Slovenes are Protestants. Slovene woke to a new life in the latter part of the 18th century. Valentin Vodnik was the first poet (see Arch. f. Slav. Phil. (1901), xxiii. 386, xxiv. 74), but his successor France Prešeren (1800–1849) appears to have been really great, worthy of a larger circle of readers. Other poets have been A. Janežič, S. Gregorčič and Murn-Aleksandrov; Erjavec was a story-teller, Jurčič a novelist, but as usual with these beginnings of literature the same man may make a grammar, issue an almanack, and try all kinds of poetry. The two great Slavists Kopitar and Miklosich were Slovenes, but were led astray by race feeling to insist upon Old Slavonic being Old Slovene. They were succeeded by G. Krek and V. Oblak.
The chief centres of Slovene letters are the Matica or Linguistic and Literary Society and the Lyceum at Laibach. The Matica publishes a chronicle (Letopis) and there are many periodicals, chief of which are the Ljubljansky Zvon and Kres, the latter published at Klagenfurt. The liberal and clerical organs carry on a lively polemic.
The Slovene language is the most westerly of the South Slavonic group. It is very closely allied to Serbo-Croatian, but shows some points of resemblance to Čech (retaining dl and tl, loss of aorist, &c). It is split into eight dialects which differ among themselves widely. The people of Resia are sometimes classed quite apart. In phonetics Slovene is remarkable for the change of the original tj dj into č and j (our y) respectively, of ị into u, and for the coincidence of the old half vowels ĭ and ŭ in a dull e. In morphology it has retained the dual of both nouns and verbs more perfectly than any other living language, also the supine and several periphrastic tenses: it has lost its aorist and imperfect, and its participles have mostly been fixed as so-called gerunds or verbal adverbs. The language has suffered much from Germanisms and even developed an article which has since been purified away. There is a free accent and the accented syllables may be long or short. The Resia dialect has preserved the Proto-Slavonic accent very exactly. The Slovenes have always used the Latin alphabet more or less clumsily: recently the orthography has been reformed after the manner of Čech, but uniformity has not yet been reached.
Bibliography.—J. Šuman, “Die Slovenen” in Die Völker Österreich-Ungarns, vol. x. (Vienna, 1881); J. Sket, Slovenisches Sprach- und Übungsbuch (Klagenfurt, 1888); Slovenska Slovstvena Citanka (“Slovene literary reading-book”) (2nd ed., 1906); C. Pečnik, Praktisches Lehrbuch der slowenischen Sprache (Leipzig, 1890); M. Pleteršnik, Slovensko-Nemški Slovar (Sl. Ger. Diet.) (Laibach, 1894–1895); Freisingen Fragments, best ed. V. Vondrák, Čech Akad., pt. iii. (Prague, 1896); V. Oblak, many articles on Sl. Grammar in Archiv f. slav. Philologie (1889 sqq.) ; J. Baudouin de Courtenay, Opyt fonetiki Rezjanskich Govorov (“Attempt at phonetics of the dialects of Resia,” Russian) (Warsaw, 1875); K. Štrekelj, Slovenske narodne Pesmi (“Slovene popular songs”) (Laibach, 1895 sqq.). (E. H. M.)
SLUM, a squalid, dirty street or quarter in a city, town or
village, inhabited by the very poor, destitute or criminal classes;
over-crowding is frequently another characteristic (see Housing).
The word is a comparatively recent one and is of uncertain
origin. It has been doubtfully connected with a dialectal use
of “slump” in the sense of a marshy, swampy place; cf. Ger.
Schlamm, mud, and Eng. dialect slammock, slattern (Skeat,
Etym. Dict., 1910).
