Dalmatian language

This article is about the extinct Romance language. For the language of the modern region of Dalmatia, see Serbo-Croatian.

Dalmatian
langa Dalmata
Native to	Croatia, Montenegro
Region	Adriatic coast (Mostly Croatia, Montenegro, Italy)
Extinct	10 June 1898, when Tuone Udaina was killed
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Dalmatian Dalmatian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dlm
Linguist list	dlm
Glottolog	dalm1243
Linguasphere	51-AAA-t

Dalmatian /dælˈmeɪʃən/ or Dalmatic /dælˈmætɪk/ was a Romance language spoken in the Dalmatia region of 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 was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa, though in later times Venetian (representing the Romance language population), then Serbo-Croatian (for the Slavophone population) came to supersede it.

Dalmatian speakers lived in the coastal towns Zadar (Jadera), Trogir (Tragur, Traù), Spalato (Split; Spalato), Ragusa (Dubrovnik; Raugia, Ragusa), and Kotor (Cattaro), each of these cities having a local dialect, and on the islands of Krk (Vikla, Veglia), Cres (Crepsa) and Rab (Arba).

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.

Ragusan dialect

Republic of Ragusa before 1808

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 Dalmatian Filippo Diversi, the rector of Ragusa in the 1430s.

The Maritime Republic of Ragusa had, at one time, an important fleet, but its influence decreased over time, to the point that, by the 15th century, it had been reduced to only about 300 ships. The language was in trouble in the face of Slav expansion, as the Ragusan Senate decided that all debates had to be held in lingua veteri ragusea (ancient Ragusan language) and the use of the Slav was forbidden. Nevertheless, in the 16th century, Ragusan fell out of use and became almost extinct.

Vegliot dialect

Vegliot (the native name being Viklasun) is the Northern dialect. The language's name is derived from the Italian name of Krk, Veglia, an island in Kvarner, called Vikla in Vegliot. On the inscription dating from the beginning of the fourth century, Krk is named as Splendissima civitas Curictarum. The Serbo-Croatian name derives from the Roman name (Curicum, Curicta), whereas the younger name Vecla, Vegla, Veglia (meaning "Old Town") was created in the mediaeval Romanesque period.

History

The Roman Republic gradually came to occupy the territory of Illyria between 229 and 155 BC. Merchants and authorities settling from Rome brought with them the Latin language, and eventually the indigenous inhabitants mostly abandoned their languages (prevalently varieties of Illyrian) for Vulgar Latin. After the Roman capital moved to Constantinople, Greek began to replace Latin as the Lingua Franca in the empire (eventually becoming official in 620), but Illyrian towns continued to speak Latin (see Illyro-Roman), which evolved over time into regional dialects and eventually into distinct Romance languages.

Dalmatian was spoken on the Dalmatian coast from Fiume (now Rijeka) as far south as Cottora (Kotor) in Montenegro. Speakers lived mainly in the coastal towns of Jadera (Zadar), Tragurium (Trogir), Spalatum (Split), Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and Acruvium (Kotor), and also on the islands of Curicta (Krk), Crepsa (Cres) and Arba (Rab). 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 (Dubrovnik).

Areas of Dalmatian dialects

The Dalmatian dialect of Ragusa is known from two letters, dated 1325 and 1397, as well as from other mediaeval texts. The oldest preserved documents written in Dalmatian are 13th century inventories in Ragusan. 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, the head of school of Ragusa in the 1430s. The earliest reference to the Dalmatian language dates from the tenth century and it is 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 (despite the latter, the Latin roots of Dalmatian remained prominent). A 14th-century letter from Zadar (origin of the Iadera dialect) 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.

The last speaker of any Dalmatian dialect was Burbur ("barber" in Dalmatian) Tuone Udaina (Italian: Antonio Udina), who was accidentally killed in an explosion on June 10, 1898. His language was studied by the scholar Matteo Bartoli, himself a native of nearby Istria, who visited him in 1897 and wrote 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 (Das Dalmatische) in 1906. The Italian language manuscripts were reportedly lost, and the work was not re-translated into Italian until 2001.

