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105
ONOM ÀSTICA 3 (2017 ): 105–126 | REB UT 24.4.2017 | ACCEP TAT 19.9.2017
Geographical names in the languages
of ocial minorities in Slovenia
Matjaž Geršič, Drago Kladnik & Peter Repolusk
Anton Melik Geographical Institute, Research Center of the
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Ljubljana)
matjaz.gersic@zrc-sazu.si, drago.kladnik@zrc-sazu.si,
peter.repolusk@zrc-sazu.si
Abstract: is article presents the use of geographical names in the ethnically mixed Slo-
venian-Italian bilingual areas of Slovenian Istria in southwest Slovenia and the Sloveni-
an-Hungarian bilingual areas of Prekmurje in northeast Slovenia. It also briey reects
upon the smaller and more dispersed Roma and German minorities. Aention is drawn
to the need for further standardization of names, including those used in the languages
of the minorities, highlighting two examples of bad practice when dealing with Slove-
nian geographical names outside Slovenia.
Key words: Geographical names, bilingualism, ethnic minority, standardization, Slovenia
Els noms geogràcs a les llengües de les minories ocials a Eslovènia
Resum: Aquest article considera l’ús dels noms geogràcs a les àrees bilingües eslove-
noitalianes ètnicament mixtes, a la Ístria eslovena, al sudoest d’Eslovènia, i a les àrees
eslovenhongareses a Prekmurje, al nord-est d’Eslovènia. També considera les minori-
es, més petites i disperses, de població romaní i alemanya. es fa atenció a la necessitat
d’una major estandardització dels noms, inclosos els que s’utilitzen en les llengües de
les minories, i es destaquen dos exemples de mala praxis a l’hora de tractar els noms
eslovens fora d’Eslovènia.
Paraules clau: Noms geogràcs, bilingüisme, minories ètiniques, estandardització, Es-
lovènia
Slovenia is a country in which minority issues are handled in an exempla-
ry manner. e ocial language in the country is Slovenian but in munic-
ipalities where the Italian or the Hungarian ethnic community lives, the
ocial language is also Italian or Hungarian. In Slovenia, both Italian and
106
Matjaž Geršič, Drago Kladnik & Peter Repolusk
Hungarian ethnic minorities are recognized by the constitution and in
legislation. In addition to the constitution, the 1994 Self-Governing Eth-
nic Communities Act also makes provisions about their governance and
basic minority rights. In addition to the protection of minority rights in
education, culture, and political representation, the ocial use of Italian
and Hungarian is provided for in the native selement areas of these two
minorities (i.e., in bilingual selements, also referred to in the specialist
literature as ethnically mixed or ethnically heterogeneous selements).
In accordance with the law, the names of selements in which the two
minorities natively live are standardized and wrien in bilingual form on
road signs; other names, both Slovenian and non-Slovenian, have largely
yet to be standardized.
Under certain conditions, the law also allows members of the Italian
and Hungarian minorities to use and learn Italian and Hungarian outside
the bilingual areas. In addition to the Italian and Hungarian minorities,
the dispersed Roma and small German-speaking minorities are also na-
tive to Slovenia.
Slovenians account for the majority of the population in Slovenia (83.1%
according to the 2002 census). e members of all four ethnic groups
described in the introduction amount to around 15,000 people, which is
less than one percent of the total population. Immigrants from elsewhere
in the former Yugoslavia and their descendants contribute signicantly
more to Slovenia’s ethnic heterogeneity. Tables 1 and 2 provide data on
ethnicity and native language as established in the 2002 census and cer-
tain earlier censuses. e data were collected from direct statements on
ethnicity and native languages provided by the census participants. In
terms of the methodology used, the last census of 2011 took the form of a
register and no longer recorded the ethnic, linguistic, and religious com-
position of the population.
