Dalmatian language


Dalmatian or Dalmatic is an extinct Romance language that was spoken in the Dalmatia region of present-day Croatia, and as far south as Kotor in Montenegro. The name refers to a tribe of the Illyrian linguistic group, Dalmatae. The Ragusan dialect of Dalmatian, the most studied prestige dialect, was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa for much of its medieval history until it was gradually supplanted by other local languages.
Dalmatian speakers lived in the coastal towns of Zadar, Trogir, Spalato, Ragusa, and Kotor, each of these cities having a local dialect, and on the islands of Krk, Cres, and Rab.

Dialects

Almost every city developed its own dialect. Most of these became extinct before they were recorded, so the only trace of these ancient dialects is some words borrowed into local dialects of today's Croatia and Montenegro.

Ragusan dialect

Ragusan is the Southern dialect, whose name is derived from the Romance name of Dubrovnik, Ragusa. It came to the attention of modern scholars in two letters, from 1325 and 1397, and other mediaeval texts, which show a language influenced heavily by Venetian. The available sources include some 260 Ragusan words including pen 'bread', teta 'father', chesa 'house', and fachir 'to do', which were quoted by the Italian Filippo Diversi, the rector of the Ragusan grammar school in the 1430s.
The Maritime Republic of Ragusa had a large and important fleet, by the 15th century numbering about 300 ships. The language was threatened by the Slav expansion, as the Ragusan Senate decided that all debates had to be held in the lingua veteri ragusea and the use of the Slav was forbidden. Nevertheless, during the 16th century, the Ragusan Romance language fell out of use and became extinct.

Vegliot dialect

Vegliot is the Northern dialect. Its name is derived from the Italian name of Krk, Veglia, an island in Kvarner, called Vikla in Vegliot. On an inscription dating from the beginning of the 4th century CE, Krk is named as Splendissima civitas Curictarum. The Serbo-Croatian name derives from the Roman name, whereas the younger name Vecla, Vegla, Veglia was created in the mediaeval Romanesque period.

History

Dalmatian evolved from the vulgar Latin of the Illyro-Romans. It was spoken on the Dalmatian coast from Fiume as far south as Cottora in Montenegro. Speakers lived mainly in the coastal towns of Jadera, Tragurium, Spalatum, Ragusa and Acruvium, and also on the islands of Curicta, Crepsa and Arba. Almost every city developed its own dialect, but the most important dialects we know of were Vegliot, a northern dialect spoken on the island of Curicta, and Ragusan, a southern dialect spoken in and around Ragusa.
The oldest preserved documents written in Dalmatian are 13th century inventories in Ragusa. Dalmatian is also known from two Ragusan letters, dated 1325 and 1397. The available sources include roughly 260 Ragusan words. Surviving words include pen 'bread', teta 'father', chesa 'house', and fachir 'to do', which were quoted by the Dalmatian, Filippo Diversi, Rector of the republic of Ragusa in the 1430s. The earliest reference to the Dalmatian language dates from the tenth century and it has been estimated that about 50,000 people spoke it at that time, though the main source of this information, the Italian linguist Matteo Bartoli, may have exaggerated his figures.
Dalmatian was influenced particularly heavily by Venetian and Serbo-Croatian. A 14th-century letter from Zadar shows strong influence from Venetian, the language that after years under Venetian rule superseded Iadera and other dialects of Dalmatian. Other dialects met their demise with the settlement of populations of Slavic speakers.

Extinction

In 1897, the scholar Matteo Bartoli, himself a native of nearby Istria, visited a burbur Tuone Udaina, the last speaker of any Dalmatian dialect, to study his language, writing down approximately 2,800 words, stories, and accounts of his life, which were published in a book that has provided much information on the vocabulary, phonology, and grammar of the language. Bartoli wrote in Italian and published a translation in German in 1906. The Italian language manuscripts were reportedly lost, and the work was not re-translated into Italian until 2001.
Just one year later, on 10 June 1898, Tuone Udaina was accidentally killed at 74 in a roadwork explosion.

Classification

In the most recent classification from 2017 it was classified by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History with the Istriot language in the Dalmatian Romance subgroup.
It was once thought to be a language that bridged the gap between Romanian and Italian, but it was only distantly related to the nearby Romanian dialects, such as the nearly extinct Istro-Romanian spoken in nearby Istria, Croatia.
Some of its features are quite archaic. Dalmatian is the only Romance language that has palatalised and before, but not before : civitate > Vegliot: cituot, cenare > Vegliot: kenur.
Some Dalmatian words have been preserved as borrowings in South Slavic languages, in Chakavian and the Dubrovnik dialect of Shtokavian.

Similarities to Romanian

Among the similarities with Romanian, some consonant shifts can be found among the Romance languages only in Dalmatian and Romanian:
OriginResultLatinVegliotRomanianItalianEnglish
octoguaptooptottoeight
cognatuscomnutcumnatcognatobrother-in-law
coxacopsacoapsăcosciathigh
septemsaptoșaptesetteseven

Vlachs/Morlachs from Dalmatia and their language

Vlachs from Herzegovina and Dalmatia were known as "Caravlachs" during Turkish occupation. "Cara" means black in Turkish and North in Turkish geography. Translated into Greek, the name became Morlachs. Vlachs or Morlachs spoke a language close to Romanian. Vlachs or Morlachs spread into all Dalmatian areas including Adriatic isles and towns. The majority were Slavicized and many of them were Islamized or Catholicized. Today there are only a dozen Morlachs in Croatia and they have lost their maternal Romance spoken language.