Classification

Once thought to be a language that bridged the gap between the Romanian language and Italian, 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 /k/ and /g/ before /i/, but not before /e/ (others have palatalised them in both situations, except Sardinian, which has not palatalised them at all): Latin: civitate > Vegliot: cituot ("city"), Latin: cenare > Vegliot: kenur ("to dine").

Some of its words have been preserved as borrowings in South Slavic languages, mainly in Chakavian.

Similarities to Romanian

Among the similarities with Romanian, some consonant shifts can be found among the Romance languages only in Dalmatian and Romanian:

Origin	Result	Latin	Vegliot	Romanian	Italian	English
/kt/	/pt/	octo	guapto	opt	otto	eight
/ŋn/	/mn/	cognatus	comnut	cumnat	cognato	brother-in-law
/ks/	/ps/	coxa	copsa	coapsă	coscia	thigh

Grammar

Main article: Dalmatian 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 (in common with Romanian and several dialects of Italy).

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 (or if preserved, not with the original sense) in Romanian, such as cituot "city" (in old Romanian cetate means "city"; in modern Romanian "fort"; compare also Albanian qytet, borrowed from Latin, which, too, means "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, 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:

• Dubrovnik: CL antemna > otijemna "sail pole"; columna > kelomna "pillar, column"; ficatum > pìkat "liver"; lucerna > lùk(i)jerna "oil lamp"; lixivum > lìksija "lye"; oculata > úkljata "black-tail sparus, Sparus melanurus"; recessa > rèkesa "ebb tide";
• Standard Croatian: arbor(em) > jȃrbor, jarbol (Slovenian jambor) "mast"; aurata > òvrata, obrata "gilt-head bream"; canaba > kònoba "(wine) cellar, cellar bar"; lolligo, -inem > òliganj, lȉganj, lȉgnja "squid"; margo, -inem > mr̀gin(j), mrganj "furrow or ditch marking a border"; tracta > trakta "dragnet, trawl", etc.

