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In Slovenia, the Little Prince is known as Mali Princ.
The University of Halle has put together a project called Der Kleine Prinz in 100 Sprachen (The Little Prince in 100 Languages) The basic idea is to translate and record an excerpt from Saint-Exupéry’s famous story into numerous languages and dialects. (Including Slovenian.)
According to the site, the majority of voicework is done by native speakers. Non-native speakers are specially marked with the symbol "L2." (Like here, for example.) In other words, the Slovene recording (which has no "L2") is done by a native Slovenian speaker from Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Now… go ahead and listen to the Slovene recording by a native speaker from Ljubljana, Slovenia, and tell me if you notice anything strange. Go ahead. I’ll wait here.
How did it go?
Look, I don’t claim to be an expert in Slovene, but even I laughed when I heard that reading, and I’m a lousy, no-good foreigner. There’s absolutely no way you can tell me that that voice belongs to a LjubljanÄ?anka. [mp3]
Is it even the voice of a Slovene? Here I’m not sure, and need your help. My first thought was no — but then, there are so many dialects here; maybe this lady is a Carinthian Slovene? It definitely sounds Germanic. Unfortunately, I don’t know Slovenian dialects well enough to recognize them.
Perhaps someone reading this knows the answer. Anyone?
(Via Viewropa )
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You are so heartless, Mike. It’s a voice of a hearing impaired person.
It sure sounds quite similar to my colleagues from Celovec. They don’t pronounce the R like Slovenes and sound like Germans trying to speak Slovene.
It’s like listening to those Slovene news on ORF (Austrian TV). It Austrian woman (with Slovenian roots) for sure! It’s BAD
then it probably is a Slovene from Koroska living in Ljubljana
Tststs … It’s not bad, it’s different …
I played several of the samples to my wife, who is from Serbia, without mentioning why I wanted her to listen. Instead, I asked if she could identify the languages. She got Bosnian (that brought a good laugh from her), Croat and Macedonian. However, when I played the Slovenian she was confused by the fact that the language was Slovenian, but the speaker was not. As I said, I didn’t mention anything to her.
Hi!
No, I’m sure this can’t be a native speaker from Slovenia and I think that even people from KoroÅ¡ka speak much better then this voice. I think that some German just tried to read that loud and then they just post the tape on web. That’s sad. Now everybody thinks that Slovene sounds so bad
Funny
I think they got a Slovenian woman from Slovenian minority who has been living in Germany ever since and never visited Slovenia. A German can’t read like this. And a Slovenian from Slovenia can’t read like this, too. I don’t think it’s somebody from Koroska or an even hearing impaired person. It’s just a Slovenian born and living in Germany.
Sad, funny, different. I personaly don’t like it (the sound) but I’m happy that Slovenian people abroad still speak their own language.
No way is that a German accent. It’s Austrian. Specifically, Upper Styrian. I’d wager this was read by a Slovenian woman born and raised in Gradec (Graz).
Also, let’s remember that most Slovenians didn’t want to stay part of Austria. It’s not their fault they got screwed and now sound odd.
I don’t think she’s a Slovenian. A Slovenian wouldn’t pronounce the words “življenje” and “imel” the way she does - with that strange narrow e.
A.
Ok, I am going to send the link to my colleagues in Koroska. Let’s see what they suggest.
Either hearing impaired person or a woman with a strong accent, that’s for sure.
My first asociation was: computer voice. I used a few times the computer voice to read things written in English and it sounded somewhat like this. So.. maybe they computerized the voice of a female Slovenian living near Austria or in Germany.
..it’s just a thought, though.
I don’t think she’s a Slovenian. A Slovenian wouldn’t pronounce the words “življenje” and “imel” the way she does - with that strange narrow e.
Only a Slovenian would pronounce the ‘v’ in ‘življenje’ and ‘l’ in ‘imel‘ and ‘zvedel‘ the way she does. This is an idiom all native Slovenians take for granted.
Her accent is Upper Styrian.
I’m 85% sure it’s Upper Styrian (I have a friend from a village around Graz and she sounds in English exactly like that).
I am from Koroska - on the first part of the - realy bad read - i think, thats one from us, but the second is so horrible bad that i not know any nativ carinthia slovene, with such a wrong german influence slovene…. so i mean that she coud be defenitly a Slovene from Styria or a woman who learned slovene in austria ….
My colleague from Celovec thinks it’s not a native speaker neither from Slo nor from Koroska although the r partly fits the Rosental dialect. Some sound combination are not typical at all for someone who really knows Slovene. He thinks it’s not a native speaker, but will ask more colleagues. Yes, let’s keep the company busy.
I listened to a few other samples and found some of them rather funny, the funniest of them being the one from the Dordrecht (Dutch).
A.
Also very funny is the dialect from Halle (German).
A.
Why is the one from Dordrecht so funny? It sounds right…
It definitely sounds like a Slovenian speaker from around Celovec.
Here is the latest comment from my Carinthian Slovene colleagues:
Also Enddiagnose (vielleicht nicht 100prozentig die ernstgemeinteste):
„Klingt nach einer Asiatin, die in Deutschland Slowenisch studiert“.
Im Ernst: ist sicher keine Nativ-Speakerin. Vielleicht lernt sie Slowenisch, oder aber spricht sie eine andere slawische Sprache und hat versucht brav zu lesen (könnte Ostslawin sein, da einige Merkmale enthalten sind etwa vom Russischen)
____________________
~ “Sounds like an Asian woman who studies Slovene in Germany” (joke)
Definitely not a native speaker. Maybe she is learning Slovene or speaks another slavic language and tried to read (could be from a Eastern Slavic country because of some features from Russian.
Instead of writing this f…unny comments you Slovenckis should do some homework and write articles for YOUR wikipedia!!!
What about ‘ribe’ (postrv, krap, …), ‘kovine’ (jeklo, …).
Greetings from Germany!
We have done our homework but we like to write funny comments about Germansckis speaking Slovenian.
Andrej - don’t make me cry.
Hey, you guys!
I know the lady who did the whole work for this web page. She collected the “voices” mainly on the basis of my book collection (see www.geocities.com/Paris/Concorde/6903/pp-slowen.html for Slovene). I’m sure that many of the speakers are either Germans who study the language over there (it’s Halle, former GDR) - or foreigners who live there for years and decades. I dont believe in the KoroÅ¡ka theory…
Lepe pozdravlje iz Dunaj,
Gerhard