Kras – a polysemous term with international recognition

Abstract

The term kras (karst) has three implications in the Slovenian language: it appears as a topographical name for the
Kras (Karst) region or the Kras (Karst) Plateau, as an appellative denoting a rocky landscape and as a technical term
»karst« used in karstology. Karstology as a scientific discipline started to develop on the key examples from the Slovenian
karst. Consequently, Slovenian terms denoting various karst features were passed into international karstological
terminology. In the Slovenian language the Karst is also referred to as the »Mother Karst« in the sense of »the cradle
of karst«; the area between Vrhnika and Trieste, where the first karst features were described, is called the Classical
Karst. The term stands for a typical karst landscape and prototypical relief, whose features are treated by contemporary
karstology as typical or basic (classical) and to which all other karstic features throughout the world are compared.