SLUYS, BATTLE OF, fought on Saturday the 24th of June
1330, one of the two sea-fights in which King Edward III. of
England commanded in person, the other being that called
Espagnols-sur-Mer (q.v.). The place of the encounter was in
front of the town of Sluis, Sluys, or in French Écluse, on the
inlet between West Flanders and Zeeland. In the middle of the
14th century this was an open roadstead capable of holding large
fleets. It has now been silted up by the river Eede. A French
fleet, which the king, in a letter to his son Edward the Black
Prince, puts at 190 sail, had been collected in preparation for
an invasion of England. It was under the command of Hue
Quiéret, admiral for the king of France, and of Nicholas Béhuchet, who had been one of the king's treasurers, and was probably a lawyer. Part of the fleet consisted of Genoese galleys serving as mercenaries under the command of Barbavera. Although
English historians speak of King Edward’s fleet as inferior in
number to the French, it is certain that he sailed from Orwell
on the 22nd of June with 200 sail, and that he was joined on the
coast of Flanders by his admiral for the North Sea, Sir Robert
Morley, with 50 others. Some of this swarm of vessels were no
doubt mere transports, for the king brought with him the household of his queen, Philippa of Hainault, who was then at Bruges. As, however, one of the queen’s ladies was killed in the battle, it would appear that all the English vessels were employed. Edward anchored at Blankenberghe on the afternoon of the 23rd and sent three squires to reconnoitre the position of the French. The Genoese Barbavera advised his colleagues to go
to sea, but Béhuchet, who as constable exercised the general
command, refused to leave the anchorage. He probably wished
to occupy it in order to bar the king’s road to Bruges. The
disposition of the French was made in accordance with the usual
medieval tactics of a fleet fighting on the defensive. Quiéret
and Béhuchet formed their force into three or four lines, with
the ships tied to one another, and with a few of the largest
stationed in front as outposts. King Edward entered the roadstead on the morning of the 24th, and after manceuvring to place his ships to windward, and to bring the sun behind him, attacked. In his letter to his son he says that the enemy made a noble defence “all that day and the night after.” His ships were arranged in two lines, and it may be presumed that the first attacked in front, while the second would be able to turn the flanks of the opponent. The battle was a long succession of hand-to-hand conflicts to board or to repel boarders. King Edward makes no mention of any actual help given him by his Flemish allies, though he says they were willing, but the French say that they joined after dark. They also assert that the king was wounded by Béhuchet, but this is not certain, and there is no testimony save a legendary one for a personal encounter between him and the French commander, though it would not be improbable. The battle ended with the almost total destruction of the French. Quiéret was slain, and Béhuchet is said to have been hanged by King Edward’s orders. Barbavera escaped to sea with his squadron on the morning of the 25th, carrying off two English prizes. English chroniclers claim that the victory was won with small cost of life, and that the loss of the French was 30,000 men. But no reliance can be placed on medieval estimates of numbers. After the battle King Edward remained at anchor several days, and it is probable that his fleet had suffered heavily.
Authorities.—The story of the battle of Sluys is told from the English side by Sir Harris Nicolas, in his History of the Royal Navy, vol. ii. (London, 1847); and from the French side by M. C. de la Roncière, Histoire de la marine française, vol. i. (Paris, 1899). Both make copious references to original sources. (D. H.)
SLYPE, a variant of “slip” in the sense of a narrow passage; in architecture, the name for the covered passage usually found in monasteries between the transept and the chapter-house, as at Winchester, Gloucester, Exeter and St Albans.
SMACK, a general term for a small decked or half-decked
vessel, sailing under various rigs and used principally for fishing. The word, like so many sea terms, was borrowed from the Dutch, where smak, earlier smacke, is the name of a coasting vessel; it is generally taken as a corruption of snack, cf. Swed. snäcka, Dan. snackke, a small sailing-vessel, and is to be referred to the root seen in “snake,” “snail,” the original meaning a gliding, creeping thing. “Smack,” taste, and “smack,” a smart sounding blow or slap, also used of the sound of the lips in kissing or tasting, must be distinguished. In the first case the word is in O.E. smaec and is common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dan. smag, Ger. schmecken, &c; the second word is onomatopoeic, cf.
“smash,” and is also found in other Teutonic languages. It is
not connected with the word meaning “taste,” though no doubt confused owing to the sense of smacking the lips.
SMALL ISLES, a parish of islands of the Inner Hebrides,
Inverness-shire, Scotland. It consists of the islands of Canna,
Sanday, Rum, Eigg and Muck, lying, in the order named,
like a crescent with a trend from N.W. to S.E., Canna being
the most northerly and Muck the most southerly. They are
separated from Skye by Cuillin Sound and from the mainland
by the Sound of Ardnamurchan. The surface is moorland,
pasture and mountain. They are rich in sea-fowl, the most
common being the eider duck, puffin, Manx shearwater, black
