| Chakavian | |
|---|---|
| čakavski | |
| Native to | Croatia Slovenia (Račice,Kozina) |
| Region | Dalmatia Istria |
Native speakers | 80,000 (2019)[1] |
Standard forms | |
| Dialects | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ckm |
| Glottolog | chak1265 |
Chakavian and transitional dialects, according to data from M. Kapović, J. Lisac, I. Lukežić | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
| South Slavic languages and dialects | ||||||
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Western South Slavic
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Transitional dialects
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Chakavian orČakavian (/tʃæˈkɑːviən/,/tʃə-/,/-ˈkæv-/,Croatian:čakavski[tʃǎːkaʋskiː]; proper name:čakavica orčakavština[tʃakǎːʋʃtina];endonym:čokovski, čakavski, čekavski) is aSouth Slavicsupradialect or language spoken along the easternAdriatic coast in the historical regions ofDalmatia,Istria, and theCroatian Littoral; and in parts of coastal and southernCentral Croatia. It is also spoken by theBurgenland Croats asBurgenland Croatian in southeasternAustria, northwesternHungary, and southwesternSlovakia, as well as in a few municipalities in southernSlovenia on the border with Croatia.
Due to the centuries-long rule of theRepublic of Venice overDalmatia and Istria, the vocabulary andprosody of Chakavian are heavily influenced by theVenetian language and to some extent by standardItalian, although its grammar is functionally Slavic and is similar toCroatian grammar.
Autonyms used throughout history by various Chakavian writers have been straightforward, ranging from mainly Croatian (harvatski,harvacki,hrvatski) to Slavic (slovinski) and Illyrian (illirski). However, until the modern era, theKajkavian andShtokavian dialects were also called and understood as "theCroatian language" throughout history.[2][3] Each of the three dialects is named for its most common word forwhat: Chakavian uses the pronounča orca, Shtokavian usesšto oršta, and Kajkavian useskaj orkej.
Early literary standards inCroatia were based on Chakavian, which is one of the oldest written South Slavic varieties to appear in legal documents—as early as 1275 (Istrian land survey) and 1288 (Vinodol codex). In these documents, the predominantly vernacular dialect is mixed with elements of Church Slavic, but the dialect is called the "Croatian language" (jazikom harvaskim hrvatski/hervatski[4]).
Legal, liturgical, and literary texts up until the 16th century, including work byMarko Marulić and what is considered the first Croatian dictionary (authored byFaust Vrančić), are mostly Chakavian in form. That said, Vrančić referred to the language as "Dalmatian" in his dictionary, even though Chakavian is not related to the now-extinctDalmatian language except for the sporadic influence of the latter on the former'svocabulary.
The nominal formčakavac is first recorded in 1728 in Ardelio Della Bella'sDizionario italiano-latino-illirico, and next at the beginning of the 19th century inJoakim Stulić'sLexicon latino–italico–illyricum, while the adjectival formčakavski first appears inAntun Mažuranić's 1843 analysis of the Vinodol codex.[4][2] Letters by Croatian authors written in what would later be known as Chakavian and Shtokavian, respectively from the different areas of Dalmatia andRagusa, stated that the authors belonged to the same Croatian nation and spoke the same language (časti našega jezika,naš jezik), which they called Croatian (kud jezik harvatski prohodi) or Slavic (slovinski jezik).[3][5]
The termChakavian and the definition of the dialect date from the mid-19th century. Until then, no Croatian writer used eitherčakavac orčakavski to describe their own language, and it was not until the 20th century that these terms were popularized by the educational system.[2][3][6]
In its almost thousand years of existence, Chakavian has undergone many phonetic, morphological, and syntactical changes, chiefly on the busy mainlands, but less so on the islands.
Based on isoglosses and the presumed end of Southwestern Slavic during the 8th and 9th centuries, Proto-Chakavian would have formed over the 9th and 10th centuries, when it separated from Proto–Western Shtokavian. The earliest texts from Croatia indicate that the form of Slavic in use there underwent radical change until the 11th century and was not exclusively what we would now call Chakavian. The formation of the Chakavian dialect—the firstSouth Slavic dialect to emerge from theChurch Slavonic matrix—can be dated to the 12th and 13th centuries, when features of the dialect started to become widespread.[6][7] Monuments inscribed in Chakavian began to appear in the 11th and 12th centuries, and artistic literature in the 15th. Modern Chakavian evolved over the course of the 12th to 16th centuries.[8][9][10]
Chakavian wasde facto the main public and official language in medieval Croatia up to the 16th century.[4] Up to the 17th century, Chakavian texts were written in theGlagolitic,Bosnian Cyrillic, andLatin alphabets.[4][11] There were two zones of Chakavian, northern and southern, mainly along the Adriatic coast and islands, with centres such asSenj,Zadar,Split,Hvar, andKorčula.
