Chakavian

Historically, the classification of Chakavian has been a subject of much debate regarding both the question of how should it be named and whether it ought to be considered a dialect or a language, as well as the question of what its relation is to neighboring vernaculars (Kajkavian, Western Shtokavian and Eastern Shtokavian). Autonyms used throughout history by various Chakavian writers have been straightforward, ranging from mainly Croatian (harvatski, harvacki, hrvatski) to Slavic (slovinski) and Illyrian (illirski), but also other idioms, Kajkavian and Shtokavian, throughout history were named and understood as Croatian language. Chakavian compared to others is one of the oldest written South Slavic varieties that had made a visible appearance in legal documents—as early as 1275 (Istrian land survey) and 1288 (Vinodol codex), where the predominantly vernacular Chakavian is recorded, mixed with elements of Church Slavic. However, in both of them it is named as "Croatian language" (jazikom harvaskim/hrvatski/hervatski). The term Chakavian (noun čakavac) is first recorded in 1728 in the Ardelio Della Bella's Dizionario italiano-latino-illirico and in the beginning of the 19th century in Joakim Stulić's Lexicon latino–italico–illyricum, while adjective (čakavski) in Antun Mažuranić's analysis of Vinodol codex (1843). Croatian literary authors of what would later be known as Chakavian and Shtokavian idioms, from different parts of Dalmatia and Ragusa, in corresponding letters wrote that they belonged to the same Croatian nation, and spoke the same language ("časti našega jezika", "naš jezik") which they named as Croatian or Slavic ("kud jezik harvatski prohodi", "slovinski jezik"). With its name and dialectological or language form, it is mainly a creation advanced by linguists. Today, the term Chakavian is accepted by its speakers and linguists in Croatia, but usually for practical reasons. In its almost thousand years, Chakavian has undergone many phonetic, morphological, and syntactical changes -- chiefly in the turbulent mainlands, but less in isolated islands. The problem with classifying Chakavian within Western South Slavic stems in part from there being no unanimous opinion on the set of traits a dialect has to possess to be classified as Chakavian (usually argued only as a gradation of "Chakavism"). Its sub-dialects have various differences but also closeness to neighboring Shtokavian and Kajkavian speeches, and all three dialects are part of a dialect continuum, while their diversification into dialects and languages is mostly political, ethnic and symbolic. From a linguistic point of view, national and other names based on interrogatory pronouns are practical, but also inaccurate as dialect/language definitions; linguists would more precisely replace these with complex isoglosses in the dialect continuum. Dialectologists and Slavists maintain that when the separation of Western South Slavic speeches happened, they separated into five divergent groups, more specifically two, one Slovene and second Serbo-Croatian with four divergent groups - Kajkavian, Chakavian, Western Shtokavian and Eastern Shtokavian. The latter group can be additionally divided into first (Kajkavian, Chakavian, Western Shtokavian) and second (Eastern Shtokavian, Torlakian). which was met with criticism. At the suggestion of American linguist Kirk Miller in 2019, the Chakavian dialect was recognized by SIL International as a living language with its own ISO 639-3 code – ckm in 2020. The recognition was mostly met with silence and ignorance in Croatia and by Croatian linguists and scientists (until early 2023 news media reports), partly because it does not affect dialect status of Chakavian nor does it have relevancy in international and national linguistic science. Joško Božanić noted the paradox of SIL International, as the institute already registered in 2008 the Croatian language as a South Slavic language with three dialects (Kajkavian, Chakavian, Shtokavian). He considers that the re-valorization of Chakavian idiom should not come from a foreign country, and Croatian initiatives possibly need to aim listing it on UNESCO's Red Book list on endangered languages in Europe. Croatian political scientist Viktor Matić considers that the Croatian "linguistic separatism" has antagonism against Croatian standard language but it is also result of previous fetishising of Croatian standard language and Serbo-Croatian language.). The terms of Chakavian and Shtokavian dialect were introduced to Croatian linguistics by Antun Mažuranić and Vjekoslav Babukić in the mid-19th century. It is also well known for many maritime words and terms missing in the Croatian standard language. Many lexicons of local Chakavian varieties have been published. The representative modern work in the field is Čakavisch-deutsches Lexikon, vol. 1.-3, Koeln-Vienna, 1979–1983, edited by Croatian linguists Mate Hraste, Petar Šimunović and German linguist Reinhold Olesch; Janne Kalsbeek's work on The Čakavian Dialect of Orbanići near Žminj in Istria (1998); Keith Langston's Cakavian Prosody: The Accentual Patterns of the Cakavian Dialects of Croatian (2006); Josip Lisac's Hrvatska Dijalektologija 2. Čakavsko narječje (2009), various works by Iva Lukežić, Sanja Zubčić, Silvana Vranić, Sanja Vulić, Mate Kapović and so on. ==Chakavian literary language==

