»Every Beginning is Difficult and Imperfect«

Abstract

Primož Trubar us the father of Slovene literary writing. He wrote the Slovene literary langugae with only five vowel characters (a e i o u) and sonorant with u/v, i/j, m, n, and l. He did nor mark palatalization in l and n, but he hinted at it by writing e instead of a after l and n. He sometimes spelled hard l in word-final position with double l. He had trouble with obstruents in word-final position, e.g., he spelled jezik as jezig. Phrases with numerals display inconsistency in agreement and government. He used too many borrowings and calques from German, but he was protective of the individuality of Slovene vis-à-vis German and Croatian.