Istriot language
Istriot is a Romance language 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. Classification. Istriot is a Romance language related to the Ladin populations of the Alps, currently only found in Istria. According to the Italian linguist Matteo Bartoli, the Ladin area used to extend – until the year 1000 AD – from southern Istria to Friuli and eastern Switzerland. Its classification remained mostly unclear, but in 2017 it was classified by the Max Planck  Institute for the Science of Human History with the Dalmatian language in the Dalmatian Romance subgroup, yet due to the specificities of the language, which has always had a very limited number of speakers, Istriot was also viewed: When Istria was a region of the Kingdom of Italy, Istriot was considered by the authorities as a subdialect of Venetian. Historically, its speakers never referred to it as "Istriot"; it had six names after the six towns where it was spoken. In Vodnjan it was named "Bumbaro", in Bale "Vallese", in Rovinj "Rovignese", in Šišan "Sissanese", in Fažana "Fasanese" and in  Galižana "Gallesanese". The term "Istriot" was coined by the 19th-century Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli. This language is still spoken by some people in the Istriot communities in Fertilia and Maristella, in Sardinia. There are about 400 speakers left, making it an endangered language. Vocabulary. Below is a comparison of Istriot with several closely related Romance languages and Latin: Phonology. The phonology of the Istriot language: Orthography. The Istriot alphabet is the following: Example. This is a poem called "Grièbani" by Ligio Zanini in the dialect of Rovinj-Rovigno.