slavic anymore.
Northwestern Alpine Slavic kept the *vy- while the Southeastern kept the other one (PS *vy-bьrati / *jьz-bьrati "to choose", NWAS *vy-brati, SEAS *iz-brati, SS izbráti).
The yat (*ě) was pronounced as a near-open vowel *ä in the northwestern dialect and then evolved first to and *ȩ then to *a and it was pronounced as *ẹ in the southern dialect, which then evolved into *i The long yat (*ě̄), however, diphthongized into *ie in the northwestern and into the *ei̯ in the southeastern.
The southeastern dialect also rounded the *a into *å and (partially) centralized *u into a vowel that was noted with *u̇ (but not to be confused with the Ramovš u̇).
[25] The dialects then in 13th and 14 century further subdivided depending on how short acute vowels and *ə̄ evolved.
[30] According to the now official chart, the only change is the inclusion of Mixed Kočevje dialects into the Lower Carniolan group:[11]The horizontal division is in professional literature based on various non-linguistic and linguistic factors.
Non-linguistic factors include settlement patterns and geographical features (rivers, mountains) that helped shape various isoglosses.
[18] Specifically, the primary distinguishing linguistic features are preservation or loss of pitch accent, reflexes of nasal *ę, nasal *ǫ, yat (ě), and the yers (ъ, ь), but also (to a lesser extent) vowel inventory, diphthongization, and degree and type of vowel reduction.
The bases are:[31] The following grouping of dialects and subdialects is based on the official map of Slovene dialects by Fran Ramovš, Tine Logar, and Jakob Rigler (sl)[11][40] (from which the first Slovene term listed in parentheses is taken), with additions of Matej Šekli[41] and other sources.