Grammar

An analytic trend can be observed in Dalmatian: nouns and adjectives began to lose their gender and number inflexions, the noun declension disappeared completely, and the verb conjugations began to follow the same path, but the verb maintained a person and number distinction except in the third person.
The definite article precedes the noun, unlike in the Eastern Romance languages like Romanian, which have it postposed to the noun.

Vocabulary

Dalmatian kept Latin words related to urban life, lost in Romanian, such as cituot "city". The Dalmatians retained an active urban society in their city-states, whereas most Romanians were driven into small mountain settlements during the Great Migrations of 400 to 800 AD.
Venetian became a major influence on the language as Venetian commercial influence grew. The Chakavian dialect and Dubrovnik Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian, which were spoken outside the cities since the immigration of the Slavs, gained importance in the cities by the 16th century, and it eventually replaced Dalmatian as the day-to-day language. Nevertheless, some words were loaned into coastal Serbo-Croatian varieties:

Literature

As Dalmatian was mainly an oral language, there is not much literature preserved in it; only some fragments collected in a book by Antonio Ive and a few unpublished texts in archives still unknown to the public. But there are some works written in revived Dalmatian, as, for example, the short poetry book "Adi la raipa de mi jeuntut".

Sample

The following are examples of the Lord's Prayer in Latin, Dalmatian, Serbo-Croatian, Friulian, Italian, Istro-Romanian and Romanian:
LatinDalmatianSerbo-CroatianFriulianItalianIstro-RomanianRomanianEnglishSpanish
Pater noster, qui es in caelis,Tuota nuester, che te sante intel sil,Oče naš, koji jesi na nebesima,Pari nestri, che tu sês in cîl,Padre nostro, che sei nei cieli,Ciace nostru car le ști en cer,Tatăl nostru care ești în ceruri,Our Father, who art in heaven,Padre nuestro, que estás en los cielos,
sanctificetur Nomen Tuum.sait santificuot el naun to.sveti se ime tvoje.che al sedi santifiât il to nom.sia santificato il tuo nome.neca se sveta nomelu teu.sfințească-se numele tău.hallowed be thy name.santificado sea tu nombre.
Adveniat Regnum Tuum.Vigna el raigno to.dođi kraljevstvo Tvoje.Che al vegni il to ream.Venga il tuo regno.Neca venire craliestvo to.Vie împărăția ta.Thy kingdom come.Venga a nosotros tu reino.
Fiat voluntas Tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra.Sait fuot la voluntuot toa, coisa in sil, coisa in tiara.budi volja Tvoja, kako na nebu tako i na zemlji.Che e sedi fate la tô volontât sicu in cîl cussì ancje in tiere.Sia fatta la tua volontà, come in cielo così in terra.Neca fie volia ta, cum en cer, așa și pre pemânt.Facă-se voia ta, precum în cer, așa și pe pământ.Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.Hágase tu voluntad, en la tierra como en el cielo.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie.Duote costa dai el pun nuester cotidiun.Kruh naš svagdanji daj nam danas.Danus vuê il nestri pan cotidian.Dacci oggi il nostro pane quotidiano.Pera nostre saca zi de nam astez.Pâinea noastră cea de toate zilele, dă-ne-o nouă astăzi.Give us this day our daily bread.Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día.
Et dimitte nobis debita nostra,E remetiaj le nuestre debete,I otpusti nam duge naše,E pardoninus i nestris debits,E rimetti a noi i nostri debiti,Odproste nam dutzan,Și ne iartă nouă păcatele noastre,And forgive us our trespasses,Perdona nuestras ofensas.
Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.Coisa nojiltri remetiaime a i nuestri debetuar.Kako i mi otpuštamo dužnicima našim.Sicu ancje nô ur ai pardonìn ai nestris debitôrs.Come noi li rimettiamo ai nostri debitori.Ca și noi odprostim a lu nostri dutznici.Precum și noi le iertăm greșiților noștri.As we forgive those who trespass against us.Como también nosotros perdonamos a los que nos ofenden.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,E naun ne menur in tentatiaun,I ne uvedi nas u napast,E no stâ menânus in tentazion,E non ci indurre in tentazione,Neca nu na tu vezi en napastovanie,Și nu ne duce pe noi în ispită,And lead us not into temptation,No nos dejes caer en tentación.
sed libera nos a Malo.miu deleberiajne dal mal.nego izbavi nas od zla.ma liberinus dal mâl.ma liberaci dal male.neca na zbăvește de zvaca slabe.ci ne izbăvește de cel rău.but deliver us from evil.y líbranos del mal.
Amen!Amen!Amen!Amen!Amen!Amen!Amin!Amen!¡Amén!

Parable of the Prodigal Son