Colloquia Maruliana ..., Vol. 12 , 2003.
Original scientific paper
On the Dalmato-Romance in Marulić's Works
Žarko Muljačić
Abstract
Our knowledge about the long since extinct Dalmato-Romance languages (“Iadertin” or Zadar-Romance, Ragusan or Dubrovnik-Romance and Labeatic or Bar-Romance, which, incidentally, I have named according to the Latin name Lacus Labeaticus “Skadar/Scutari Lake”) and about the dialects of them is very scanty. Relatively the most is known (though still not enough) about the Vegliote (Krk Romance) dialect of the Zadar Romance (mainly about its death throes between ca. 1840 and 1898, which are fairly well documented). As for Ragusan, which died out at the end of the 15th century, a little is known, less about the autochthonous Romance languages of Zadar and Kotor, and least of all about those of Cres, Rab, Trogir, Split, Korčula, Budva, Bar, Ulcinj, Skadar, Drivast and Lesh.
Since no texts in Split Romance (’Spalatin’) are extant the author has set off in the only way possible, the indirect way of attempting to trace the secrets of its historical phonology by analysing any lexemes of possible Dalmato-Romance origin that have been preserved in Marulić’s Croatian works (without paying attention to to “translation words” because these are relatively well studied). The author came to the conclusion that, judging from the indirect knowledge to be attained from the phonology, “Spalatin” was first of all held up and then done away with thanks to the “cleft” in which it was “clutched” between the language of Split Croats (who century by century became increasingly numerous and finally the majority people) and the (colonial) Venetian language of the foreign rulers.
The author hopes that this pioneering work will be of use to future researchers (who will find available to them the following volumes of the MSHSM series and new knowledge about the Dalmato-Romance subfamily and the Romance linguistic family) in making successful inroads into this interesting problem area.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
7979
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2003.
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