107
Geographical names in the languages of ocial minorities in Slovenia
Table 1. Population by ethnic aliation in Slovenia in , ,
, , , and censuses
Ethnic aliation 1953 1961 1971 1981 1991 2002
Slovenes 1,415,448 1,522,248 1,578,963 1,668,623 1,689,657 1,631,363
Italians* 854 3,072 2,987 2,138 2,959 2,258
Hungarians 11,019 10,498 8,943 8,777 8,000 6,243
Roma 1,663 158 951 1393 2,259 3,246
Germans and Austrians 1,906 986 666 455 424 680
Bosniacs 1,617 465 3,197 13,339 26,577 40,071
Serbs 11,225 13,609 20,209 41,695 47,401 38,964
Croats 17,978 31,429 41,556 53,882 52,876 35,642
Others, unknown and
undeclared 4,715 9,058 21,579 48,079 83,202 205,569
Tota l 1,466,425 1,591,523 1,679,051 1,838,381 1,913,355 1,964,036
*In 1953 Zone B of the Free Territory of Trieste was not yet under the
jurisdiction of Yugoslavia and Slovenia (Census of Population, House-
holds and Housing 2002).
Table 2. Population by native language in Slovenia in the
and censuses
Native language 1991 2002
Number Proportion (%) Number Proportion (%)
Slovene 1,690,388 88.3 1,723,434 87.7
Italian 3,882 0.2 3,762 0.2
Hungarian 8,720 0.5 7,713 0.4
Romany 2,752 0.1 3,834 0.2
German 1,093 0.1 1,628 0.1
Serbo-Croatian* 152,355 8.0 153,760 7.8
Others, unknown 54,165 2.8 69,905 3.6
Tota l 1,913,355 100.0 1,964,036 100.0
*Bosnian, Croatian, Croatian-Serbian, Montenegrin, Serbian, and Ser-
bo-Croatian (Census of Population, Households and Housing 2002).
108
Matjaž Geršič, Drago Kladnik & Peter Repolusk
Slovenia’s ethnic composition aer the Second World War was heavily in-
uenced by migration: the emigration of the majority of German speak-
ers and Italians, and the economically conditioned immigration of people
from other parts of the former Yugoslavia. Immigration from the other
Yugoslav republics and autonomous provinces was strongest during the
1970s, and a second immigration peak occurred aer Slovenia gained in-
dependence (aer 2000). e majority of immigrants come from Bos-
nia-Herzegovina. e changes in the data on the ethnic and linguistic
composition aer 1971 resulted from the increasing number of people
that failed to identify their ethnicity. us, for example, in the 2002 cen-
sus, 49,000 individuals refused to provide data on their ethnicity, and for
126,000 persons this information remained unknown. Between 1991 and
2002, the number of those with identied ethnicity decreased in all eth-
nic groups, except among Bosniacs.
e tendency not to identify one’s ethnicity is also present among
members of the two ocial ethnic minorities, which is one of the major
reasons for their varying and receding numbers between individual pop-
ulation censuses (Šircelj 2003, 116).
Both of the ocially recognized ethnic minorities live in the extreme
southwestern and northeastern parts of Slovenia—that is, the areas bor-
dering Italy and Hungary (Komac 2015). In spatial terms, the members of
the Italian minority live natively in four municipalities and the members
of the Hungarian minority live natively in ve (Figure 1).
. Selement area of the Italian ethnic minority
Examining the distribution of the minorities at the level of selements, it
can be established that the bilingual area is considerably smaller. Mem-
bers of native ethnic minorities populate only a narrow belt on the coast
and along the Hungarian border.
ere are twenty-ve bilingual selements that use Slovenian and Ital-
ian as ocial languages, spread across four municipalities in Slovenian Is-
tria (Figure 2): thirteen in the Municipality of Koper (Ital. Capodistria),
eight in the Municipality of Piran (Ital. Pirano), three in the Municipali-
ty of Izola (Ital. Isola), and one in the Municipality of Ankaran (Ital. An-
carano).
109
Geographical names in the languages of ocial minorities in Slovenia
Fig. 1. Ethnically mixed compact selement areas in Slovenia
(Map: Matjaž Geršič)
Fig. 2. Bilingual selements in Slovenian Istria in southwest Slovenia
(Map: Matjaž Geršič)
110
Matjaž Geršič, Drago Kladnik & Peter Repolusk
Fig. 3. Bilingual sign at the exit of a
selement in Slovenian Istria (Photo:
Miha Pav šek)
Fig. 4. Bilingual Slovenian-Italian signs
at the entrance to the Koper Tax Oce
(Photo: Suzana Kos)
Fig. 5. e problematic monolingual sign
at the entrance to the newly built tunnel
on the Slovenian coast (Photo: Tjaša
Škamperle)
Fig. 6. Aer intervention, a bilingual
sign was installed (Photo: Radio
Capodsitria)
All the towns and the majority of selements in the countryside are bi-
lingual (Figure 3). Italians are a notable minority in the bilingual area, ac-
counting for only 4 to 5% of the total population. Approximately 80% of
all Italians in Slovenia live in the bilingual area; the rest live in major Slo-
venian cities, such as Ljubljana, Maribor, and Nova Gorica.
