Slavomolisano dialect

Molise Slavic
Molise Croatian
Slavomolisano
Native to Italy
Region Molise
Ethnicity 2,000 Italian (Molise Croats)
Native speakers
< 1,000 (2012)[1]
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Language codes
ISO 639-3 svm
Glottolog slav1254[2]

Slavomolisano, also known as Molise Slavic or Molise Croatian, is a variety of Shtokavian Serbo-Croatian spoken by Italian Croats in the province of Campobasso, in the Molise Region of southern Italy, in the villages of Montemitro (Mundimitar), Acquaviva Collecroce (Živavoda Kruč) and San Felice del Molise (Štifilić). There are fewer than 1,000 active speakers, and fewer than 2,000 passive speakers.[1]

It has been preserved since a group of Croats emigrated from Dalmatia due to the advancing Ottoman Turks. The residents of these villages speak a Shtokavian dialect with an Ikavian accent, and a strong Southern Chakavian adstratum. The Molise Croats consider themselves to be Italians of South Slavic heritage who speak a Slavic language, rather than simply ethnic Slavs or Croats.[1] Some speakers call themselves Zlavi or Harvati and call their language simply na našo ("our language").

History

The inhabitants of these villages would say that their ancestors came Z onu banu mora ("From the other side of the sea"), and inhabited villages in Molise and Abruzzo, abandoned because of the plague. They arrived in the 15th century, probably coming from the Neretva valley in what is today Bosnia and Herzegovina.[3] Originally the area inhabited by Slavs was much larger than today. Because these people have migrated away from the rest of their kinsmen so long ago, their diaspora language is somewhat distinct from the Ikavian-Shtokavian idioms spoken on the other side of the Adriatic.

The language was preserved until today only in the aforementioned three villages, although several villages in Molise and Abruzzo region are aware of their Slavic ancestry. The existence of this colony was unknown outside Italy until 1855 when Medo Pucić, a Serbian writer, linguist and politician from Dubrovnik, during one of his journeys in Italy overheard a tailor in Naples speaking with his wife in a language very similar to Pucić's own. The tailor then told him that he came from the village of Kruč, then part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Subsequently, the Gajica, the modern Croatian alphabet, was adopted to the language.

The language is highly Italianized. As has been mentioned above, the literati generally borrow words from modern (Ijekavian – their dialect is Ikavian) Serbocroatian, but the obligatory Italian translations are seen to follow these words in print. It also retains many archaic features. Because the colony was established before the discovery of the Americas, all the names of animals and plants introduced from the Americas are borrowed from Italian or created from whole cloth.

The language is taught in primary schools and the signs in villages are bilingual. However, the sociolinguistic status of the language differs among the three villages where it is spoken: in San Felice del Molise, it is spoken only by old people, whereas in Acquaviva Collecroce it is also spoken by young adults and adolescents, and in Montemitro it is even spoken by children, generally alongside Italian.[3]

Features

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant system of Molise Slavic is as follows, with parenthesized consonants indicating sounds that appear only as allophones:[4]

Labial Dental Palato-
alveolar
Palatal Velar
Plosive p b t d c ɟ k g
Affricate t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Fricative f v s z ʃ ʒ ç ʝ x (ɣ)
Nasal m n ɲ (ŋ)
Lateral l ʎ
Trill r
Approximant (w) (j)

Vowels

The vocalic system of Molise Slavic has seven distinct vowel qualities, as follows:[4]

Front Central Back
i u
e o
ɛ ɔ
a

Samples

A text collected by Milan Rešetar in 1911 (here superscripts indicate voiceless vowels):[5]

