The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Slovenians

SLOVENIANS, or SLOVENES, the native name of the Slavic inhabitants of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the Austrian maritime territory, a narrow strip in the west of Hungary and in Venetian Friuli. By the Germans they are often called Wends or Winds. They settled in these districts toward the end of the 6th century, having migrated there from Pannonia. Christianity was introduced among them not later than the 8th century. Their land was incorporated under the name of the Windic March with the empire of Charlemagne. Out of this march were afterward formed the duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, which fell to Germany and ultimately to Austria. Their total number is about 1,300,000. The language of the Slovenians is closely allied to the Servian. (See Slavs). It possesses some very old and valuable monuments of the Slavonic tongue. The oldest, which is at the same time the most ancient of all the Slavonic literary relics, is the Munich manuscript, of the date 957-994. written by Bishop Abraham, of Freising, in Bavaria, and consisting of three articles on religious subjects. It is printed in Kopitar's ‘Glagolitza Clozianus’ (Vienna 1836). After a long slumber the dialect was resuscitated for literary purposes in the 16th century, when several ecclesiastics brought it to a high state of development. In 1584 Bohoricz published a grammar of the language, and in the same year there appeared a translation of the whole Bible. The best grammar is that of Kopitar (Laibach 1808). A dictionary by Jarnik and Mark was published in 1832, and collections of popular songs were published by Wraz and by Korytko in 1839. See Slavs.