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rfmcdonaldRichard Solash' Radio Free Europe report describes the vissicitudes of the Istro-Romanian language, one of the Romance dialects connecting the main body of Romance languages in western and southern Europe with the isolated Romance language of Romanian. Not surprisingly, as a small minority, the speakers of Istro-Romanian--the Vlashki--are dwindling in their homeland in Istria, the peninsula that marks the westernmost point of Croatia.
The wave of emigration, it should be noted, occurred after the Second World War when all the Romance-speakers of Istria--Italian-speaking, Venetian-speaking, and Istro-Romanian-speaking alike--fled Communist Yugoslavia, which had taken the peninsula over from Italy. In all, something like a quarter-million people left the peninsula starting towards the end of the Second World War, fleeing hostile Slavs (Slovene and Croat alike) who resented the Italianization imposed on them under fascism, Communism, and poverty. The entire western coastline was once populated by Romance-speakers, but no more.
Despite this catastrophic dispersion of the Istro-Romanian language communist, a New York City-based linguist wants to try to reverse the tendency towards the adoption of Croatian, and does in fact seem to have made some achievements.
Other achievements that article cites are performances of Istro-Romanian-language plays, language workshops, heritage centres, and music groups.
But. These achievements are all well and good, but I'm skeptical about their long-term value. Much larger minorities, with populations numbering in the tens of thousands like the Sorbs of Germany, the Romansh-speakers of Switzerland, even the Ainu of Japan, are facing serious threat of assimilation. Can such a small population, isolated from other Romance language-speakers but intermixed with a much larger language community, survive much longer? I hae ma doots.
Unlike Croatian, which is Slavic, Vlashki is Romance -- a descendant of the language spoken by the Vlachs, nomadic shepherds who migrated from the area around present-day Romania.
The Vlachs settled in Istria in the 16th century, and over the years their language borrowed heavily from Croatian but always remained distinct.
Known to linguists as "Istro-Romanian," it is both unintelligible and unknown to the vast majority of Croatia's population.
And today, with a mere 150 native speakers remaining in the traditional home villages of Vlashki, and a few hundred more in surrounding towns, the language is well on its way to extinction.
Its demise began after World War II, when a major wave of emigration diluted the community. The building of a tunnel in 1981 that connected villages to urban centers further removed the language's protective isolation.
The wave of emigration, it should be noted, occurred after the Second World War when all the Romance-speakers of Istria--Italian-speaking, Venetian-speaking, and Istro-Romanian-speaking alike--fled Communist Yugoslavia, which had taken the peninsula over from Italy. In all, something like a quarter-million people left the peninsula starting towards the end of the Second World War, fleeing hostile Slavs (Slovene and Croat alike) who resented the Italianization imposed on them under fascism, Communism, and poverty. The entire western coastline was once populated by Romance-speakers, but no more.
Despite this catastrophic dispersion of the Istro-Romanian language communist, a New York City-based linguist wants to try to reverse the tendency towards the adoption of Croatian, and does in fact seem to have made some achievements.
Croatia native Zvjezdana Vrzic grew up in a household with Vlashki roots. Her grandmother was a native Vlashki speaker from Zankovci, a hamlet near one of the six northeast Istrian towns that form the language's epicenter.
After becoming an adjunct professor at New York University, Vrzic again found herself in a Vlashki setting of sorts: New York City, and specifically, the borough of Queens, which is home to the largest community of Vlashki speakers outside Croatia.
The setting, along with her family history and profession, was enough motivation for Vrzic to initiate an ambitious project that's now in its fifth year.
"I want to create a digital archive -- a regional digital archive -- where all the materials available on the language, including those that I'm collecting myself, will be deposited," Vrzic says. "[I want to create] an archive that will become available to the community members. And I'm kind of bringing a different angle to it by making it very technologically-inspired."
Vrzic's website launched in June and is now the focal point for her project's many parts. It features audio and videos of Vlashki speakers, collected by Vrzic as well as Brkaric, who assists her, and other helpers.
There are also language lessons, a Vlashki-Croatian dictionary, digitized versions of the few printed Vlashki-language stories, maps, historical information, and photographs. In total, it's the start of an ethno-linguistic corpus.
Next on Vrzic's agenda is to complete linguistic analyses of her language samples. She also intends to add to the online dictionary, which is based on work done in the 1960s by another linguist, create a Croatian-to-Vlashki version, and eventually translate it into English.
Other achievements that article cites are performances of Istro-Romanian-language plays, language workshops, heritage centres, and music groups.
But. These achievements are all well and good, but I'm skeptical about their long-term value. Much larger minorities, with populations numbering in the tens of thousands like the Sorbs of Germany, the Romansh-speakers of Switzerland, even the Ainu of Japan, are facing serious threat of assimilation. Can such a small population, isolated from other Romance language-speakers but intermixed with a much larger language community, survive much longer? I hae ma doots.
