Indo-European · ISO 639-3 slv · sl
Slovenian Language slovenščina
Slovenian is an Indo-European language spoken by about 2.4 million people in 4 countries. It is an official language of Slovenia. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Slovenian is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Slovenian
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Balto-Slavic
- Slavic
- South Slavic
- Western South Slavic
- Slovenian
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Slovenian language
Slovenian (slovenščina) is spoken by about 2.4 million people, which makes it the 285th most spoken language in the world — just behind Konkani (2.4 million) and ahead of Susu (2.4 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Western South Slavic group within the Balto-Slavic branch.
Where is Slovenian spoken?
Slovenian is used in 4 countries. The largest communities live in Slovenia (1.8 million), Italy (103,640), Austria (33,181) and Hungary (5,026). More than half of the population speaks it in Slovenia — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Slovenian: Slovenia 87% (1.8 million), Italy 0.2% (103,640), Austria 0.4% (33,181) and Hungary <0.1% (5,026).
Slovenian is an official language in 1 country: Slovenia. It also has regional official status in Austria.
Writing system and status
Slovenian is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Czech and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 sl, ISO 639-3 slv.
Frequently asked questions about Slovenian
How many people speak Slovenian?
Where is Slovenian spoken?
In which countries is Slovenian an official language?
What language family does Slovenian belong to?
What is Slovenian called in Slovenian?
Is Slovenian an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.