Trubar – the consolidator of literary Slovene

The Slovene language lived in the form of intensely fragmented dialects and of rare weakly and unsystematically interconnected manuscripts until the middle of the 16th century.
Primož Trubar, the pioneer and consolidator of literary Slovene, gave the Slovenes the first printed book, taught them to read and connected them with the rest of the world. Slovenia thus boasts a rich literary tradition encompassing fiction, scientific literature and journalistic texts.  

Trubar proves that it is possible to write and print books in Slovene

Primož Trubar decided to choose centrally anchored but supradialectal (supra-regional) language standards on the basis of his life experience – prior to converting to Protestantism, his life path had important stops in terms of dialects at many different corners of the Slovene territory, such as Raščica, Trieste, Radeče, Laško, Ljubljana, Celje and Šentjernej. In his public speaking and church-planting work, Trubar had in mind the common Slovene language environment, irrespective of feudal land borders; he was concerned about “the true divine church of this Slovene language”, whether in Carniola, Carinthia, Styria or elsewhere.

Trubar implemented this standard in more than twenty books with different types of text – from a primer to theological discussions, from narration to poetry, from calendars and registers to prayers. Through these books, he clearly addressed the Slovenes (those who could read) and thus acquired a sufficient number of strong supporters, eager imitators and successful developers (Krelj, Dalmatin, Bohorič and others) in spite of the weak echo of Protestant ideas among the majority of the population.

Protestant authors established a solid basis for literary Slovene and the rules of orthography

In the 16th century, all Slovene writers followed Trubar, observing his standard language, which was based on the Lower Carniolan dialect. Since they knew each other and were familiar with all the books published in Slovene, the language and orthography they used were largely uniform. His literary Slovene put down roots and “stood and withstood” also after the sunset of the Slovene Reformation.

It is likely that the Slovenes as a nation would not exist today if Trubar's literary Slovene language had not been implemented. Growing language proficiency also strengthened national identity. The most prominent forms of celebrating the jubilee are well grounded when functioning as incentives, for raising our cultural, political and state-forming consciousness and for proving our actual dedication to the linguistic heritage of Trubar via learning, implementation and development of the Slovene language in all traditional and new areas opened up by social and technological development.

Today Slovene is used even on the most prominent occasions

The literary Slovene language, half a millennium since its appearance, has successfully asserted its use in the most distinguished language usage environments possible.
On the occasion of the jubilee, we would like not only to revive the awareness of this work, but also to deepen our knowledge about it and about Trubar's contribution to the wider European horizon – or, as we could say today, to preserve cultural diversity within intercultural dialogue.


(Based on a text by Dr Janez Dular, published in Trubar's Year 2008,
Ljubljana 2008. Click on this link to read the whole text:
Dr Janez Dular: Whom, What And Why We Remember This Year)