Original scientific paper

Is There a Dalmatian lingua franca?

Željko Stepanić ; University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia

Abstract

Historical lingua franca, a rudimentary form of communication between Arabs and Europeans in the Mediterranean ports with predominantly Arab population, which was based on the use of Roman lexical fundus and over the centuries gradually shifted from the east to the west of the Mediterranean Sea – bypassing the Dalmatian coast – has still not been finally determined and defined. This gave room for various interpretations, often with mythical elements, supporting sometimes rather shaky hypotheses. Consequently, this paper demystifies the term lingua franca in order to find an answer to the question whether there is a Dalmatian version. To be more specific, although a direct bond between the historical lingua franca and Croatian maritime terminology has never been confirmed, texts have been published in Croatia in the last twenty years indicating there may have been, moreover, there still is a version of autohtonous i.e. Dalmatian lingua franca.
The Croats have adopted most of the maritime terms from the Venetians, who ruled a major part of the Croatian coast for centuries. The Venetian language was colonial language on the east Adriatic coast, and not lingua franca, which was – as a pretty bad adaptation of Roman languages by Arab speakers and appropriate for only superficial communication between the Arabs and the Europeans, with limited lexics and simplified grammar – never spoken in the Adriatic. Therefore, the use of Italian maritime terms in Venetian Dalmatia should be regarded only within the context of the centuries of Venetian rule on the Adriatic. There is no need to involve the Venetian contacts with the Arabs which resulted in creating lingua franca on the Levant. Although the Venetian maritime terms have been gradually disappearing after the fall of the Republic of Venice, and in particular with the rise of the new technological era, some of those terms – that are referred to as nostromisms – are still used by Croatian seafarers. A part of those terms – that are referred to as bosmanisms – have ended in the passive lexics. Consequently, the Italian terms used in Croatian maritime terminology nowadays have remained from the colonial version of the Venetian language, and not the so-called Dalmatian version of lingua franca.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

72814

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/72814

Publication date:

28.10.2011.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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