The Istro-Romanian language is a Balkan Romance language, spoken in a few villages and hamlets in the peninsula of Istria in Croatia, as well as in diaspora, most notably in Italy, Sweden, Germany, Northern and Southern America, and Australia. While its speakers call themselves Rumeri, Rumeni, they are also known as Vlachs, Rumunski, Ćići and Ćiribiri. The last one, used by ethnic Croats, originated as a disparaging nickname for the language, rather than its speakers. Due to the fact that its speakers are estimated to be less than 500, it is listed among languages that are "seriously endangered" in the UNESCORed Book of Endangered Languages. It is also considered by some Romanian scholars to be an idiosyncratic offshoot dialect of Romanian.
Recent history
There have been many significant challenges facing Istro-Romanians in preserving their language, culture and ethnic identity, including emigration from communism and migration to nearby cities and towns after World War II, when a peace treaty of February 10, 1947, transferred Istria from Italy and awarded it to Yugoslavia, the parent country of present-day Croatia and Slovenia, which divided Istria between themselves, while Italy still retained a small portion near Trieste. Before the 20th century, Istro-Romanian was spoken in a substantially broader part of northeastern Istria surrounding the Ćićarijamountain range. The Istro-Romanians now comprise two groups: the Ćići around Žejane and the Vlahi around Šušnjevica. However, apart from borrowings from other tongues which vary from village to village, their language is linguistically identical. There are also several hundred native speakers who live in the United States – not only in Queens, New York, but throughout the five boroughs of New York City, as well as in upstate New York and the neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut; there are also still native speakers in California. There are further groups of native speakers in Italy, Canada, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Sweden, and Australia. The number of Istro-Romanian speakers has been reduced by their assimilation into other linguistic groups that were either already present or introduced by their respective new rulers of Istria: in the 1921 Italian census, there were 1,644 declared Istro-Romanian speakers in the area, while in 1926 Romanian scholar Sextil Pușcariu estimated their number to be closer to 3,000. Studies conducted in Istria in 1998 by the Croatian linguist Kovačec revealed only 170 active speakers, most of them being bilingual, except for 27 children. On the other hand, the major northern village Žejane and nearby hamlets at the Slovenian border are less Italianized and more Slavicized. Many villages in the area have names that are of Romanian origin, such as Jeian, Buzet, Katun, Letaj, Sucodru, Costirceanu. Some of these names are official, while others are used only by Istro-Romanian speakers.
Origin
Some loanwords suggest that before coming to Istria, Istro-Romanians lived for a period of time on the Dalmatian coast near the Dinara and Velebit mountains. A. Kovačec hypothesizes that the Istro-Romanians migrated to their present region about 600 years ago from the territory of present-day Romania, after the Bubonic plague depopulated Istria. This hypothesis is based on chronicles of the Frankopan princes that state that in the 15th century they accepted the migrating Vlachs from the nearby mainland and from the northern part of Krk island, and settled them in isolated villages in Poljica and Dubašnica, and in the port of Malinska. The term "Vlach", however, refers to all Eastern-Romance-language speakers and cannot be associated exclusively with Istro-Romanians. In fact, pockets of Romanian-language speakers persisted in Malinska up to the mid-19th century, they gradually assimilated and their language disappeared with the last speaker, Mate Bajčić-Gašparović. Today, few Romance-language toponyms remain in Malinska.
