The Istro-Romanian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used by the Istro-Romanian language. The language is not standardized and therefore there are several writing systems for it. Up to three can be distinguished; one based on the Romanian language, one based on the Croatian language and one with characteristics of both.
The Istro-Romanian language was first attested in 1698 in a document written by the Italian monk Ireneo della Croce. He gives 13 single nouns, 8 nouns with determiners and 2 sentences with their Italian translation. The monk used typical Italian letters, belonging to the Italian alphabet. [1] Before this, toponyms and person names of probable Istro-Romanian origin had already been registered in previous documents. [2] The first book entirely in Istro-Romanian, Calindaru lu rumeri din Istrie (Calendar of the Romanians of Istria), would be published centuries later in 1905 by the Istro-Romanian writer and politician Andrei Glavina and the Romanian historian Constantin Diculescu. [3]
The first attempt to standardize the language was made by the Romanian linguist and philologist Sextil Pușcariu in his work Studii Istroromâne (Istro-Romanian studies). He mixed elements of the Romanian orthography with others of the Croatian one, giving rise to a mixed alphabet. [4] In 1998, the Croatian linguist August Kovačec would publish an Istro-Romanian-Croatian dictionary in which he would update Pușcariu's hybrid version. [5]
There is also a version based on standard Romanian, created in 1928 by the Romanian journalist and professor Alexandru Leca Morariu. He introduced this system in Lu frati noștri: libru lu rumeri din Istrie (To our brothers: book of the Romanians of Istria), the second book written in Istro-Romanian. [6] This system was accepted by several other Romanian researchers, such as Traian Cantemir. [7]
In 2009, the Croatian linguist and professor Zvjezdana Vrzić created a new alphabet, this time entirely based on the Croatian orthography. According to her, this alphabet represents all the phonemes found in the Istro-Romanian language and is easy to learn for them since they are already literate in Croatian. Vrzić has already implemented this system on her website "Preservation of the Vlaški and Žejanski Language". [7]
Therefore, it is generally agreed that there are three spelling systems for the language, all of them with slight changes depending on the author. None of them has been officially adopted, making the Istro-Romanian still pending standardization. [7]
| Capital letters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A | Ă | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | Ĭ | Î | J | L | Ľ | M | N | O | P | R | S | Ș | T | Ț | U | Ŭ | V | Z |
| Lower case letters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | ă | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | ĭ | î | j | l | ľ | m | n | o | p | r | s | ș | t | ț | u | ŭ | v | z |
Based on Morariu's 1928 version. It also includes the digraphs gh and ch. [7]
| Capital letters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A | Å | Â | B | C | Č | D | Ḑ | E | Ę | F | G | Γ | Ğ | H | I | Ǐ | K | L | Ľ | M | N | Ń | O | P | R | S | Ș | T | Ț | U | Ǔ | V | Z | Ž |
| Lower case letters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | å | â | b | c | č | d | ḑ | e | ę | f | g | γ | ğ | h | i | ǐ | k | l | ľ | m | n | ń | o | p | r | s | ș | t | ț | u | ǔ | v | z | ž |
Based on Kovačec's 1998 version. [7]
| Capital letters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A | Å | Â | B | C | Č | Ć | D | Đ | E | Ę | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | Š | T | U | V | Z | Ž |
| Lower case letters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | å | â | b | c | č | ć | d | đ | e | ę | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | š | t | u | v | z | ž |
Based on Vrzić's 2009 version. It also includes the digraphs dz, lj and nj. [7]
Romanian is the official and main language of Romania and Moldova. Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages, a linguistic group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin which separated from the Western Romance languages in the course of the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries. To distinguish it within the Eastern Romance languages, in comparative linguistics it is called Daco-Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. As a minority language it is spoken by stable communities in the countries surrounding Romania, and by the large Romanian diaspora. In total, it is spoken by 28–29 million people as an L1+L2 language, of whom c. 24 million are native speakers. In Europe, Romanian occupies the 10th position among 37 official languages.
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 the diaspora of this people. It is sometimes abbreviated to IR.