e number of people that identify themselves as Italians has varied
greatly over the past y years: between 2,200 and 3,100. e number of
individuals that have declared Italian to be their native language has been
considerably more stable: just under 4,000.
111
Geographical names in the languages of ocial minorities in Slovenia
A large portion of ethnic Italians live in ethnically mixed households:
during the 2002 census, 1,500 individuals spoke exclusively Italian in the
family, and 4,500 individuals were members of households that spoke
both Italian and Slovenian. However, the local use of Italian greatly ex-
ceeds the minority’s size: during the 1991 census (for which the last data
are available) approximately 10,000 people used Italian in various speech
situations (Figure 4). e reasons for this include the ethnic heterogene-
ity of families already mentioned above, the immediate vicinity of Italy
and the subsequently frequent cross-border contacts, and the important
role of tourism in the local economy.
In addition to traditional geographical names, a problem has also aris-
en with the use of the new name for a physical structure. In 2015, the new-
ly built Markovec Tunnel (passing through Markovec Hill) was opened.
From the outset, the sign in front of it was only in Slovene (Markovec; Fig-
ure 5), whereas all of the other road signs in this area are bilingual. is
issue was even brought up at the European Commission, which agreed
that the sign in front of the tunnel should include both the Slovenian and
Italian names. Aer this and a concurring judgement from the Slovenian
Government Commiee for the Standardization of Geographical Names,
the Italian name Monte San Marco was added (Figure 6). e Motor-
way Company of the Republic of Slovenia (Družba za avtoceste Republike
Slovenije, DARS) stated that such questions are handled by the Surveying
and Mapping Authority (Geodetska uprava Republike Slovenije, GURS),
which, in turn, claims that the Government Oce for National Minorities
(Urad Vlade Republike Slovenije za narodnosti) is the body responsible for
these maers. e Oce is of the opinion that the law does not provide
that the name of the tunnel should be wrien in both languages, but that
in the case of an initiative from the local community the issue of a suita-
ble form of both names would be resolved by the Slovenian Government
Commiee for the Standardization of Geographical Names (Komisija
Vlade Republike Slovenije za standardizacijo zemljepisnih imen, KSZI).
. Selement area of the Hungarian ethnic minority
ere are thirty bilingual selements in Slovenia that use Slovenian and
Hungarian as ocial languages. ey can be found in ve Prekmurje mu-
112
Matjaž Geršič, Drago Kladnik & Peter Repolusk
Fig. 7. Bilingual selements in Prekmurje in northeast Slovenia
(Map: Matjaž Geršič)
113
Geographical names in the languages of ocial minorities in Slovenia
Fig. 8. Bilingual sign at the entrance to a Prekmurje selement
(Photo: Jurij Senegačnik)
Fig. 9. Biling ual sign at the entrance to a store in L endava, the center of
the Prek murje bilingual area (Photo: Road-adventures.si)
nicipalities (Figure 7): twenty in the Municipality of Lendava (Hung.
Lendva), ve in the Municipality of Moravske Toplice (Hung. Alsómarác),
two in the Municipality of Dobrovnik (Hung. Dobronak), two in the Mu-
nicipality of Hodoš (Hung. Hodos), and one in the Municipality of Ša-
lovci (Hung. Sal).
In all of the censuses, the number of individuals with Hungarian as
their native language has been greater than the number of those that have
identied themselves as Hungarians. e number of the laer continues
to decrease, which is largely connected with negative demographic trends
in their selement area, resulting from rurality and a location along the
state border that was closed for several decades. Around 83% of the mem-
bers of the Hungarian ethnic minority live in the native bilingual sele-
ments (Figure 8). Half of the Hungarian population speaks Hungarian
114
Matjaž Geršič, Drago Kladnik & Peter Repolusk
in the family, and the other half speaks Hungarian and Slovenian. Hun-
garians predominate in the majority of the rural selements, but they no
longer form a majority in the local bilingual town of Lendava (Figure 9).
