Dalmatian language
Dalmatian or Dalmatic is a group of now-extinct Romance varieties that developed along the coast of Dalmatia. Over the centuries they were increasingly influenced, and then supplanted, by Croatian and Venetian.
Today it is quite difficult to place Dalmatian within the Romance language landscape, where it somehow constitutes a branch of its own. In one of the most recent classifications, dating back to 2017, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History places it, for example, together with Istriot in the Italo-Dalmatian Romance subgroup. However, the classification of Dalmatian is not settled.
Phonology
Varieties
Ragusan
This was spoken in Dubrovnik. Various Ragusan words are known from local documents in Latin and Venetian. One such document, for instance, records the words pen, teta, chesa, fachir and indicates the meanings 'bread', 'father', 'house', 'to do'. There are also some 14th-century texts in Ragusan, but these show extensive Croatian and Venetian influence, to the point that it is difficult to discern which if any of their features are genuinely Dalmatian.A notable feature of Ragusan was its preservation of Latin and before front vowels, which can be seen in attested forms like colchitra < Latin.
In the Republic of Ragusa, official business was conducted in Ragusan until approximately the end of the 15th century. In 1472 the Senate banned the use of "Slavic" or "any language other than Ragusan or Italian" for conducting legal disputes. Another piece of evidence is a letter by Elio Lampridio Cerva that mentions "I remember how, when I was a boy, old men would carry on legal business in the Romance language that was called Ragusan".
Vegliote
This was spoken in Krk. It is documented from the 19th century, in large part thanks to the efforts of the linguist Matteo Bartoli and his informant, Tuone Udaina. When they first met, Udaina had not spoken Vegliote in two decades and could only produce a sort of 'Dalmatianised' Venetian. As their interviews went on, he was able to recall more and more Vegliote from his youth, albeit in a form still tinged by his Venetian.Like Ragusan, Vegliote did not participate in the broader Romance palatalisation of and before front vowels. Nevertheless it appears to have undergone a later, and independent, palatalisation of to before the sounds, as in the word "arse" < * < * <.
It was once thought that Vegliote, like Romanian, showed the sound-change >, but the only example of this is "eight" <, which was probably affected by analogy with "seven" <.
Sample
From Udaina. Stress-marks have been omitted.- "When those eight old-timers were still alive I would speak Vegliote with everyone because I'd learnt it when I was little. I was three years old when I began to speak like that in Vegliote, because my grandmother taught me, and my mum and dad would speak like that in Vegliote. They would speak because they thought I didn't understand, but I understood all those words they were saying in Vegliote. My grandma would tell me 'Wait just a bit for daddy to come home and I'll tell him to spank you.
Others
Survival as a substrate
Likely 'Dalmatisms' in Croatian include:- The toponyms Cavtat < ; Cres < ; Krk < ; Makar < ; Split < ; Labin < ; Solin < ; Lovran < ; Supetar < ; Sutomore <
- Words in the Dubrovnik dialect like kȁpula "onion" < ; kèlomna "pillar" < ; kȑklo "fringe" < ; lìksija "lye" < ; lùkjerna "oil-lamp" < ; otijemna "barge-pole" < ; òvrata "snapper" < ; pìkat "liver" < ; prȉgati "to roast" < ; rèkesa "low tide" < ; trȁkta "drag-net" < ; úkljata "seabream" <
- Words in Standard Croatian like jarbol "mast" < ; kònoba "tavern" < ; òliganj~lïganj~lìgnja "squid" <