Burgenland Croatian
Burgenland Croatian is a regional variety of the Chakavian dialect of Croatian spoken in Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Burgenland Croatian is recognized as a minority language in the Austrian state of Burgenland, where it is spoken by 19,412 people according to official reports. Many of the Burgenland Croatian speakers in Austria also live in Vienna and Graz, due to the process of urbanization, which is mostly driven by the poor economic situation of large parts of Burgenland.
Smaller Croatian minorities in western Hungary, southwestern Slovakia, and southern Czech Republic are often also called Burgenland Croats. They use the Burgenland Croatian written language and are historically and culturally closely connected to the Austrian Croats. The representatives of the Burgenland Croats estimate their total number in all three countries and emigration at around 70,000.
Dialects
- Štoj dialect: dialect of the group "Štoji", is Southern Chakavian dialect with some Western Shtokavian features
- Vlah dialect: dialect of the "Vlahi" in Weiden bei Rechnitz, Zuberbach, Althodis, Schandorf, Dürnbach, Allersdorf, etc. due to some characteristics is considered a Western Shtokavian dialect, being a Schakavian Ikavian dialect without Neo-Shtokavian accent and with some similarities to Western Ikavian dialect and Slavonian dialect, but also has similarities and influences from neighboring Burgenland dialects
- Dolinci dialect: dialect of the "Dolinci" in Unterpullendorf, Frankenau, Kleinmutschen, etc. is a Central Chakavian dialect
- Poljan dialect: dialect of the "Poljanci" near Lake Neusiedl, is a Central Chakavian dialect
- Hati dialect: dialect of the "Hati" near Neusiedl, is a Central Chakavian dialect
- Grob dialect: Central Chakavian dialect, or mixed Chakavian-Kajkavian dialect, spoken in Chorvátsky Grob etc. in Slovakia
History
Burgenland Croatian was the language of Croatian refugees who fled Croatia during the Croatian–Ottoman wars and settled in the western part of what was then Hungary, the area where they still live. Burgenland Croats included speakers of all three dialects of the Croatian language, with the majority being the Chakavians. A part of them originally probably came from Dalmatia, and all of them mostly emigrated from the river Una valley.Burgenland Croats did not take part in the shaping of the present standard Croatian in the 19th century. Instead, they constructed their own written standard based mainly on the local Chakavian speech and adopted the Croatian alphabet, a modified Latin alphabet, as their script.
It is still a matter of debate whether Burgenland Croatian should be classified as a Slavic micro-language of its own. Burgenland Croatian dialects are mostly viewed as isolated dialects of the Croatian.
Burgenland Croatian and the Prekmurje Slovene of Slovene have influenced each other. The first Prekmurje Slovene works was applied to the Burgenland Croatian books. A few of those that wrote in Prekmurje Slovene were of Burgenland Croatian descent and also Burgenland Croatian.
After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918 the areas in which Burgenland Croats lived were divided between Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. After 1921 most of these areas became part of Austria, which established a new province of Burgenland, after which the Croatian minority was named. In 1922 Austria founded the Apostolic administration of Burgenland and began to abolish bilingual schools through the introduction of the teaching of German in all primary schools. This process halted temporarily after the adoption of The National Education Act, which allowed for Croatian-language elementary schools. After Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938 this law was abolished. In 1955 the Austrian State Treaty was signed. This permitted the Burgenland Croats to use Croatian in education, judiciary and public administration. With the adoption of the Law on National Minorities in 1976, use of Croatian in public life became further limited. As a result of the 1987 acceptance of a constitutional complaint, parts of the law were changed and Croatian was introduced as an official language in 6 out of 7 districts of Burgenland.
Written language
Burgenland Croatian written language is based mainly on the local Chakavian dialect with some influences from the other Croatian dialects spoken in Burgenland. It uses the Latin alphabet with the same diacritical modifiers as the Croatian alphabet. In the course of language development it acquired some of its own specialised vocabulary, sometimes different from that used in standard Croatian.The popular The Little Prince has also been translated into Burgenland Croatian, specifically the Standard version by Ivan Rotter.