A problem closely connected to the nature of the endonym has arisen
in connection with bilingual names in the ethnically mixed area in Prek-
murje. A few years ago, one of the local communities decided to dissoci-
ate itself from the ethnically mixed area, whereby ocial bilingualism was
also abandoned. is includes the selements of Lončarovci, Ivanjševci,
and Berkovci pri Prosenjakovcih (Hung. Gerőháza, Jánosfa, and Berke-
háza), for which it is no longer clear, based on the denition of an endo-
nym, whether these remain endonyms or rather have become Hungarian
exonyms instead. Although ocial bilingualism was already abandoned
two decades ago, all three selement names are still wrien in bilingual
form in the latest edition of Veliki atlas Slovenije (Great Slovenian Atlas,
2013) (Figure 10), whereas the ocially appropriate monolingual forms
are used on the National Index Map (Furlan et al. 2008) produced in
2008 (Figure 11).
. e Roma community in Slovenia
A third special-status ethnic group in Slovenia is the Roma. e Roma
Community Act also denes the status of the Roma population. In their
case, no precise spatial area of selement is dened because the Roma
groups are spread across all of Slovenia, with the majority living in the
east (Prekmurje) and south (Lower Carniola and the Sava Valley). How-
ever, twenty municipalities are dened in which the Roma have a signif-
icant population and where protection measures are being applied more
intensively (Figure 12).
ese municipalities also have Roma representatives on the municipal
councils, but they do not have a representative in the Slovenian parlia-
ment. e number of Roma is considerably larger than what the statisti-
cal data show. According to the social services and detailed demographic
studies (Josipovič & Repolusk 2003), around 8,500 Roma or even more
live in Slovenia.
As a rule, no Roma selements are recognized as independent spa-
tial-statistical categories in Slovenia. e Roma usually live in clusters,
115
Geographical names in the languages of ocial minorities in Slovenia
Fig. 10. A section of the topographic map showing the bilingual sele-
ments in Prekmu rje that lost t heir bilingua l status yea rs ago (Veliki atlas
Slovenije 2 013 , 337).
Fig. 11. A section from the National Index Map (Furlan et al. 2008), in
which the selement names of Lončarovci and Berkovci pri Prosen-
jakovcih are included exclusively in their monolingual Slovenian form.
116
Matjaž Geršič, Drago Kladnik & Peter Repolusk
in what are usually more or less separate parts of a larger selement. Be-
tween 105 and 130 clusters of this type can be found in larger selements in
Slovenia (Zupančič 2007). e areas seled by the Roma are morpholog-
ically dierent from the rest of the selement, but sited adjacent to it (Fig-
ure 13). Over the past two decades, only three new selements were o-
cially established because of a notable predominance of Roma. ese are
Pušča in the Municipality of Murska Sobota, Sovinek in the Municipality
of Semič, and Kerinov Grm in the Municipality of Krško (Zupančič 2015).
Usually the Roma geographical names do not dier from the Sloveni-
an ones. e problem partly lies in the degree of standardization of the
Roma language and the establishment of a uniform standard for all Roma
groups. e Roma language is predominantly used at cultural events and
in preschools, and to a lesser extent also in the media.
. e German community in Slovenia
e German-speaking ethnic group also used to be native to Slovenia, but
its numbers decreased drastically aer the First and the Second World
Wars.
Fig. 12 . Areas wit h Roma commun ities in Sloven ia (Map: Matjaž Ge ršič)
117
Geographical names in the languages of ocial minorities in Slovenia
In the High and Late Middle Ages, feudal lords colonized some sparse-
ly seled parts of Slovenia with German-speaking serfs, especially from
Carinthia and Tyrol (Mihelič 1998, 290‒291). ey contiguously seled
in the Sora Plain (and were soon Slovenianized), the Bača Gorge, the
headwaters of the Selška Sora River in the southern part of the Julian Alps
(where they persisted until the mid-nineteenth century), and the Kočevje
region, where a contiguous linguistic enclave (Figure 14) survived until
the Second World War.