Since Chakavian was the first South Slavic dialect to emerge from the Church Slavic matrix, both literacy and literature in this dialect abound with numerous texts - from legal and liturgical to literary: lyric and epic poetry, drama, novel in verses, as well as philological works that contain Chakavian vocabulary. Chakavian idiom was de facto the main public and official language in medieval Croatia up to the 16th century. Chakavian literature uses many words of Latin, Dalmatian, and Italian origin due to the millennial long contacts with these languages. When compared different epochs with different status of Chakavian dialect (i.e. Croatian language), such words became more widespread in local speeches in the last few centuries, creating various Chakavian-Italian hybrid words. Monuments of literacy began to appear in the 11th and 12th centuries, and artistic literature in the 15th. There were two zones of Chakavian, northern and southern (both mainly along the Adriatic coast and islands, with centres like Senj, Zadar, Split, Hvar, Korčula). Many of these used Chakavian, and up to the 17th century the texts were written in Glagolitic, Bosnian Cyrillic, and the Latin alphabet. The Chakavian language by far surpassed the position of a simple vernacular dialect and strongly influenced other Croatian literary dialects, particularly Western Shtokavian: the first Shtokavian texts such as the Vatican Croatian Prayer Book, dated to 1400, exhibit numerous literary Chakavianisms. The early Shtokavian literary and philological output, mainly from Dubrovnik (1500–1600) up to Džore Držić, was essentially a mixed Shtokavian–Chakavian idiom. The most famous early Chakavian author is Marko Marulić in 15th-16th century, the "father of Croatian literature", and were written first Croatian novels and poems. Also, the first Croatian dictionary, authored by Faust Vrančić, is mostly Chakavian in its form. Although in the 18th century was with Kajkavian and Shtokavian one of the basis of Croatian literary centre in Ozalj (led by Croatian noble families Frankopan and Zrinski), the tradition of the Chakavian literary language had declined in the same century, but it has helped shape both Croatian literary language and the standard Croatian language in many ways, chiefly in morphology and phonetics, and Chakavian dialectal poetry is still a vital part of Croatian literature. In the Croatian and world literature, it remerged in the 20th century thanks to early writing of Tin Ujević, Marko Uvodić, Miljenko Smoje, and the most prominent representatives in the 20th century are Mate Balota, Vladimir Nazor and Drago Gervais. In 1938, Balota's collection of poems Dragi kamen was published in Zagreb, while his only novel, Tight Country: A Novel from Istrian Folk Life, was published in 1946. The novel became a cult among Kvarner and Istrian Croats. At the end of the 1980s in Istria and Kvarner there began a special subgenre of pop-rock music movement (Cha wave); artists that were part of this scene used the Chakavian dialect in their lyrics, and often fused rock music with traditional Istra-Kvarner music (most notably Alen Vitasović, Gustafi, ). ==Area of use==