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The Istriot language is a Romance language of the Italo-Dalmatian branch spoken by about 400 people in the southwestern part of the Istrian peninsula in Croatia, particularly in Rovinj and Vodnjan. It should not be confused with the Istrian dialect of the Venetian language or the more distantly related Eastern Romance Istro-Romanian.
Gaj's Latin alphabet, also known as abeceda or gajica, is the form of the Latin script used for writing Serbo-Croatian and all of its standard varieties: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian.
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy. The Greek alphabet was adopted by the Etruscans, and subsequently their alphabet was adopted by the Romans. Several Latin-script alphabets exist, which differ in graphemes, collation and phonetic values from the classical Latin alphabet.
The Istro-Romanians are a Romance ethnic group native to or associated with the Istrian Peninsula. Historically, they inhabited vast parts of it, as well as the western side of the island of Krk until 1875. However, due to several factors such as the industrialization and modernization of Istria during the socialist regime of Yugoslavia, many Istro-Romanians emigrated to other places, be them Croatian cities such as Pula and Rijeka or places such as New York City, Trieste and Western Australia. The Istro-Romanians dwindled severely in number, being reduced to eight settlements on the Croatian side of Istria in which they do not represent the majority.
The Romanian dialects are the several regional varieties of the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian). The dialects are divided into two types, northern and southern, but further subdivisions are less clear, so the number of dialects varies between two and occasionally twenty. Most recent works seem to favor a number of three clear dialects, corresponding to the regions of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Banat, and an additional group of varieties covering the remainder of Transylvania, two of which are more clearly distinguished, in Crișana and Maramureș, that is, a total of five.
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Sextil Iosif Pușcariu was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian linguist and philologist, also known for his involvement in administrative and party politics. A native of Brașov educated in France and Germany, he was active in Transylvania's cultural life and worked as a Romanian-language professor at Czernowitz in the Duchy of Bukovina. He began his scholarly career in 1906, when he was tasked with compiling a general dictionary of the Romanian language. Interested in a variety of disciplines, Pușcariu published widely and brought new ideas into Romania, as well as overseeing two monumental projects related to the language: advancing his dictionary to the letter "L", and creating an atlas of the language.
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George Giuglea was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian linguist and philologist.
Septimiu Albini was an Imperial Austrian-born Romanian journalist and political activist. A native of Transylvania, he attended the University of Vienna, where he was active in the local affiliate of Junimea society. Invited by Ioan Slavici, he settled in Sibiu in 1886, where he edited Tribuna newspaper and delved into political journalism for the following eight years. The period was marked by several stays in prison for press infractions. His time there came to an abrupt end in 1894, when he was sentenced to prison for having signed the Transylvanian Memorandum. Rather than undergo further incarceration, Albini fled to the Romanian Old Kingdom, where he lived in relative obscurity.
Theodor Capidan was an Ottoman-born Romanian linguist. An ethnic Aromanian from the Macedonia region, he studied at Leipzig before teaching school at Thessaloniki. Following the creation of Greater Romania at the end of World War I, Capidan followed his friend Sextil Pușcariu to the Transylvanian capital Cluj, where he spent nearly two decades, the most productive part of his career. He then taught in Bucharest for a further ten years and was marginalized late in life under the nascent communist regime. Capidan's major contributions involve studies of the Aromanians and the Megleno-Romanians, as well as their respective languages. His research extended to reciprocal influences between Romanian and the surrounding Slavic languages, the Eastern Romance substratum and the Balkan sprachbund, as well as toponymy. He made a significant contribution to projects for a Romanian-language dictionary and atlas.
Andrei Glavina was an Austro-Hungarian-born Istro-Romanian writer, professor and politician born in Šušnjevica. Known as the "Apostle of the Istro-Romanians", he is recognized for his struggle for the Istro-Romanian culture and language, being notable his book Calindaru lu rumeri din Istrie, the first in history written in this language in collaboration with Constantin Diculescu. He also managed the creation of an Istro-Romanian municipality in 1922 being the first mayor, giving classes in Istro-Romanian in the only school of the municipality.
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