Fig. 13. A typica l living environment of Roma communities i n Slovenia
(Photo: Ljubo Vukelič)
Fig. 14. A sign in German (le) and Goschee German (right) on the
memorial plaque on the wall of the Holy Sepulcher Chapel at Corpus
Christi Church in Kočevje’s Trata neighborhood (Photo: Wikimedia)
118
Matjaž Geršič, Drago Kladnik & Peter Repolusk
From the time of their arrival in what is now Slovenia, the Kočevje Ger-
mans have diered signicantly from the Germans living in other parts of
Slovenia because they seled in the Kočevje area primarily for economic
reasons. e rst colonists were brought in the 1430s by Count Oton of
Ortenburg and came from Carinthia and Tyrol.
In 1910 there were sixty-one ethnically mixed and 110 completely Ger-
man selements in the Kočevje area with 17,184 inhabitants. In 1931 only
thirty-one selements were completely German and 11,878 inhabitants
spoke German as their native language (Kladnik 2009, 403).
Aer the Second World War, the Germans in the Kočevje region o-
cially no longer existed. As part of an agreement between Germany and
Italy, nearly all of them were relocated to Lower Styria, which was part
of the German Reich at that time (Ferenc & Šumrada 1991, 179). Prior to
this, the Slovenian inhabitants there had been exiled to Serbia.
Many selements were completely destroyed, and the names of the
others were Slovenianized; some of them were simply translated. None-
theless, a strong German inuence can still be recognized in their names.
us Göenitz (originally a Slovenian name) corresponds to Gotenica,
Goschee to Kočevje, Handlern to Handlerji, Hasenfeld to Zajčje Polje,
Lienfeld to Livold, Moos to Mlaka pri Kočevski Reki, Reichenau to Ra-
jhenav, Schalkendorf to Šalka vas, Stalzern to Štalcerji, and Zwischlern to
Cvišlerji (Kladnik 2009, 403).
roughout this period, the German population also lived in Slovenian
towns, where they generally comprised a higher social and economically
stronger stratum of the population. e towns were the focal points of
semi-planned Germanization; for instance, up until 1848 Ljubljana used
exclusively German street names (Geršič & Kladnik 2016, 258‒259), the
proponents of which became the victims of political and ideological re-
prisals aer the founding of Yugoslavia and the political emancipation of
the Slovenians, as well as aer the Second World War (Kladnik 2009, 396).
Four German societies remain active today: three in the Goschee
German selement area and one in the Apače Basin west of the border
town of Gornja Radgona (Heberle 2008).
119
Geographical names in the languages of ocial minorities in Slovenia
To date, the Slovenian Government Commiee for the Standardization
of Geographical Names has standardized the names of countries and ma-
jor dependent territories, which are treated as Slovenian exonyms. Ap-
proximately one thousand geographical names from the 1:1,000,000 map
of Slovenia were standardized in 2001, and all of the geographical names
within Slovenia as displayed on the 1:250,000 National Index Map (Fur-
lan et al. 2008) were standardized in 2008.
e National Index Map features all of the bilingual names of sele-
ments with Slovenian and Italian as ocial languages (separated with a
slash), whereas other geographical names in the ethnically mixed area that
have all been standardized are wrien only in Slovenian. With regard to
the consistent use of bilingual names in the ethnically mixed area, the o-
cial Slovenian minority protection policy has even gone so far as to force-
fully introduce bilingual forms for some more recent toponyms of Sloveni-
an origin, which although strange, undoubtedly denes the location with-
in this area. e Italian versions of the remaining geographical names will
also have to be carefully studied and standardized. e same also applies
to the ethnically mixed area along the Slovenian-Hungarian state border.
In the future, the standardization of geographical names in bilingual ar-
eas will have to continue. is activity will be supervised by the aforemen-
tioned Slovenian Government Commiee for the Standardization of Ge-
ographical Names. In addition to the names of selements already stand-
ardized, other geographical names found in the ocial registers (Register
zemljepisnih imen, REZI) at various scales (1:5,000 and 1:25,000) of the Sur-
veying and Mapping Authority will also have to be standardized. Figures
15 and 16 provide two examples, the rst from Slovenian Istria and the sec-
ond from Prekmurje, that show the current situation in the registers that
have been transferred to digital orthophotos. It can be seen that the names
include either Slovenian names or Slovenianized Italian and Hungarian
names. e commiee has yet to standardize these names, but great aen-
tion will have to be paid to the actual bilingualism and modern functional-
ity of the names, which are subject to constant change, like everything else.
