Istro-Romanian Community

Žejane, 1960s. View of the village

The origins of the Istro-Romanian community are controversial, but its members probably descend from pastoral communities originally resident in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia in the Middle Ages, who began to settle in Istria from the late Middle Ages. The community seems to have established itself in its present region – which in the nineteenth century also included the Adriatic islands of Krk and Rab – both in response to the Turkish invasions of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries but also with the encouragement of Venice. Istria at that time was under Venetian (and Habsburg) domination, and Venice was keen to repopulate a region which had earlier been severely depopulated by war, plague, and drought.

6. Žejane, 2019. Sisters Vesna and Laura Sanković with family look at the Hurren photos. Photo by Bojan Mrđenović.

Historical documents show that Istro-Romanian was widely spoken over the Istrian peninsula in the seventeenth century, but by the twentieth, Istro-Romanian speakers were living in some localities in north-eastern Istria (in Croatia), around Mt Učka (about 30-45 km from the city of Rijeka). To the north of the mountain they were to be found in the village of Žejane, and to the south of the mountain they lived in and around Šušnjevica (Letaj, Nova Vas/Nosolo, Jesenovik, Brdo, Kostrčan(i), Zankovci, Škabići, Trkovci, Miheli). After the Second World War many Istro-Romanian speakers migrated out of their villages, mainly for reasons of economic necessity, initially to Rijeka and other towns on the Adriatic coast, but later abroad, notably to the United States and Australia.

Current numbers of speakers of Istro-Romanian are certainly very small, although it may be unhelpful to try to give too precise a figure. Recent initiatives to revive interest in the language and even to teach it at primary school level may help to halt the decline. There is evidence that speakers numbered a few thousand in the mid nineteenth century, and in the mid-twentieth century the Croatian linguist August Kovačec (1971) estimated the number of those remaining in Croatia at the end of the 1960s — when Tony Hurren carried out his research — at about 1000 to 1500. Numbers have continued to fall sharply: for the late 1990s Goran Filipi (2002) estimates a total of 250 active, fluent speakers in Istria, and numbers are still falling. Speakers in Istria are today mainly over 70 years old and all bilingual in Croatian. One scholar, Antonio Dianich (2012), has suggested that émigré speakers in New York state may outnumber those remaining in Istria. Our project seeks to establish to what extent the language is still spoken or understood in the diaspora.

Žejane, 2019. Sanković family with members of the ISTROX team. Photo by Bojan Mrđenović.

While the community has changed considerably in recent decades, particularly due to emigration, some traditions are maintained, such as the system of family-naming prevalent in the žejånski and vlåški speaking areas. We try to be faithful to the naming tradition. Families have what may be termed ‘household nicknames’, which are inherited not only by their direct descendants, but also by families who are not direct relatives of the original householders, but may have moved into the home to take care of the householders in their old age, following a local tradition. The ‘household nicknames’ are important in everyday conversation, and serve to distinguish among families many of whom have the same official surname. For more details on the system of household nicknames, see this information from the project Očuvęj vlåška ši žejånska limba (Preservation of the Vlaški and Žejanski Language):

Family Names and Household Nicknames in Žejân/Žejane

Family Names and Household Nicknames in Šušnjevicę/Šušnjevica, Nosolo/Nova Vas and Sukodru/Jesenovik

Family Names and Household Nicknames in the Bârdo-Brdo Area

References

• Dianich, A. (2012). Nušte de ‘nwarodu č-a ga’neyt ‘vlwaški-n ‘Bəršćina (‘Istriya). Qualcosa sulla gente che parlava l’istroromeno a Briani (Istria). Frammenti di una conversazione in Gronchi, M. and Soriani Innocenti, M. (eds) Societas et universitas: miscellanea di scritti offerti a Don Severino Dianich. Pisa: ETS, 145–73.
• Filipi, G. (2002). Istrorumunjski lingvistički atlas. Atlasul lingvistic istroromân. Atlante linguistico istrorumeno. Pula: Znanstvena udruga Mediteran.
• Kovačec, A. (1971). Descrierea istroromânei actuale. Bucharest: Editura Academiei.