In the second half of the 19th century, Catholic authors from Prekmurje adopted New Slovene (the common Slovene literary language), while Protestant authors kept using the "old Slovene language" up until the end of the First World War and the unification of Prekmurje with the mother nation. The Protestants perceived the unification of the language as an ecclesiastical and political question, aligned with the prevalence of Catholicism in the area between the Mura and Raba rivers. Misguided language policy made the process of Slovene language unification more difficult. As a result, the uniform literary norm established itself gradually, in some areas only after 1919.
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