The Jaun Valley dialect is a Slovene dialect in the Carinthian dialect group

Carinthian dialect group

The Carinthian dialect group is a group of closely related dialects of Slovene. The Carinthian dialects are spoken by Carinthian Slovenes in Austria, in Slovenian Carinthia, and in the northwestern parts of Slovenian Styria along the upper Drava Valley, and in the westernmost areas of Upper...

. It is primarily spoken in the Jaun Valley of Austria as well as in Strojna

Strojna

Strojna is a dispersed settlement in the hills to the northwest of Ravne na Koroškem in the Carinthia region in northern Slovenia, close to the border with Austria.The local church in is dedicated to Saint Ulrich . It was built in 1848.-External links:*...

 and Libeliče

Libeliče

Libeliče is a village in the Municipality of Dravograd in the Carinthia region in northern Slovenia, right on the border with Austria.The parish church in the settlement is dedicated to Saint Martin and belongs to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Maribor...

, Slovenia. It is spoken west of a line from Diex

Diex

Diex is a town in the district of Völkermarkt in Carinthia in Austria. It is known for its Gothic fortified church on a hilltop....

 to Völkermarkt

Völkermarkt

Völkermarkt is a city of about 11,000 inhabitants in Carinthia, Austria.According to the 2001 census 2.6% of the population are Carinthian Slovenes....

 to Eberndorf

Eberndorf

Eberndorf is a town and summer resort in the district of Völkermarkt in Carinthia in Austria, the main town in the Jaun Valley , southeast of Lake Klopein....

, east of Sittersdorf

Sittersdorf

Sittersdorf is a town in the district of Völkermarkt in Carinthia in south central Austria. According to the 2001 census, 19.8% of the population were Carinthian Slovenes.- External links :* - town website...

, and north of the Ebriach dialect

Ebriach dialect

The Ebriach dialect is a Slovene dialect in the Carinthian dialect group. It is spoken in Austrian Carinthia around Bad Eisenkappel, in the watershed of the Vellach River and Ebriach Creek , and Jezersko.-Phonological and morphological characteristics:...

. Major settlements in the dialect area are Griffen

Griffen, Austria

Griffen is a town in the district of Völkermarkt in Carinthia in Austria, home to the Griffen Abbey. It is the birthplace of Austrian writer Peter Handke....

, Kühnsdorf, Globasnitz

Globasnitz

Globasnitz is a town in the district of Völkermarkt in Carinthia in Austria.A considerable percentage of the population are Carinthian Slovenes, hence Slovene is together with German an official language of the municipality....

, Bleiburg

Bleiburg

Bleiburg is a small town in the south Austrian state of Carinthia , south-east of Klagenfurt , in the district of Völkermarkt, some four kilometres from the border with Slovenia....

, and Lavamünd

Lavamünd

Lavamünd is a town in the district of Wolfsberg in Carinthia in Austria....

.

Phonological and morphological characteristics

The Jaun Valley dialect has pitch accent

Pitch accent

Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a syllable or mora within a word. The placement of this tone or the way it is realized can give different meanings to otherwise similar words...

 and there has been accentual retraction from final circumflexes. It lacks Slovenian palatalization, has partially preserved the Proto-Slavic nasal vowel

Nasal vowel

A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...

s, long ə > a, Proto-Slavic a > , ła > wa, the phoneme /w/ is preserved, and šč > š. The addition of š- before deictics

Deixis

In linguistics, deixis refers to the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place...

in t- (e.g., štam for tam 'there'; known as štekanje in Slovene) is typical. The dialects contains a number of subdialects, primarily differing from north to south, but also from east to west to some extent.