120
Matjaž Geršič, Drago Kladnik & Peter Repolusk
Fig. 15. Except for the names of selements, the names in the southern
part of Slovenian Istria remain monolingual for the time being in the
Register of Geographical Names (Map: Matjaž Geršič)
Fig. 16. In t he Register of Geographica l Names, the names in the c entral
part of the Prekmurje bilingual area remain exclusively monolingual
(either Slovenia n or Hungari an) for the ti me being (Map: Matja ž Geršič)
121
Geographical names in the languages of ocial minorities in Slovenia
e standardization of geographical names in Slovenia is vital in order to
ensure proper use of Slovenian names in non-Slovenian atlases and on
the internet.
e German Neue Orbis Weltatlas (New Orbis World Atlas, 1992) in-
corporates a map of the extreme northern part of Slovenia (Figure 17)
on which place names and other geographical names are almost exclu-
sively wrien in German. For example, Črna na Koroškem is wrien as
Schwarzenbach, Luče as Leutsch, Prevalje as Prävali, Radenci as Radein,
Ribnica na Pohorju as Reifnig, Ruše as Maria Rast, Solčava as Sulzbach,
Veržej as Wernsee, Zgornja Velka as Oberwölling, and Žirovnica as Sche-
raunitz.
Fig. 17. Detail from a German atlas show ing part of northeast Slovenia
where the majority of geographical names are wrien in German only
(Neue Orbis Weltatlas 199 2, 5 5).
ese are minor selements that indeed had German names under the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, but which fell out of use in everyday life both
in Slovenia and elsewhere. Such an exceptional degree of exonymization
122
Matjaž Geršič, Drago Kladnik & Peter Repolusk
cannot be explained by any need other than that of responding to polit-
ical impulses. However, at least on maps, the number of deviations of
this type has been declining recently due to increased UNGEGN activity.
Another example of the poor use of Slovenian geographical names oc-
curs in Italy. is is illustrated by the list of selement names in the Mu-
nicipality of Tolmin used in the Italian version of Wikipedia, in which all
seventy-two selements appear rst in Italian with the Slovenian name in
parentheses (Table 3). In the last decade, some Italian names have been
changed or added when previously only Slovenian names were wrien
(Kladnik 2009, 405).
Table 3. Il comune di Tolmino è diviso in insediamenti
(naselja) (Tolmino, Wikipedia.org; ‘e Municipality of Tolmin
is divided into selements’; *error in the Slovenian name;
**selement was dissolved and no longer exists).
Baccia di Modrea (Bača pri Modreju) Paniqua (Ponikve)
Baccia di Piedicolle (Bača pri Podbrdu)Peccine (Pečine)
Camina (Kamno) Piedicolle (Podbrdo)
Cal (Tolmino) (Kal)Piedimelze (Podmelec)
Chiesa San Giorgio (Kneža)Poglie (Polje)
Ciadra (Čadrg)Polubino (Poljubinj)
Cighino (Čiginj)Porsena (Porezen)
Clavice (Klavže)Pràpeno di Lubino (Prapetno)
Colle Pietro (Petrovo Brdo)Pràpeno del Monte (Prepetno Brdo)
Coritenza (Koritnica)Rauna di Piedimelze (Kneške Ravne)
Cosarsa (Kozaršče)Ràuna di Sàbicce (Tolminske Ravne)
Cosmarizze (Kozmerice)Roce (Roče)
Cucco di Gracova (Kuk)Rue di Gracova (Rut)
Daber (Daber)Rue di Volzana (Volčanski Ruti)
Lungo Las (Dolgi Laz)Sàbbice (Žabče)
Dòllia (Dolje)Zacrie (Zakraj)
Dobrocheni (Drobočnik)Santa Lucia d’Isonzo (Most na Soči)
Gàbria di Tolmino (Gabrje)Santa Lucia Stazione (Postaja)
123
Geographical names in the languages of ocial minorities in Slovenia
Vea del Monte (Gorski Vrh)Sant’Osvaldo [“Strizisce”] (Stržišče)
Gracova Serravalle (Grahovo ob Bači)Sella di Piedimelze (Sela nad Podmelcem)
Grandi (Grant)Sella di Volzana (Sela pri Volčah)
Grudenza (Grudinca*)Sellìschie di Tolmino (Selišče)
Villa Iùsina (Hudajužna)Selze di Caporeo (Selce)
Idria della Baccia (Idrija pri Bači)Slappe d’Idria (Slap ob Idrijci)
Lisizza (Lisec**) Soolmino (Zatolmin)
Loia (Loje)Stopenìco (Stopnik)
Logarse (Logaršče)Temeline (Temljine)
Log [di sopra] (Gorenji Log)Tertenico (Trtni k)