The Chakavian language far outgrew its status of a simple vernacular to strongly influence other Croatian literary dialects. Numerous legal, liturgical, and literary texts throughout Croatian history, including lyric and epic poetry, drama, novel in verses, and philological works, contain Chakavian vocabulary.[4] In particular, Chakavian influenced Western Shtokavian: the first Shtokavian texts, such as theVatican Croatian Prayer Book (1400), exhibit numerous Chakavianisms.[11] Early Shtokavian literary and philological output, mainly fromDubrovnik (1500–1600) up toDžore Držić, was essentially a mix of Shtokavian and Chakavian.[11]
The most famous early Chakavian author isMarko Marulić, "the father ofCroatian literature," who wrote Croatian novels and poems in the 15th and 16th centuries.[12][13] The first Croatian dictionary, byFaust Vrančić, is mostly Chakavian in form.[13]
In the 18th century, Chakavian along with Kajkavian and Shtokavian formed the basis of the Croatian literary centre inOzalj (led by the noble Croatian familiesFrankopan andZrinski). In the same century, the Chakavian literary language declined, but it helped shape both the Croatian literary language and the standardCroatian language in many ways, chiefly in morphology and phonetics. Chakavian dialectal poetry is still a vital part of Croatian literature.[4][14]
Theorization about Chakavian originated in the context of 19th-century nation building andromantic nationalism. At the time, it was widely believed that each individual ethnic nation must be historically characterized by and identified with a specific language. Arguments about Croatian dialects were based on pseudoscience involving interrogatory pronouns, theyat reflex, and various historiographical theories usually related to the 10th-centuryDe Administrando Imperio.
The termsChakavian andShtokavian were introduced to Croatianlinguistics byAntun Mažuranić andVjekoslav Babukić in the mid-19th century.[15] Before this, Kajkavian was identified with the Croats and Shtokavian with the Serbs, with Shtokavian-speaking Croats deemed "Catholic Serbs."
When Chakavian entered the discussion, early Slavicists such asJosef Dobrovský,Pavel Jozef Šafárik,Jernej Kopitar, andVuk Karadžić grouped it with Shtokavian. However, since Shtokavian was perceived as an exclusively Serbian language, the Croats were reduced to merely a toponym (or to Chakavian- and Shtokavian-speaking "Catholic Serbs"). This era also saw the coinage of such terms as the "Slavic-Serbian" and "Serbo-Croatian" languages.
The debate shifted such that Chakavian was considered the only and original language of the Croats, Kajkavian that of the Slovenes, and Shtokavian continued to be correlated with the Serbs (per Karadžićet al.). The basic premise was that the Ottoman invasion cost Croatia most of its native ethnic population because the presumed borders of the Chakavian speakers were reduced, and they had therefore become ethnically Serbian. Some believed that Kajkavian-speaking Croats had taken over the Serbian (Shtokavian–Chakavian) literary language. Other linguists such asAugust Leskien continued to argue for the older classification until the late 19th century.
Such misconceptions, more political than scientific, were present on both the Serbian and Croatian sides and internationally and continued to plague the public, especially as arguments for the legitimacy for 20th-century nationalist revisionism and pretensions (including the 1990sYugoslav Wars[16]).[15][17][18][19][20]
In Croatian and world literature, Chakavian re-emerged in the 20th century thanks to the early writing ofTin Ujević, Marko Uvodić, andMiljenko Smoje.[4] Its most prominent representatives in the 20th century areMate Balota,Vladimir Nazor andDrago Gervais. In 1938, Balota's collection of poems,Dragi kamen, was published inZagreb, and his only novel,Tight Country: A Novel from Istrian Folk Life, in 1946. The novel became a cult amongKvarner andIstrian Croats.[21]
At the end of the 1980s in Istria and Kvarner, a special subgenre of pop-rock musicČa-val [hr](Cha wave) emerged. Artists who were part of this scene used the Chakavian dialect in their lyrics, and often fused rock music with traditional Istra-Kvarner music (most notablyAlen Vitasović,Gustafi, andŠajeta [hr]).[22]
Historically, linguists have debated how Chakavian should be named, whether it should be considered a dialect or a language, and how it is related to neighboring dialects (Kajkavian, Western Shtokavian, and Eastern Shtokavian). Classifying Chakavian within Western South Slavic is difficult in part due to a lack of consensus on which traits a dialect must possess to be classified as Chakavian (usually argued only as a gradation of "Chakavism"). The subdialects of Chakavian differ from one another in various ways while also showing similarities to the neighboring Shtokavian and Kajkavian dialects. All three dialects are part of adialect continuum; their division into dialects and languages is mostly political, ethnic, and symbolic.[23][24]
Although the nameChakavian and the dialect as such are mainly creations advanced by linguists, the term has become accepted by its speakers and linguists in Croatia for practical reasons.[25] Nonetheless, from a linguistic point of view, the names of the three dialects are inaccurate as definitions; linguists would more precisely replace them with complex isoglosses in the dialect continuum.[25][26]