Swadesh list

No.	English	Dalmatian Dalmata
1	I	ju
2	you (singular)	te
3	he	jal
4	we	nu, noi
5	you (plural)	vu, voi
6	they	jali, jale
7	this	cost
8	that	cost
9	here	kauk
10	there	luk
11	who	ko
12	what	ce
13	where	jo
14	when	kand
15	how	kal
16	not	na, naun
17	all	tot
18	many	un maur
19	some	certioin
20	few	un pauk
21	other	jultro, jiltri
22	one	join
23	two	doi
24	three	tra
25	four	kuatro
26	five	cenk
27	big	maur, luarg
28	long	luang
29	wide	luarg
30	thick	dais
31	heavy	pesunt
32	small	pedlo
33	short	kort
34	narrow	*strant
35	thin	*subtir
36	woman	femia
37	man (adult male)	jomno, vair
38	man (human being)	jomno
39	child	kratoir
40	wife	mulier
41	husband	marait
42	mother	njena
43	father	tuota
44	animal	*namail
45	fish	pask
46	bird	paserain
47	dog	kun
48	louse	pedoklo
49	snake	*sarpa
50	worm	viarm
51	tree	jarbul
52	forest	buask
53	stick	stal
54	fruit	froit
55	seed	grun
56	leaf	fualja
57	root	radaika
58	bark (of a tree)	*scorta
59	flower	fiaur
60	grass	jarba
61	rope	kanapial
62	skin	pial
63	meat	kuarne
64	blood	suang
65	bone	vuas
66	fat (noun)	gruas
67	egg	juf, juv
68	horn	kuarno
69	tail	kauda
70	feather	*puana
71	hair	kapei
72	head	kup
73	ear	orakla
74	eye	vaklo
75	nose	nuas
76	mouth	buka
77	tooth	diant
78	tongue (organ)	langa
79	fingernail	jongla
80	foot	pi
81	leg	*jamba
82	knee	denaklo
83	hand	mun
84	wing	jal
85	belly	viantro
86	guts	alaite
87	neck	kual
88	back	duas
89	breast	*san
90	heart	kuor
91	liver	fekuat
92	to drink	bar
93	to eat	mancuor
94	to bite	moscuar
95	to suck	*suger
96	to spit	spoit
97	to vomit	gomituor
98	to blow	sublar
99	to breathe	*respirar
100	to laugh	redro
101	to see	vedar
102	to hear	senter
103	to know	sapar
104	to think	imisuarmer
105	to smell	*urdoarer
106	to fear	taimo
107	to sleep	dormer
108	to live	*vivar
109	to die	morer
110	to kill	*ucider
111	to fight	*luptar
112	to hunt	*vaunar
113	to hit	botur
114	to cut	taljur
115	to split	spartar
116	to stab	*oinguar
117	to scratch	*scarpinur
118	to dig	pasnur
119	to swim	*nuotar
120	to fly	blairer
121	to walk	kaminur
122	to come	venir
123	to lie (as in a bed)	*jaurer
124	to sit	stur
125	to stand	stur
126	to turn (intransitive)	*girar
127	to fall	kadar
128	to give	duor
129	to hold	tenar
130	to squeeze	shtrengar
131	to rub	jongar
132	to wash	*lavar
133	to wipe	*sterger
134	to pull	truar
135	to push	*pingar
136	to throw	*trubar
137	to tie	lijuar
138	to sew	koser
139	to count	embruar
140	to say	dekro
141	to sing	kantur
142	to play	jukur
143	to float	*plutir
144	to flow	*scarer
145	to freeze	glazir
146	to swell	craseror
147	sun	saul
148	moon	loina
149	star	stala
150	water	jakva
151	rain	pluaja
152	river	fluaim
153	lake	lak
154	sea	mur
155	salt	suol
156	stone	pitra
157	sand	sablaun, salbaun
158	dust	pulvro
159	earth	tiara
160	cloud	*nueba
161	fog	*cieta
162	sky	cil
163	wind	viant
164	snow	nai
165	ice	glaz
166	smoke	*fuma
167	fire	fuok
168	ash	kanaisa
169	to burn	ardar
170	road	kale
171	mountain	muant
172	red	ruas
173	green	viart
174	yellow	zuola
175	white	jualb
176	black	fosk, niar
177	night	nuat
178	day	dai
179	year	jan
180	warm	cuold
181	cold	gheluat
182	full	plain
183	new	nuv
184	old	vieklo
185	good	bun
186	bad	mul, ri
187	rotten	muas, ri
188	dirty	spuark
189	straight	drat
190	round	*runt
191	sharp (as a knife)	*acu
192	dull (as a knife)	*obtus
193	smooth	*gliscio
194	wet	joit
195	dry	sak
196	correct	drat, jost
197	near	alic
198	far	distuont
199	right	diastro
200	left	*sanest
201	at	saupra
202	in	in
203	with	kon
204	and	e
205	if	*sa
206	because	perko
207	name	naum

Sample

The following are examples of the Lord's Prayer in Latin, Dalmatian, Serbo-Croatian, Friulian, Italian, Istro-Romanian and Romanian:

Latin	Dalmatian	Serbo-Croatian	Friulian	Italian	Istro-Romanian	Romanian	English	Spanish
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!	Amen!.

Parable of the Prodigal Son

Dalmatian: E el daic: Jon ciairt jomno ci avaja doi feil, e el plé pedlo de louro daic a soa tuota: Tuota duoteme la puarte de moi luc, che me toca, e jul spartait tra louro la sostuanza e dapù pauch dai, mais toich indajoi el feil ple pedlo andait a la luorga, e luoc el dissipuat toich el soo, viviand malamiant. Muà el ju venait in se stiass, daic: quinci jomni de journata Cn cuassa da me tuota i ju bonduanza de puan e cua ju muor de fum.

English: And He said: There was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father: "Father give me the share of his property that will belong to me." So he divided the property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. But when he came to himself he said: "How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger."

See also

• Istriot language

Bibliography

• Bartoli, Matteo Giulio. (1906). Das Dalmatische (2 vols), Vienna: Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften,
• Bartoli, Matteo Giulio. (2000). Il Dalmatico (translation from the German original). In Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. Italy
• Fisher, John. (1975). Lexical Affiliations of Vegliote. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 0-8386-7796-7.
• Hadlich, Roger L. (1965). The phonological history of Vegliote, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press
• Price, Glanville. (2000). Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-22039-9.
• Ive, Antonio. L' Antico dialetto di Veglia.

External links

• Dalmatian "official" website
• Dalmatian basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database