WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY A VOWEL?

or sell a few consonants?

At first glance, it seems easy. Just add a ji, ja, ca, or ek, to a word, and you've quickly got some Slovene under your belt. But then comes the reality. Before you add that little suffix, you've got to string 5 consonants together, really fast, while simultaneously carrying a melodic tune.

Because then, and only then, will you be speaking Slovene.

There are only 21 consonants in the Slovene alphabet, and no doubt, they stick together.

Now, I understand that without w, x, y, and q, optimal use of the others is imperative, but really, this seems a bit extreme.

My sweet ljubeznic,

or presenecenje! !

or oh, she's just a little sramezljiv,

or vzdrzevanje on your car. Really now.

And unfortunately, as exciting as Slovenia is, one has no choice but to abandon that word altogether upon arrival. Because by the time you've said vznemirljiv, the fun is already over.

And the sine qua non?

Ali lahko govorite bolj pocas prosim?

((i.e. Would you please speak more slowly?))

Now that bloggists, is the ultimate onomatopoeia. Because really, who of us could ever say that at any speed other than slow?

There are 2.4 million people in the world who speak Slovene, and I am confident they account for that small percentage of humans with language centers in both the left and the right hemispheric cortices. MRI scanning of Slovenian brains would most definitely yield some enLIGHTening data.

Clemon, the Chinese teacher put it best when he said, "Vell, you Sve, in Slovenia, one has to learn English, because otherwise, how would you ever learn Chinese? You sve, there is no such thing as a Slovene-Chinese dictionary".

Slovene is one of the Slavic languages, and it has been around for a long, long time. It is one of the very few languages with dual grammatical forms --i.e. not just singular and plural, but in addition, there are different words for groups of two vs. groups greater than two -- and this is one reason it is indeed difficult for us single hemisphere language folks to learn. Slovenes on the otherhand, know an average of 3 or 4 languages, which usually include Slovene, English, Croatian, and then one or two others such as Italian, Macedonian, or French.

Additionally, Slovene has a striking relative excess of ways to express love, friendship, and good will. Combine that with the fact that when one speaks it, he or she is essentially singing all day (i.e. the melodic tune), and it becomes apparent why Slovenes are happy, their country is safe, and beauty is rampant.

During WWII, the Italian Fascists, and then the occupying Germans, suppressed the language, but in the former Yugoslavia, it was recognized as an official language of the country. Today, it is an official language of the EU, and along with Italian and Hungarian, it is of course, the official language of its own beautiful country.

So, that bloggists, is your Slovene lesson for the day.

As they like to say at Staples,

"That was brezskrben"

"EXTRAVAGNJA"

How many languages can fit on the side of a Special K box?
That would be 12.