map of the Austrian Empire by Karl Freiherrn von Czoernig Two major ethnolinguistic clusters were unified in the region. The western portion was inhabited primarily by
Italians (
Italian,
Venetian and
Friulian were the three major languages), with a small
Istriot-speaking minority. The eastern and northern areas were inhabited by
South Slavs (
Slovenes and
Croats), with small
Montenegrin (
Peroj) and
Serb minorities. Other ethnic groups included
Istro-Romanians in eastern
Istria,
Carinthian Germans in the
Canale Valley and smaller
German- and
Hungarian-speaking communities in larger urban centres, primarily members of the former
Austro-Hungarian elite. This is illustrated by the 1855 ethnographic map of the Austrian Empire compiled by Karl von Czoernig-Czernhausen and issued by the Austrian
k. u. k. department of statistics. According to the 1910–1911 Austrian census, the Austrian Littoral (which would be annexed by Italy from 1920 to 1924) had a population of 978,385. Italian was the everyday language (
Umgangsprache) of 421,444 people (43.1 percent); 327,230 (33.4 percent) spoke Slovene, and 152,500 (15.6 percent) spoke Croatian. About 30,000 people (3.1 percent) spoke German, 3,000 (0.3 percent) spoke Hungarian, and small clusters of
Istro-Romanian and
Czech speakers existed. The
Friulian,
Venetian and
Istriot languages were considered Italian; an estimated 60,000 or more "Italian" speakers (about 14 percent) spoke Friulian.
Romance languages The standard
Italian language was common among educated people in Trieste,
Gorizia, Istria and Fiume/Rijeka. In Trieste (and to a lesser extent in Istria), Italian was the predominant language in primary education. The Italian-speaking elite dominated the governments of Trieste and Istria under Austro-Hungarian rule, although they were increasingly challenged by Slovene and Croatian political movements. Before 1918, Trieste was the only self-governing Austro-Hungarian unit in which Italian speakers were the majority of the population. Most of the
Romance-speaking population did not speak standard Italian as their native language, but two other closely related Romance languages: Friulian and Venetian. There was no attempt to introduce Venetian into education and administration. Friulian was spoken in the south-western lowlands of the county of Gorizia and Gradisca (except for the Monfalcone-Grado area, where Venetian was spoken), and in the town of
Gorizia. Larger Friulian-speaking centres included
Cormons,
Cervignano, and
Gradisca d'Isonzo. A dialect of Friulian (Tergestine) was spoken in Trieste and
Muggia, evolving into a Venetian dialect during the 18th century. According to contemporary estimates, three-quarters of the Italians in the county of Gorizia and Gradisca were native Friulian speakers—one-quarter of the county's population, and seven to eight percent of the population of the Julian March. Venetian dialects were concentrated in Trieste, Rijeka and Istria, and the Istro-Venetian dialect was the predominant language of the west Istrian coast. In many small west Istrian towns, such as
Koper (Capodistria),
Piran (Pirano) or
Poreč (Parenzo), the Venetian-speaking majority reached 90 percent of the population and 100 percent in
Umag (Umago) and
Muggia. Venetian was also a strong presence on Istria's
Cres-
Lošinj archipelago and in the peninsula's eastern and interior towns such as
Motovun,
Labin,
Plomin and, to a lesser extent,
Buzet and
Pazin. Although Istro-Venetian was strongest in urban areas, clusters of Venetian-speaking peasants also existed. This was especially true for the area around
Buje and
Grožnjan in north-central Istria, where Venetian spread during the mid-19th century (often in the form of a Venetian-Croat
pidgin). In the county of Gorizia and Gradisca, Venetian was spoken in the area around
Monfalcone and
Ronchi (between the lower
Isonzo River and the Karst Plateau) in an area popularly known as
Bisiacaria and in the town of
Grado. In Trieste the local Venetian dialect (known as
Triestine) was widely spoken, although it was the native language of only about half the city's population. In Rijeka-Fiume, a form of Venetian known as
Fiumano emerged during the late 18th and early 19th centuries and became the native language of about half the city's population. In addition to these two large language groups, two smaller Romance communities existed in Istria. In the south-west, on the coastal strip between Pula and
Rovinj, the archaic
Istriot language was spoken. In some villages of eastern Istria, north of
Labin, the
Istro-Romanian language was spoken by about 3,000 people.
South Slavic languages Slovene was spoken in the north-eastern and southern parts of Gorizia and Gradisca (by about 60 percent of the population), in northern Istria and in the
Inner Carniolan areas annexed by Italy in 1920 (
Postojna,
Vipava,
Ilirska Bistrica and
Idrija). It was also the primary language of one-fourth to one-third of the population of Trieste. Smaller Slovene-speaking communities lived in the
Canale Valley (
Carinthian Slovenes), in
Rijeka and in larger towns outside the
Slovene Lands (especially
Pula,
Monfalcone,
Gradisca d'Isonzo and
Cormons).
Slavia Friulana – Beneška Slovenija, the community living since the eighth century in small towns (such as
Resia) in the valleys of the
Natisone,
Torre and
Judrio Rivers in
Friuli, has been part of Italy since 1866. A variety of
Slovene dialects were spoken throughout the region. The Slovene linguistic community in the Julian March was divided into as many as 11 dialects (seven larger and four smaller dialects), belonging to three of the
seven dialect groups into which Slovene is divided. Most Slovenes were fluent in standard Slovene, with the exception of some northern Istrian villages (where primary education was in Italian and the
Slovene national movement penetrated only in the late 19th century) and the
Carinthian Slovenes in the Canale Valley, who were
Germanised until 1918 and frequently spoke only the local dialect. Slovene-Italian bilingualism was present only in some north-west Istrian coastal villages and the confined semi-urban areas around Gorizia and Trieste, while the vast majority of Slovene speakers had little (or no) knowledge of Italian;
German was the predominant second language of the Slovene rural population.
Croatian was spoken in the central and eastern Istrian peninsula, on the
Cres-
Lošinj archipelago; it was the second-most-spoken language (after Venetian) in the town of
Rijeka. The
Kajkavian dialect of
Serbo-Croatian was spoken around
Buzet in north-central Istria;
Čakavian was predominant in all other areas, frequently with strong Kajkavian and Venetian vocabulary influences. Italian-Croatian
bilingualism was frequent in western Istria, on the Cres-Lošinj archipelago and in Rijeka, but rare elsewhere.
Linguistic minorities German was the predominant language in secondary and higher education throughout the region until 1918, and the educated elite were fluent in German. Many Austrian civil servants used German in daily life, especially in larger urban centres. Most of the German speakers would speak Italian, Slovene or Croatian on social and public occasions, depending on their political and ethnic preferences and location. Among the rural population, German was spoken by about 6,000 people in the Canale Valley. In the major urban areas (primarily Trieste and Rijeka),
Hungarian,
Serbian,
Czech and
Greek were spoken by smaller communities. == Flags ==