Lom di Canale (Kanalski Lom)Tribussa di Monte Sanvito (Dolenja
Trebuša)
Lom di Tolmino (Tolminski Lom)Tribussa (Gorenja Trebuša)
Lubino (Ljubinj)Tolmino (Tolmino * )
Modrea (Modrej)Vea di Monte San Vito (Bukovski Vrh)
Modreuzza (Modrejce)Villa Groa di Dante (Zadlaz-Žabče*)
Monte Sanvito (Šentviška gora*)Vollària (Vol arje)
Monte Snoile (Znojile)Volzana (Volče)
Oblocca (Obloke)Zadlas Ciadra (Zadlaz-Čadrg*)
is kind of presentation is all the more problematic because the Italian
names are cited rst and the Slovenian names are wrien in parentheses,
as though they were exonyms. Note that this part of Slovenia was indeed
part of Italy during the interwar period (from 1920 to 1943), as was a third
of what is now Slovenian territory, but its inhabitants were exclusively
Slovenian (Kladnik 2009, 408).
Although some place names have an old, well-established Italian form,
based on the local romance dialect (i.e. Cighino, Santa Lucia, Tol mino ),
when comparing the variants of individual names in Italian and Slovene
a person with only a rudimentary knowledge of Slavic languages will
quickly conclude that during the interwar period the majority of the orig-
inal Slovenian names were only Italianized supercially and without any
deeper semantic logic.
124
Matjaž Geršič, Drago Kladnik & Peter Repolusk
Slovenia is a country in which minority issues are handled in an exempla-
ry manner. is is especially true for the native, more or less contiguously
populated areas of the Italian and Hungarian ethnic minorities. e mem-
bers of both groups have a representative in the ninety-member Slovenian
parliament, have their own media, and, most importantly, receive educa-
tion in their native language. Furthermore, the members of the majori-
ty Slovenian population that live in the ethnically mixed areas also learn
how to write in the language of the minority and use it in primary school.
is approach ensures that functional bilingualism is maintained,
something that is also manifested externally through the consistent use
of bilingual names of selements on the signs along the main roads. Slo-
venian selement names (but only up to the level of entire selements,
without individual hamlets) and other important geographical names
have already been standardized, whereas the Italian and Hungarian names
have not. As we write, preparations are underway to carry out this de-
manding process. Special aention will also have to be dedicated to pro-
cessing other names that have not yet been standardized, including many
bilingual names. Because the relevant records are fairly scant, these names
will doubtless have to be studied in greater detail.
Slovenia is doing an exemplary job in taking care of its ocial native
minorities, which comprise several thousand members living in a more
or less contiguous selement paern; yet, it fervently refuses to recog-
nize similar rights for the signicantly larger number of immigrants from
elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia, who mostly moved to Slovenia aer
the Second World War. ese people migrated to industrialized Slove-
nia as economic migrants and seled largely in towns. In the 2002 census,
which was the last time Slovenia’s ethnic composition was inventoried,
the number of Serbs, Croatians, Bosniacs, Macedonians, Albanians, and
Montenegrins signicantly exceeded 100,000 (Šircelj 2003, 141).
Despite occasional appeals from these immigrants, Slovenia is trying
hard to integrate these people because it is not willing to recognize an
ocial ethnic minority status for them. is would demand extensive
changes in education and culture, but it would not aect the use of geo-
graphical names within Slovenia because exonyms for the Slovenian ter-
125
Geographical names in the languages of ocial minorities in Slovenia
ritory used by members of the immigrant ethnicities are extremely rare
(Kladnik 2009, 409).
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