Slovene Language and the Law on Higher Education – We Wish to Continue the Proud Legacy of Pleteršnik’s Great and Outstanding Slovene

Authors

Marko Jesenšek
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts image/svg+xml , Unviersity of Maribor, Faculty of Arts
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18690/um.5.2026.1

Synopsis

Pleteršnik’s Slovene-German Dictionary accumulates the best Slovene lexicogra-phy could offer, adding also numerous manuscript collections and systematically gathered material from the Slovene language of the19th century. This resulted in the creation of the best existing dictionary of the Slovene language, containing also a contemporary phonological theory and the foundations for a Slovene handbook of orthography. Indeed, it also demonstrates Pleteršnik’s attitude towards language in general – it defends Slovene as the language of instruction and at the same time as a language which by contrast is used for the understanding of numerous foreign languages. Pleteršnik’s view of the mother tongue is currently confronted with the effort to amend the Law on Higher Education demonstrated in the senseless desire for English to become the language of instruction at Slovene universities.

Author Biography

Marko Jesenšek, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Unviersity of Maribor, Faculty of Arts

Marko Jesenšek is a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, an Honorary Member of the Slavic Society of Slovenia and a Professor of Slovene at the Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor. He is the author of 13 independent monographs and co-author of two. He edited 54 monographs and books of proceedings. His book The Slovene Language in the Alpine and Panonian Language Area  (Kraków: Universitas) is considered to be a valuable contribution into the world treasury of knowledge about the linguistic situation in Slovenia. He also wrote an extensive entry Prekmurje Slovene (Prekmurski jezik) for the Brill Encyclopedia ESLL (Encyclopedia of Slavic Languages and Linguistics), the most comprehensive reference work about Slavic languages to date. He is a co-founder and chief editor of the international journal Slavia Centralis, and the editor of the international Series Zora (157 books published in the Series so far). For his research and scientific work, he received the Zois Award for excellence in the field of the Slovene Language.

Maribor, Slovenia. E-mail: marko.jesensek@um.si

Downloads

PDF

Volume

ZORA 160: Imenitnost slovenščine sto let po Pleteršniku

Pages

1-30

Published

July 16, 2026

Series

ZORA

Categories

Copyright (c) 2026 University of Maribor, University of Maribor Press

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Jesenšek, M. (2026). Slovene Language and the Law on Higher Education – We Wish to Continue the Proud Legacy of Pleteršnik’s Great and Outstanding Slovene. In M. Jesenšek (Ed.), & (Ed.), ZORA 160: Imenitnost slovenščine sto let po Pleteršniku (Vols. 160, pp. 1-30). University of Maribor Press. https://doi.org/10.18690/um.5.2026.1