Istro-Romanian language
From Freepedia
| Istro-Romanian (Vlăşeşte/Rumâreşte?) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Croatia |
| Region: | Istria |
| Total speakers: | approx. 500-1000 |
| Ranking: | Not in top 100 |
| Genetic classification: | Indo-European Italic |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | - |
| Regulated by: | - |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | - |
| ISO 639-2 | roa |
| SIL | RUO |
| See also: Language – List of languages | |
Image:Istroromanian-map.png Istro-Romanian is a Romance language used in a few villages in the peninsula of Istria, on the upper northern part of the Adriatic Sea, in Croatia. It is spoken by people who call themselves Vlaşi or Rumâni/Rumâri, but are called Ćiribiri/Ćići by the local population and Istrian Vlachs by linguists.
The number of Istro-Romanian speakers is estimated to be only around 500 to 1000, causing the language to be listed as "seriously endangered" in the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages. Due to its very small number of speakers, living in about eight villages, most notably Žejane and Šušnjevica, there is no public education or press in Istro-Romanian, and its speakers are not even recognised as an official minority in Croatia.
Their number was reduced in the due to assimilation: in the 1921 Italian census there were 1,644 Romanian speakers in the area and in 1926 Romanian scholar Sextil Puşcariu estimated their number to about 3,000.
Many villages have Romanian-style names like Jeian, Buzet (lips), Katun (hamlet), Gradinje (garden), Letaj, Sucodru (forest), Costirceanu (a Romanian name). Some of these names are official, while some are used only by Istro-Romanian speakers.
Contents |
Language
The language resembles standard Romanian, and traditional Romanian linguists consider it to be a Romanian dialect. Another view, that the language is closer to the extinct Dalmatian language than to Romanian, is disregarded by most linguists as the language shows some features that are without any doubt Romanian.
One peculiarity of Istro-Romanian compared with Romanian dialects is the use of rhotacism (with the intervocalic /n/ becoming /r/, for instance "lumină" (meaning "light" in Romanian) becoming "lumira"). This is one of the reasons that some Romanian linguists think that Istro-Romanian evolved from the language spoken in the Apuseni or Maramureş area of Transylvania, which has some similar traits.
Origin
Some linguists believe that the Istro-Romanians migrated to their present region about 1000 years ago from Transylvania, the other possible origin being from Serbia. Some loanwords suggest that before coming to Istria, Istro-Romanians lived for a longer period of time in Northern Dalmatia. However, it is quite clear that Istro-Romanian split from Daco-Romanian later than the other Romanian dialects (Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian).
The first historical record of Istro-Romanians dates back to 1329, when Serbian chronicles mention that a Vlach population was living in the area, although there was an earlier mention from the 12th century of a leader in Istria called Radul (that could be a Romanian name).
Pavle Ivić cited the hypothesis that a sizeable Roman population inhabited the Balkans from west to east across the former Yugoslavia.
Literature
There is no literary tradition; however, in 1905 Calendaru lu rumeri din Istrie ("The Calendar of the Romanians of Istria") was published, and also collections of folk tales and poems have been published since.
External links
- The IstroRomanians in Croatia
- UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages - entry for Istro-Romanian
- Ethnologue report for Istro-Romanian
References
- Wolfgang Dahmen: Istrorumänisch. Lexicon der Romanistische Linguistik. III. Tübingen 1989. 448-460
| Proto-Romanian language | |
| Northern Daco-Romanian (Romanian and Moldovan) | Southern |
| Regulating bodies | |