Dialectologists and Slavicists maintain that when Western South Slavic diverged from South Slavic, it then further differentiaed into five groups: Slovene, and four dialects of Serbo-Croatian (Kajkavian, Chakavian, Western Shtokavian, and Eastern Shtokavian).[27][9][10][28] The Serbo-Croatian subgroup can be alternatively divided into Kajkavian, Chakavian, and Western Shtokavian on the one hand and Eastern Shtokavian and Torlakian on the other.[10][29]

A very few trivial isoglosses separate Chakavian from all other Western South Slavic dialects. Unlike Proto-Kajkavian and Proto-Shtokavian, there are no isoglosses common to all Chakavian subdialects from which linguists could reconstruct Proto-Chakavian.[30]Ranko Matasović concludes as well that "the Chakavian dialect was never entirely unique, i.e. it is not possible to find common linguistic innovations that would encompass all Chakavian [dialects] ... while common-Shtokavian and common-Kaikavian innovations do exist."[31] Northern Chakavian has significant differences from all other Chakavian sub-dialects,[32] since it shares some characteristics with Slovene and Kajkavian. Meanwhile, Southern Chakavian shares some with characteristics with Western Shtokavian. However, Northern Chakavian also has commonalities with Shtokavian, while both Northern and Southern Chakavian have commonalities with Kajkavian.[33][34] There also exist significant lexical differences in between the Northwestern and Southeastern groups of subdialects. In summary, there is no unique and distinct Chakavian language.[6][7]
Comparative analyses by many linguists, includingAleksandar Belić,Stjepan Ivšić, Zvonimir Junković,Pavle Ivić, andDalibor Brozović, have concluded that Chakavian is closely related to Western Shtokavian, particularly theSlavonian dialect,Younger Ikavian dialect, and similar dialects.[35] Ivić concluded that Chakavian isgenetically much closer to Shtokavian than Kajkavian: "Historically speaking, Chakavian is to a considerable extent a peripheral zone of Shtokavian which (in) many respects lagged behind the development of the [Shtokavian] core, and which parts developed locally limited innovations (with the fact that its Northwestern branches had from the very beginning specific evolutionary contacts with the Slovenian language)."[36] Brozović argued for the existence of four accentological cores from which the Chakavian subdialects emerged: Southeastern Chakavian, grouped with Western Shtokavian and comprising the majority of Chakavian subdialects; Northwestern and Central Chakavian, part of the Southern Slavonian dialect continuum; and a group containing only a few Chakavian subdialects,[37] Today, Chakavian is mostly considered a separate, unique language that can be further subdivided.[28]
According toMate Kapović, some Croatian linguists have a "Chakavian nationalist" desire to prove that various dialects are Chakavian; he claims this is scientifically untenable.[38] Josip Silić, for example, argued that Chakavian is not a dialect of the Croatian language but one of three Croatian linguistic systems, a language on its own but without a standard,[39] which was met with criticism.[40]
Due to their archaic nature, early-medieval development, and corpus of vernacular literacy, numerous dialectologists have documented the nuances of the predominant Chakavian subdialects. This has placed Chakavian among the best-described Slavic dialects, but its atypical tsakavism has been partly neglected and less studied. Of particular interest to contemporary dialectologists are Chakavian's retention of the old accentuation system characterized by theProto-Slavic new rising accent (neoacute), the old position of stress, and numerous Proto-Slavic and someProto-Indo-European archaisms in its vocabulary.[41][42]
Another feature of Chakavian is the strong influence ofRomance languages in its lexicon and phonology, especially fromItalian,Dalmatian, andVenetian due to its millennium-long contacts with these languages.[43][44] Italian linguistMatteo Bartoli wrote in 1919 that more than one third of the Chakavian spoken in Istria was loanwords from Neo-Latin (Romance) languages, a percentage similar to that of theGheg dialect of northern coastal Albania.[45] Historical research shows that such words have become more widespread in local subdialects thereof over the last few centuries,[46] creating various Chakavian–Italian hybrid words.[6][7]
Chakavian is also well known for many maritime words and terms missing from the Croatian standard language.[47]
Many lexicons of local Chakavian varieties have been published.[48] The representative modern work in the field is theČakavisch-deutsches Lexikon, vols. 1–3 (Koeln-Vienna, 1979–1983), edited by Croatian linguists Mate Hraste andPetar Šimunović and the German linguistReinhold Olesch. Other salient works are Janne Kalsbeek'sThe Čakavian Dialect of Orbanići near Žminj in Istria (1998); Keith Langston'sCakavian Prosody: The Accentual Patterns of the Cakavian Dialects of Croatian (2006);Josip Lisac'sHrvatska Dijalektologija 2. