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The Istro-Romanian People There are modern linguists who believe that the Istro-Romanians migrated to their present region of Istria about 1,000 (or 600?) years ago from Transylvania, while extremists would place their origins in present-day Serbia. The first historical record of Istro-Romanians in the Istrian region, however, dates back to 1329, when Serbian chronicles mention that a Vlach population was living in Istria, although there was an earlier mention from the 12th century of a leader in Istria called Radul (that could be a Romanian name).
In his volume entitled "The World's Major Languages," published by Croom Helm Ltd. 1987, Bernard Comrie of the University of Southern California, when examining the Istro-Romanian (istrorumero), finds surprising similarities between this idiom and the 16th century texts of a certain Romanian dialect of the Maramureº area Transylvania. "16th century texts of Transylvania show evidence of rhotacism (with intervocalic /n/ becoming /r/ ): "lumira" ("light" in Istro-Romanian and Transylvanian dialects for the today's literary Romanian "lumina") "lira" ("wool) - from "lina", "plira" ("full) for "plina" etc. This is a feature also of Istro-Romanian," says Comrie. No other Romanian dialects (Macedo-, Megleno-) or regional variation (Moldavian, Wallachian, etc.) have this feature. This leads the linguist to the conclusion that the ancestors of Istro-Romanians might have had the same roots with the speakers of certain Mountain Transylvanian Romanian dialect. The very same opinion is shared by Martin Harris and Nigel Vincent (one of them is the Dean of the Manchester University, England) in their volume "The Romance Languages," Routledge, London and New York. Insofar as Romanian linguists themselves are concerned, the opinions are divided: Ovid Densusianu (1873-1938), does not admit that Istro-Romanians are native to Istria, where we find them today (or he still was finding them in the 30's when he researched for his book Histoire de la langue roumaine, I, p. 337): "Un premier fait que nous devons mettre en evidence, c'est que l'istro-roumain n'a pu se developper a l'origine la ou nous le trouvons aujourd'hui". He is confirmed in his suppositions by Prof. Dr. Iosif Popovici (1876-1928), who travelled extensively in Istria and who endorses the theory the Istro-Romanians were natives of Tara Motilor (Western Transylvania) who migrated into Istria sometimes during the Middle Ages. ("Dialectele romane din Istria", I, Halle a.d.S., 1914, p. 122 urm.) Other Romanian linguists are more skeptical and would obviously like to see Istro-Romanians as the native tribe of that region (Istria and Northern Dalmatia) in a possible filiation with the mysterious Morlachs: Silviu Dragomir - "Originea coloniilor romane din Istria" ("The Origins of the Romanian colonies of Istria") and "Vlahii si Moralacii", 1924 ("The Vlachs and the Morlachs"), a theory which has little, if any, foundation. The Transylvanian connection is emphasized by linguists, but more importantly, is alive in the memory of some of the Rumeri themselves who break themselves into two distinct groups - the "cicci" or "cici" of surrounding Mune and ®ejane area and the "vlahi" of the ©u¹njevica region. Interestingly enough, Iosif Popovici entitled his book Dialectele Romåne din Istria (Halle, 1909) - that is, "The Dialects..." not "The Dialect..." - so indirectly he admitted there were (and still are?) several types of Istro-Romanian dialects in Istria. However, he may have instead alluded to the minor distinctions that exist from village to village. More recent research by Dr. Maria Iliescu of the University of Bucharest, a respected and competent linguist, found unexplainable similarities between Istro-Romanian and Friulian / Furlan (Romansch dialects of the Alps), respectively. She regards Istro-Romanian as a bridge between the Rhaeto-Romansch, Ladin, Friulian and Romanian proper, hence very stable and formed in Istria at the very same spot where it is spoken today. Both Ovid Densusianu and Iosif Popovici located what they believe is the area where the ancestors of Istro-Romanians originated: Tara Motilor, which include the regions of Beius, Bihor and Arad, where the name "Cicera[n] / Chichera" is a common name in the Muntii Apuseni region of Tarapeak Motilor. In fact, there is a peak in that area called "Chicera Plesoaia." On an internet website that no longer exists, there were illustrations of Romanian national costumes which included the traditional folk costumes identified with the Romanian regions mentioned above, and which were similar to those of the Istro-Romanian "cici" (It. "cicci"), as were the costumes from regions which are part of or are bordering Tara Motilor (Tara Hategului, Tara Padurenilor, and Banat) and, of course, other regions of present-day Romania. |
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On the other hand, a leading current authority, Prof. Petru Neiescu of the University of Cluj, who has researched the Istro-Romanian language and people for over twenty years, suggests that the origins of the Istro-Romanians is Alba Iulia in Hunedoara County, situated in the South-Western part of Transylvania, where the Apuseni Mountains meet the Meridional Carpathians, and that the people settled around the year 1420 near the Ciceria mountains of Istria to repopulate areas that had been devastated by the plagues. Links of anthropological value from that region are the humble wooden churches in Lunca Motilor (Hunedoara) and Troas (Arad) which are preserved "in situ" under the auspices of The Museum of the Romanian Peasant. The Istro-Romanians Today
In the aftermath of the World War II, many Istro-Romanians became refugees of the new communist state and left their native Istria for parts unknown, leaving entire villages almost totally abandoned. Some settled in Italy, France, Germany and Sweden, while it is believed that the vaste majority left for the United States (a large concentration in New York and the mid-Atlantic states), Australia, Argentina (and other South American countries), and Canada. While the majority of Istro-Romanians have been scattered around the world, the number of native speakers who have remained in Istria is estimated today to be less than 1,000, and the language is listed as "seriously endangered" in the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages.2 The native speakers are concencrated in about ten villages, although some have emigrated to the larger neighboring towns and cities - such as Labin, Pula, Poreè, Rijeka and Trieste - and there are may other Istrian villages with Romanian-style names which are not counted in their number today, including Buzet (lips), Katun (hamlet), Gradinje (garden), Letaj, Sucodru (forest), Costirceanu and Rumania (decidedly Romanian names). Some of these names are official, while some are used only by Istro-Romanian speakers. Due to its very small number of speakers in Istria, there is no public education or press in Istro-Romanian, and its speakers yet remain to be officially recognized as a minority in Croatia Their number was reduced due to assimilation: in the 1921Italian census there were 1,644 Romanian speakers recorded in the area (which does not necessarily corrolate to the actual number of speakers), whereas Romanian scholar Sextil Puºcariu, in his Studii istroromâne, Vol. II, Bucureºti (1926), estimated their number to be about 3,000. How many Istro-Romanians are left in the Istrian region? According to the 1991 Croatian census, only 810 persons declared themselves as Romanians and 22 as Morlachs. "In reality this number is categorically higher", assures us Dr. Ervino Curtis of the recently reconstituted Association of the Romanians of Istria. "In many a case, Istro-Romanians living in Fiume or in other cities of Croatia, failed to declare their real national background hence their trace is lost. In these last years, the interest of the Istro-Romanians is to make their cultural plea heard in the scientific and academic ambience, so to make themselves heard and within the reach of political and public opinion. We need to act concretely to save this moribund culture, which is the fruit of a centennial tradition. With the death of a culture, something within all of us is dying as well, and it is indispensable to stop this process before it becomes irreversible. Echoes of Vegliot Dalmatian There have been several efforts in the last century to document the Istro-Romanian language by Romanian and international linguists, but its fate is already sealed despite an aggressive last-ditch effort that is currently underway in New York City to document the language. The unfunded project is headed by a Croatian-American linguist who has had no personal exposure to or professional training any Romanian language, let alone Istro-Romanian. Inevitably, this unique language or dialect of the Romanian language will undoubtedly become extinguished withini the next generation, thus following in the footsteps as the nearby Vegliot Dalmatian language. Once thought to be a language that bridged the gap between the Romanian language and Italian, Dalmatian was only distantly related to the nearby Romanian dialects, such as the nearly extinct Istro-Romanian spoken in nearby Istria, Croatia. Among the similarities with Romanian, there are some consonant shifts that can be found among the Romance languages only in Dalmatian and Romanian: Vegliot is the Northern dialect and it is derived from the Italian name of Krk, "Veglia", an island in the Kvarner Bay. On the inscription dating from the beginning of the 4th century, Krk is named as "Splendissima civitas Curictarum". The Croatian name derives from the Roman name (Curicum, Curicta), while the younger title Vecla – Vegla – Veglia (meaning "Old Town") was created in the medieval Romanesque period. The last speaker of any Dalmatian dialect was Tuone Udaina / Antonio Udina (birthdate unknown), who was killed by a landmine on June 10, 1898. His language was studied by an Istrian scholar, Matteo Giulio Bartoli who visited him in 1897 and wrote down thousands of words, stories, accounts of his life, which were published in a book, with Italian translation, which provides much information on the vocabulary, phonology and grammar of the language. He wrote them in Italian and published a translation in German (´´Das Dalmatische´´) in 1906. However, the Italian language manuscripts were lost, and the work was not retranslated into the Italian until 2001. Also unfortunate is that Udina was hardly an ideal informant; Vegliot Dalmatian was not his native language, and he had learned it only from listening to his parents' private conversations. Moreover, he had not spoken the language for 20 years at the time he acted as an informant, and he was deaf and toothless as well thereby making his pronunciations and speech formations less than accurate. Notes:
Sources and other links:
Please be aware that this and other articles and materials that are provided on this site, as well as other websites, that relate to the Istro-Romanian people and language are written by individuals - be they historians, scientific researchers, ordinary journalists, as well as native speakers. In the absence of reliable and irrefutable documentation, there exists an abundance of professional and unprofessional theories and hypotheses which in greater part are pure conjecture, unsupported and/or contradictory. |
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This page compliments of Marisa Ciceran Created:
Saturday, June 26, 1999, Last Update:
Thursday, April 03, 2008
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The language known as Istro-Romanian is spoken by people who call
themselves Cici, Vlahi or Rumeni / Rumâni / Rumâri, but are
nowadays misnamed as Ciribiri by the local population (a term
that at one time referred only to the language they spoke and in a
derogatory way) and Istrian Vlachs