Freising Fragments (10th century) Primož Trubar (1508-1586)
France Prešeren (1800-1849)  Slovene is a fully developed and
internally richly-structured modern language. The codification
of literary Slovene in grammars, dictionaries and normative
reference books has a rich tradition stemming from the 16th
century (the first Slovene book  was printed in 1550). 
Linguistic situation     Slovene is an Indo-European language
with a highly developed inflectional system (e.g. preservation
of the dual). Together with Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian and
Bulgarian, it is classified within the South Slavic branch of
the Slavic languages, although it also has many features in
common with the West Slavic branch. The geographic territory of
Slovene lies in one of the most complex linguistic contact areas
in Europe, where Slavic converges with Romance, Germanic and
Finno-Ugric.   In comparison to the majority of other Slavic
languages, Slovene has a number of characteristic features in
the areas of phonology, lexicology and m