The Upper Savinja dialect (''zgornjesavinjsko narečje'',Smole, Vera. 1998. "Slovenska narečja." ''Enciklopedija Slovenije'' vol. 12, pp. 1–5. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, p. 2. ''zgornja savinjščina'' Logar, Tine. 1996. ''Dialektološke in jezikovnozgodovinske razprave''. Ljubljana: SAZU, p. 52.) is a Slovene dialect in the

Styrian dialect group The Styrian dialect group (''štajerska narečna skupina'', ''štajerščina''Logar, Tine. 1996. ''Dialektološke in jezikovnozgodovinske razprave''. Ljubljana: SAZU, p. 52.) is a group of closely related dialects of Slovene. The Lower Carniolan ...

. It is spoken in the upper

Savinja The Savinja () is a river in northeast Slovenia which flows mostly in the Upper and Lower Savinja Valley ( sl, Zgornja in Spodnja Savinjska dolina) and through the cities of Celje and Laško. The Savinja is the main river of the Savinja Alps (Sl ...

Valley and along the

Dreta The Dreta () is a river in Styria, northeastern Slovenia. The river is long. Its source is near the Črnivec Pass in the Kamnik Alps. It flows through the town of Gornji Grad, Bočna, and Šmartno ob Dreti, and merges with the Savinja River in Na ...

River, extending eastwards to east of

Mozirje Mozirje (; german: Prassberg''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 4: ''Štajersko''. 1904. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 46.) is a small town on the Savinja River in northern Slovenia. It is ...

and

Nazarje Nazarje () is a town at the confluence of the Savinja and Dreta rivers in northern Slovenia. It is the largest town and the centre of the Municipality of Nazarje. Traditionally it belongs to the region of Styria and is now included in the Savinja ...

, up to the

Solčava subdialect The Solčava subdialect (''solčavski govor'') is a Slovene subdialect in the Styrian dialect group. It is a subdialect of the Upper Savinja dialect spoken around Solčava and the Logar Valley. It is the westernmost of the (sub)dialects in the S ...

northwest of

Luče Luče (; sometimes ''Luče ob Savinji'', german: Leutsch) is the largest settlement and the centre of the Municipality of Luče in northern Slovenia. It belongs to the traditional region of Styria and is now included in the Savinja Statistical Regi ...

Solčava Solčava (; German: ''Sulzbach'') is a village in the Upper Savinja Valley in northern Slovenia close to the Austrian border. It is the largest settlement and the seat of the Municipality of Solčava. Traditionally it belonged to the region of Sty ...

and the Logar Valley. It includes the settlements of

Ljubno Ljubno ob Savinji (; german: Laufen''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 4: ''Štajersko''. 1904. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 44.) is the largest town and the centre of the Municipality of Lj ...

, Gornji Grad, and

Bočna Bočna () is a settlement in the Municipality of Gornji Grad in Slovenia. The area belongs to the traditional region of Styria and is now included in the Savinja Statistical Region. The settlement includes the hamlets of Čeplje, Delce, Kropa, Nad ...

.Toporišič, Jože. 1992. ''Enciklopedija slovenskega jezika''. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, p. 375.

Phonological and morphological characteristics

The Upper Savinja dialect does not have

pitch accent A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ( ...

. It has a late lengthened acute, soft ''l'' and ''n'', palatalization of consonants before (former) front vowels, and a very dark ''l''.

References

Slovene dialects in Styria (Slovenia) {{Slavic-lang-stub