Istro-Romanian Language - Characteristics

Characteristics

The Istro-Romanian language bears close resemblance to Daco-Romanian, and most Romanian linguists consider it to be a dialect rather than a separate language. Istro-Romanian is sometimes confused with Istriot, the other seriously endangered language of southern Istria which is considered either a descendant of or closely related to one of the Dalmatian dialects.

One peculiarity of Istro-Romanian (IR) compared with Romanian dialects is the use of rhotacism (with the intervocalic /n/ becoming /r/, for instance lumină (meaning "light" in Romanian) becoming lumira). This is one of the reasons that some Romanian linguists think that Istro-Romanian evolved from the Romanian language spoken in the Apuseni or Maramureș area of Transylvania, which has some similar traits. It could also be a coincidental development, due to influence of surrounding languages. According to Popovici this characteristic is very old as it is found in very few words of Slavic origin which entered Daco-Romanian (DR) before the 12th century. Other Slavic elements in Istro-Romanian, i.e. Croatian and, more significantly, Slovene, as well as the Western Romance languages that have been historically prevalent in Istria, various Istrian dialects of Venetian and Italian—show no signs of rhotacism, except for its partial presence in the Chakavian dialect and in nearby islands which may have derived from a common root.

Other characteristics of Istro-Romanian include (note: the lexicon used below is not universally recognized):

• Prosthetic a- as in Aromanian (AR) arușine < DR rușine does not exist, however by false analogy an organic a- may disappear e.g. (a)prope, (a)ratå, (a)ve;
• stressed á may become å /ɔ/ which can also be found in the Banat region of Romania;
• ă-á becomes a-å, e.g. DR măritá > IR maritå (to marry), DR arătá > IR (a)ratå (to show);
• au becomes åv, a similar change appears in Aromanian, e.g. DR aud > AR avdu, IR åvdu (I hear); likewise DR preot > AR/IR preftu (priest);
• -e preceded by labials remains unaltered, whereas in DR it becomes -ă, e.g. IR per < DR păr (hair/pear tree), IR pemint < DR pămînt (ground);
• stressed DR -eá- becomes stressed -é-, e.g. DR leac > IR lec (remedy), DR leagăn > IR legăr (cradle/swing), DR fată > IR fetĕ (girl);
• The consonant groups cľ and gľ are only found in IR, AR and Megleno-Romanian (MR). These groups show that the Romanian dialects in Istria separated from DR before the 13th century, when cľ and gľ tended towards k' and g', e.g. Latin inclūdēre > IR cľide, MR ancľide > DR închide (to close), Latin glacia > IR gľåțĕ, AR/MR gľeț > DR gheață (ice);

• The labials p, b, f, v and m show the following evolutions in the Eastern Romance languages:

The results of these changes in IR can be outlined in the following:

pi > kľ, ć
bi > bľ
fi > fľ
vi > (g)ľ
mi > mľ

• Words only found in Istro-Romanian and the Daco-Romanian dialects of the Banat and Oltenia:

However, the similar words zgoda (happening) and prigoda (business) are widespread in Serbo-Croatian, and may also be Slavic loanwords; also, Istro-Romanian mľelu is similar to Chakavian mjelić (lamb) of some Adriatic islands. Lomi is a Slavic loanword, coming from "lomiti" (to break) in Serbo-Croatian. There are Slavic loanwords in other Eastern Romance languages, too, including Daco-Romanian.