The Fox and the Lark
Slavomolisano Standard Serbo-Croatian English translation
Nu votu biš na-lisic oš na-kalandrel; su vrl grańe na-po. Lisic je rekla kalandrel: "Sad’ ti grańe, ka ja-ću-ga plivit." Sa je-rivala ka’ sa-plivaš; je rekla lisic: "Pliv’ ti sa’, ke ja-ću-ga poranat." Kalandral je-plivila grańe. Kada sa ranaše, je rekla lisic: "Sa’ ranaj ti, ke ja-ću-ga štoknit." Je-rivala za-ga-štoknit; je rekla lisic: "Sa’ štokni ga-ti, ke ja-ću-ga zabrat." Je rivala za zabrat; je rekla lisic: "Zabri-ga ti, ke ja-ću-ga razdilit." Je pola kalandrela za-ga-razdilit; lisic je-vrla kučak zdola meste. Sa je rekla lisic kalandrel: "Vam’ meste!"; kaladrela je-vazela meste, je jizaša kučak, je kumenca lajat, — kalandrela je ušl e lisic je-rekla: "Grańe men — slamu teb!" Jedanput bješe jedna lisica i jedna ševa; metnule su kukuruz napola. Lisica je rekla ševi: "Sadi ti kukuruz, jer ja ću ga plijeviti." Sad je došlo (vrijeme), kada se plijevljaše; rekla je lisica: "Plijevi ti sad, jer ja ću ga opkopati." Ševa je plijevila kukuruz. Kada se opkapaše, rekla je lisica: "Sada opkapaj ti, jer ja ću rezati." Došlo je (vrijeme) da se reže; rekla je lisica: "Sad ga reži ti, jer ja ću ga probrati." Došlo je (vrijeme) da se probere; rekla je lisica: "Proberi ga ti, jer ja ću ga razdijeliti." Pošla je ševa da ga dijeli; lisica je metnula kučka pod vagan. Sad je rekla lisica ševi: "Uzmi vagan!"; ševa je uzela vagan, izašao je kučak, počeo je lajati, — ševa je pobjegla, a lisica je rekla: "Kukuruz meni — slamu tebi!" Once there was a fox and a lark; they divided corn in halves. The fox said to the lark: "You plant the corn, for I’ll weed out the chaff." The time came to weed out the chaff; the fox said: "You weed now, for I’ll dig around it." The lark weeded out the chaff from the corn. When it came time to dig, the fox said: "Now you dig, for I’ll reap it." The time came to reap it; the fox said: "Now you reap it, for I will gather it." The time came to gather; the fox said: "You gather it, for I’ll divide it up." The lark went to divide it up; the fox placed a dog under the weighing pan. Now the fox said to the lark: "Take the weighing pan!"; the lark took the pan, the dog came out, he began to bark, — the lark fled, but the fox said: "The corn for me — the straw for you!"

An anonymous poem (reprinted in Hrvatske Novine: Tajednik Gradišćanskih Hrvatov, winner of a competition in Molise):

SIN MOJ

    Mo prosič solite saki dan
    ma što činiš, ne govoreš maj
    je funia dan, je počela noča,
    maneštra se mrzli za te čeka.
    Letu vlase e tvoja mat
    gleda vane za te vit.
    Boli život za sta zgoro,
    ma samo mat te hoče dobro.
    Sin moj!
    Nimam već suze za još plaka
    nimam već riče za govorat.
    Srce se guli za te misli
    što ti prodava, oni ke sve te išće!
    Palako govoru, čelkadi saki dan,
    ke je dola droga na vi grad.
    Sin moj!
    Tvoje oč, bihu toko lipe,
    sada jesu mrtve,
    Boga ja molim, da ti živiš
    droga ja hočem da ti zabiš,
    doma te čekam, ke se vrniš,
    Solite ke mi prosiš,
    kupiš paradis, ma smrtu platiš.

A section of The Little Prince, as translated into Molise Slavic by Walter Breu and Nicola Gliosca:

Slavomolisano Standard Serbo-Croatian English translation
A! Mali kraljič, ja sa razumija, na mala na votu, naka, tvoj mali život malingonik. Ti s'bi jima sa čuda vrima kana dištracijunu sama ono slako do sutanji. Ja sa znaja ovu malu aš novu stvaru, dòp četar dana jistru, kada ti s'mi reka: Su mi čuda drage sutanja. Ah! Mali prinče, tako sam, malo po malo, shvatio tvoj mali, tužni život. Tebi je dugo vremena jedina razonoda bila samo ljepota sunčevih zalazaka! Tu sam novu pojedinost saznao četvrtog dana ujutro kad si mi rekao: Jako volim zalaske sunca. Oh, little prince! Bit by bit I came to understand the secrets of your sad little life. For a long time you had found your only entertainment in the quiet pleasure of looking at the sunset. I learned that new detail on the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me: I am very fond of sunsets.

Dictionaries

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Breu, Walter (2012-03-06). "Request for New Language Code Element in ISO 639-3" (PDF). ISO 639-3 Registration Authority. Retrieved 2013-06-30.
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Slavomolisano". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Marra, Antonietta. Contact Phenomena in the Slavic of Molise: some remarks about nouns and prepositional phrases in Morphologies in Contact (2012), p.265 et seq.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Walter Breu and Giovanni Piccoli (2000), Dizionario croato molisano di Acquaviva Collecroce: Dizionario plurilingue della lingua slava della minoranza di provenienza dalmata di Acquaviva Collecroce in Provincia di Campobasso (Parte grammaticale).
  5. Milan Rešetar (1911), Die Serbokroatischen Kolonien Süditaliens.

Bibliography

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