The Dajnko alphabet or dajnčica was a Slovene writing system invented by Peter Dajnko. It was used in from 1824 to 1839 mostly in Styria (in what is now eastern Slovenia).
Dajnko introduced his alphabet in 1824 in his book Lehrbuch der windischen Sprache (Slovenian Textbook). He decided to replace the older Bohorič alphabet with his own new writing system. He represented the phonemes /ts/, /s/, /z/ with the letters C, S, Z (as in the modern Slovene alphabet) and the phonemes /tʃ/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ with special characters (see table below). In addition, he invented two extra symbols, which were omitted after 1829 (see table below):
| Upper case | Lower case | IPA | Modern Slovene |
|---|---|---|---|
| C | c | /ts/ | c |
| /tʃ/ | č | ||
| S | s | /s/ | s |
| or | /ʃ/ | š | |
| Z | z | /z/ | z |
| X | x | /ʒ/ | ž |
| /nj/ or /ɲ/ | nj | ||
| Y | y | /y/ | ü (in eastern dialects only) |
Dajnko's alphabetical order was as follows:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S Z X T U Y V
The Dajnko alphabet fell out of use after 1839. Soon after this, the Slovenes began using Gaj's alphabet, borrowed from Croatian.
Enciklopedija Slovenije, 2. zvezek, članek Dajnčica. Mladinska knjiga, Ljubljana, 1988.