In the Middle Ages, on the territory of medieval Croatia formed three dialects; Chakavian, Western Shtokavian and Kajkavian. Initially, the Chakavian dialect covered a much wider area than today: the major part of western-central and southern Croatia southwards of Kupa and westwards of Una river, bordering with the western and southwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, including all the Eastern Adriatic islands northwest of Mljet, while substratum of Chakavian in Dalmatia possibly existed all the way to Dubrovnik. Croatian dialectologist Petar Šimunović considered that all area until and with Dubrovnik was originally Chakavian. The Dubrovnik area has phonology closer to Southern Chakavian than Eastern Shtokavian. It is possible that some Chakavian idioms were also present in early medieval Montenegro and Albania. However, linguists also point to the fact that it is not possible to draw historical border between Chakavian and Shtokavian, especially Western Shtokavian, with certainty. According to Serbian linguist Pavle Ivić, "the question of where the border of these two dialects was in the Middle Ages is not quite appropriate". During and after the Ottoman invasion and subsequent warfare (15th–19th centuries) on the territory of Croatia, the Chakavian dialect area ("jazik hrvatski") became significantly reduced, and on the Croatian mainland, it has been almost completely replaced by the adjacent Shtokavian dialect. In the process the evident dialect continuum was broken as old transitional dialects were lost. Based on 35 letters by Ottoman officers in their native language between the mid-16th and mid-17th century in Dalmatia, almost all of them were Chakavian-Schakavian ikavian. Today, only Northern Chakavian and partly Buzet dialect are widely spoken in the areas where they are located, as all other Chakavian dialects have greatly lost territory, or were assimilated into Shtokavian. According to Josip Lisac, Chakavian dialect would have been the best dialectological basis for the Croatian standard language (Chakavian and Kajkavian nevertheless still had an important active role in the standardization of the Croatian language). The reason it was not chosen for the basis of Croatian standard language in the 19th century is considered to be the significant reduction of dialect area due to previous migrations and change of dialectical contacts, but others disagree and point that such argument initially only hindered scientific research. It certainly was the main, but not only reason, as the "results of convergent Croatian literary and linguistic development" can be traced to literary and sacral works at least since first half of the 16th century. Over time, it was perceived as an archaic, less prestigious dialect. The use of Chakavian varies by the region where it was historically spoken. It is now mostly reduced to Croatia along the eastern Adriatic: Adriatic islands, and sporadically in the mainland coast, with rare inland enclaves up to central Croatia, and minor enclaves in Austria and Montenegro. All of those areas were in contact with Italo-Dalmatian and Eastern Romance languages, which heavily influenced the development of Chakavian. It is estimated that the share of Croatian language speakers who spoke a Chakavian dialect fell from 23% to 12% over the course of the 20th century. Areas where Chakavian is spoken include: • The majority of Adriatic islands, except for the easternmost islands (Mljet and Elafiti), the easternmost areas of Hvar and Brač, and the area around the city of Korčula. • The entire Istria peninsula, and Kvarner littoral and islands; minor coastal enclaves occur sporadically in the Dalmatian mainland around Zadar, Biograd, Split, and on the Pelješac peninsula. It has almost vanished in Šibenik and Omiš. • Within the Croatian inland, it is the Gacka valley, and minor enclaves occur in Pokupje valley and Žumberak hills, northwards around Karlovac. • A minor enclave of Bigova (Trašte) at Boka Kotorska in Montenegro, the mixed Čičarija dialect in Slovenia, refugees from the Ottoman Empire in Burgenland (eastern Austria) and around Bratislava, and a substratum in Slavomolisano • Among recent emigrants in North America (chiefly in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Vancouver). ==Sub-dialects==

