Istro-Romanian language

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Istro-Romanian Vlăşeşte/Rumâreşte
Spoken in:	Croatia
Region:	Istria
Total speakers:	1000
Language family:	Indo-European  Italic   Romance    East Romance     Istro-Romanian
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	roa
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	ruo
Map of Istro-Romanian, made by Puşcariu in 1926. Note that the Istro-Romanian speaking area was under Italian rule at the time.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Istro-Romanian is a Romance language used in a few villages in the peninsula of Istria, on the northern part of the Adriatic Sea, in Croatia. It is spoken by the Istro-Romanians, a 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 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 - perhaps a double-edged testimony to the fact that the greater number of Istro-Romanian speakers were forced to leave Istria and nearby cities soon after the takeover of Istria from Italy after World War II by Yugoslavia, the parent country to present-day Croatia.

Their number was reduced over time due to this assimilation: in the 1921 Italian census there were 1,644 Istro-Romanian speakers in the area and in 1926 Romanian scholar Sextil Puşcariu estimated their number to about 3,000, but in the 1991 census of Yugoslavia, only 811 registered.

In 1922 the Kingdom of Italy created the city of Valdarsa as the center for the Istro-Romanians, with a school in Istro-Romanian language to offset the disappearance of this neolatin language. The city of Valdarsa reached a population of 3,000 in 1942, but was cancelled by Tito in 1947, when Italy gave Istria to Yugoslavia after World War II. The population of Valdarsa was subsequently reduced to 200 to the village called Susnjevica.

Many villages have Romanian-style names such as Jeian, Buzet ("lips"), Katun ("hamlet"), Gradinje ("garden"), Letaj, Sucodru ("forest"), Costirceanu (a Romanian name). Some of these names are official (recognised by Croatia as their only names), while some are used only by Istro-Romanian speakers.

Contents 1 Language 2 Origin 3 Literature 4 External links 5 References

[edit] 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 make it clearly 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 Romanian language spoken in the Apuseni or Maramureş area of Transylvania, which has some similar traits.

[edit] Origin

Eastern Romance languages Proto-Romanian language Substratum Daco-Romanian (Romanian, Moldovan, Vlach) Grammar | Nouns | Verbs Numerals | Phonology | Lexis Regulating bodies   Romanian Academy   Academy of Sciences of Moldova Aromanian Megleno-Romanian Istro-Romanian This box: view • talk • edit

Some linguists believe that the Istro-Romanians migrated to their present region about 600 years ago from Transylvania, after the Bubonic plague depopulated Istria. Another theory - by no means the only other theory - is that they came from somewhere in present-day Serbia. Some loan words 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), and thus the Serbian theory loses some credibility.

The Transylvanian connection is emphasized by linguists, but more importantly, is alive in the memory of some of the Rumeri themselves who break themselves into two distinct groups - the cicci or cici of surrounding Mune and Žejane area and the vlahi of the Šušnjevica region. Interestingly enough, Iosif Popovici entitled his book Dialectele române din Istria (Halle, 1909) - that is, "The Dialects..." not "The Dialect..." - so indirectly he admitted there were (and still are?) several types of Istro-Romanian dialects in Istria.

Insofar as Romanian linguists themselves are concerned, the opinions are divided: Prof. Dr. Iosif Popovici (1876-1928), who had travelled extensively in Istria, endorsed the theory the Istro-Romanians were natives of Ţara Moţilor (Western Transylvania) who "descended" sometimes during the Middle Ages into Istria. ("Dialectele române din Istria", I, Halle a.d.S., 1914, p. 122 and following). This opinion was shared by Ovid Densuşianu (1873-1938), a Romanian folklorist, philologist, and poet who introduced trends of European modernism into Romanian literature, who did not admit that Istro-Romanians are native to Istria, where we find them today (or he still was finding them in the 1930s when he researched for his book Histoire de la langue roumaine, I, p. 337): "Un premier fait que nous devons mettre en evidence, c'est que l'istro-roumain n'a pu se développer à l'origine là où nous le trouvons aujourd'hui" (The primary fact we must demonstrate is that Istro-Romanian could not have originally developed where it is found today).

The first historical record of Istro-Romanians (not necessarily the "cici") 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.

The italian writer and historian Giuseppe Lazzarini believes that there are more than 5000 istro-romanians in Istria, but most of them identify themselves (census 1991: 811 istro-romanians) with other ethnic groups. He believes that the Istro-Romanians are the descendants of the "melting pot" of the roman legionaries (moved by Augustus to eastern Istria to colonize the borders of Italy) and the Aromanian shepherds, escaped from the Ottoman invasions to settle in a plague depopulated Istria in the XV century.

[edit] Literature

There is no literary tradition; however, Andrea Glavina, an Istro-Romanian who was educated in Romania, wrote in 1905 Calendaru lu rumeri din Istrie ("The Calendar of the Romanians of Istria"). Also collections of his folk tales and poems have been published since.

[edit] External links

• Istria on the Internet - The Istro-Romanian Community Worldwide (source of main text above)
• The IstroRomanians in Croatia
• UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages - entry for Istro-Romanian
• Ethnologue report for Istro-Romanian
• Decebal

[edit] References

• Wolfgang Dahmen, Istrorumänisch. Lexicon der Romanistische Linguistik. III, Tübingen, 1989, pp. 448-460
• Feresini, Nerina. Il Comune istro-romeno di Valdarsa. Edizioni Italo Svevo. Trieste: 1996