Dalmatian language
Extinct Romance varieties of Dalmatia
title: "Dalmatian language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["dalmatian-language", "extinct-languages-of-europe", "extinct-romance-languages", "languages-attested-from-the-1200s", "languages-extinct-in-the-1890s", "languages-of-croatia", "italo-dalmatian-languages", "languages-of-montenegro"] description: "Extinct Romance varieties of Dalmatia" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalmatian_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Extinct Romance varieties of Dalmatia ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Dalmatian |
| region | Dalmatia |
| extinct | 1898 (if Tuone Udaina was the last speaker) |
| familycolor | Indo-European |
| fam2 | Italic |
| fam3 | Latino-Faliscan |
| fam4 | Latin |
| fam5 | Romance |
| fam6 | Italo-Dalmatian |
| map | Dubrovacka republika.png |
| iso3 | dlm |
| glotto | dalm1243 |
| glottorefname | Dalmatian |
| linglist | dlm |
| lingua | 51-AAA-t |
| :: |
| name = Dalmatian | region = Dalmatia | extinct = 1898 (if Tuone Udaina was the last speaker) | familycolor = Indo-European | fam2 = Italic | fam3 = Latino-Faliscan | fam4 = Latin | fam5 = Romance | fam6 = Italo-Dalmatian | map = Dubrovacka republika.png | iso3 = dlm | glotto = dalm1243 | glottorefname = Dalmatian | linglist = dlm | lingua = 51-AAA-t
Dalmatian or Dalmatic (,{{cite web |title=Dalmatian |website=Ethnologue |url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/dlm |publisher=SIL International |access-date=28 October 2025 |quote=In Dalmatian known as dalmato or langa dalmata
Today it is quite difficult to place Dalmatian within the Romance language landscape, where it somehow constitutes a branch of its own. In one of the most recent classifications, dating back to 2017, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History places it, for example, together with Istriot in the Italo-Dalmatian Romance subgroup. However, the classification of Dalmatian is not settled.
Phonology
::data[format=table title="[[Consonant]]s in [[Dalmatian language#Vegliote|Vegliote]]{{sfn|Maiden|2020}}"]
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Plosive | Nasal | Trill | Fricative | Lateral | Affricate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| :: |
Varieties
Ragusan
This was spoken in Dubrovnik (). Various Ragusan words are known from local documents in Latin and Venetian. One such document, for instance, records the words pen, teta, chesa, fachir and indicates the meanings 'bread', 'father', 'house', 'to do'. There are also some 14th-century texts in Ragusan, but these show extensive Croatian and Venetian influence, to the point that it is difficult to discern which if any of their features are genuinely Dalmatian.
A notable feature of Ragusan was its preservation (without palatalisation) of Latin and before front vowels, which can be seen in attested forms like colchitra
In the Republic of Ragusa, official business was conducted in Ragusan until approximately the end of the 15th century. In 1472 the Senate banned the use (without permission) of "Slavic" or "any language other than Ragusan or Italian" for conducting legal disputes. Another piece of evidence is a letter by Elio Lampridio Cerva (1463–1520) that mentions "I remember how, when I was a boy, old men would carry on legal business in the Romance language that was called Ragusan".
Vegliote
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/TuoneUdaina.jpg" caption="Tuone Udaina"] ::
This was spoken in Krk (, ). It is documented from the 19th century, in large part thanks to the efforts of the linguist Matteo Bartoli and his informant, Tuone Udaina. When they first met, Udaina had not spoken Vegliote in two decades and could only produce a sort of 'Dalmatianised' Venetian. As their interviews went on, he was able to recall more and more Vegliote from his youth, albeit in a form still tinged by his Venetian.
Like Ragusan, Vegliote did not participate in the broader Romance palatalisation of and before front vowels. (Compare Vegliote "cold" and Italian
It was once thought that Vegliote, like Romanian, showed the sound-change , but the only example of this is "eight"
Sample
From Udaina. Stress-marks have been omitted.
- "When those eight old-timers were still alive I would speak Vegliote with everyone because I'd learnt it when I was little. I was three years old when I began to speak like that in Vegliote, because my grandmother taught me, and my mum and dad would speak like that in Vegliote. They would speak [in Vegliote] because they thought I didn't understand, but I understood all those words they were saying in Vegliote. My grandma would tell me 'Wait just a bit for daddy to come home and I'll tell him to spank you.
Others
Dalmatian would also have been spoken on major islands and in towns along the Adriatic coast, namely Cres, Rab, Zadar, Trogir, Split, Kotor.
Survival as a substrate
Likely 'Dalmatisms' in Croatian include:
- The toponyms Cavtat
- Words in the Dubrovnik dialect like kȁpula "onion"
- Words in Standard Croatian like jarbol "mast"
References
Bibliography
References
- {{harvcolnb. Maiden. 2020
- "Glottolog 5.2 - Dalmatian Romance".
- {{harvcolnb. Chambon. 2014; {{harvcolnb. Maiden. 2020
- {{harvcolnb. Bartoli. 2000
- {{harvcolnb. Bartoli. 2000. Maiden. 2020
- {{harvcolnb. Muljačić. 1997
- {{harvcolnb. Bartoli. 2000
- {{harvcolnb. Vuletić. 2013
- {{harvcolnb. Maiden. 2020
- {{harvcolnb. Hadlich. 1965
- {{harvcolnb. Bartoli. 2000
- {{harvcolnb. Trummer. 1998
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