There is no unanimous opinion on the set of traits a dialect has to possess to be classified as Chakavian (rather than its admixture with Shtokavian or Kajkavian). Josip Lisac mentions up to 21, but many of them are not common to all Chakavian sub-dialects and often can be found in non-Chakavian dialects. The following traits were mostly proposed: • interrogatory pronoun is "ča" or "zač" (on some islands also "ca" or "zace"); • old accentuation and 3 accents (mostly in ultima or penultima); • phonological features that yield /a/ for Old Slavic phonemes in characteristic positions: "language" is jazik (or zajik) in Chakavian and jezik in Shtokavian; • /j/ as in Slovene and Kajkavian where Shtokavian has /dʑ/ ⟨đ⟩: Chakavian, Slovene, Kajkavian meja, Shtokavian međa ("border"); • historic /m/ shifted to /n/ at the end of words, unlike in Shtokavian: standard Croatian volim ("I love"), sam ("I am"), selom ("village" - Instrumental case), Chakavian volin, san, selon. • in conditional occur specific prefixes: bin-, biš-, bimo-, bite-, bis • contracted or lacking aorist tense; • some subdialects on island of Pag have kept the archaic form of imperfect The Chakavian dialect is divided along several criteria. In the older literature of Aleksandar Belić, Stjepan Ivšić, Pavle Ivić, Dalibor Brozović and others it was mostly divided into two (Northern and Southern, later, Northwestern and Southeastern) or three main varieties (Northwestern, Central, Southeastern), while in the work by Willem Vermeer and Keith Langston there are three main varieties (Northwestern, Central, Southeastern). According to the reflex of the Common Slavic phoneme yat */ě/, there are four varieties: • Ekavian (northeastern Istria, Rijeka and Bakar, Cres island): */ě/ > /e/ • Ikavian–Ekavian (islands Lošinj, Krk, Rab, Pag, Dugi Otok, Ugljan, mainland Vinodol and Pokupje): */ě/ > /i/ or /e/, according to Jakubinskij's law • Ikavian (southwestern Istria, islands Brač, Hvar, Vis, Korčula, Pelješac, Dalmatian coast at Zadar and Split, inland Gacka): */ě/ > /i/ • Ijekavian (Lastovo island, Janjina on Pelješac): */ě/ > /je/ or /ije/ Obsolete literature commonly refers to Ikavian–Ekavian dialects as "mixed", which is a misleading term because the yat reflexes were governed by Jakubinskij's law. According to Lisac, division per reflex of yat is most reasonable, although even then exist significant sub-level differences. According to their tonal (accentual) features, Chakavian dialects are divided into the following groups: • dialects with the "classical" Chakavian three-tone system • dialects with two tonic accents • dialects with four tonic accents similar to that of Shtokavian dialects • dialects with four-tonic Shtokavian system • dialects mixing traits of the first and the second group Using a combination of accentual and phonological criteria, Croatian dialectologists Dalibor Brozović (1988) and Josip Lisac (2009) divide Chakavian into six (sub)dialects: ==Non-palatal tsakavism==

Besides the usual Chakavian (with typical pronoun "ča"), in some Adriatic islands and in eastern Istria another special variant is also spoken which lacks most palatals, with other parallel deviations called "tsakavism" (cakavizam): • palatal "č" is replaced by the sibilant "ts" (c): pronouns ca and zac (or ce and zace). • palatals š (sh) and ž (zh) are replaced by sibilants s and z (or transitive sj and zj). • đ (dj), lj and nj are replaced by the simple d, l and n (without iotation). • Frequent diphthongs instead of simple vowels: o > uo, a > oa, e > '''', etc. • Yat (jat): longer y (= ue) exists in addition to the usual short i (or e). • Appurtenance is often noted by possessive dative (rarely adjective nor genitive) • Vocative is mostly lacking and replaced by a nominative in appellating construction. • Auxiliary particles are always before the main verb: se- (self), bi- (if), će- (be). The largest area of tsakavism is in eastern Istria at Labin, Rabac and a dozen nearby villages; minor mainland enclaves are the towns Bakar and Trogir. Atavism is also frequent in Adriatic islands: part of Lošinj and nearby islets, Ist, Baška in Krk, Pag town, the western parts of Brač (Milna), Hvar town, and the entire island of Vis with adjacent islets. The first two features are similar to mazurzenie in Polish, where it is present in many dialects, and tsokanye, occurring in the Old Novgorod dialect. ==Phonology==

The basic phonology of Chakavian, with representation in Gaj's Latin alphabet and IPA, is as follows: ==Chakavian media==

• The biannual periodical Čakavska rič (Chakavian Word), with 50 annual volumes, published from 1971 by the Literary Association (Književni krug) in Split. • The annual periodical Pannonische Jahrbuch with dozen volumes partly in Chakavian of Burgenland Croats, published since 1994 by the Pannonisches Institut in Gutterbach (Burgenland, Austria). • The annual periodical Vinodolski zbornik with a dozen volumes published in Crikvenica, including different texts in the local Chakavian of the Vinodol Valley. • The annual singing festival Melodije Istre i Kvarnera takes place every year in different towns of the Istria and Kvarner regions. Performers perform in local Chakavian dialects exclusively. • A major perpetual program in the Chakavian of Dalmatia is given by the local television stations in Split, Rijeka, and Pula. Other minor half-Chakavian media with temporary Chakavian contents also include the local radio programs in the cities of Split and Rijeka and Krk island radio. ==Examples==

• (mainland half-Chakavian) • (vicinity of Labin in eastern Istria) • (vicinity of Labin in eastern Istria) ==See also==