German
German and Bavarian dialects have been autochthonous since present-day Slovenia came under the rule of Bavaria in the 8th century. Whereas many immigrants from German-speaking areas adopted Slovene over the centuries, others retained their language. Until the 20th century, the most numerous German-speaking communities were found in the urban centers of Lower Styria, in the Gottschee County in southern Slovenia and in the villages around Apače (Apaško polje) along the Mura river.
According to the last Austrian census of 1910, around 9% of the population of present-day Slovenia spoke German as their native tongue. Towns with a German-speaking majority included Maribor, Celje, Ptuj, Kočevje, Slovenj Gradec, Slovenska Bistrica, Ormož, Dravograd and some other smaller towns.
After World War I, the number of German-speakers dropped significantly: most of the towns were Slovenisized, and German remained the majority language only in the Gottschee County and around Apače. According to the last pre-WWII Yugoslav census, German speakers amounted to 2.5% of the overall population.
After World War II, ethnic Germans were expelled and only few of them remained. In the census of 2002, just 1628 persons (0,1% of the population) declared German as their mother tongue.
Read more about this topic: Languages Of Slovenia
Famous quotes containing the word german:
“Have you never heard of German Becoming, of German Wandering, of the endless migratings of the German soul? Even foreigners know our word ‘Wanderlust.’ If you like, the German is the eternal student, the eternal searcher, among the peoples of the earth.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“I don’t want to shoot any Englishmen. I never saw one ‘til I came up here. But I suppose most of them never saw a German ‘til they came up here.”
—Maxwell Anderson (1888–1959)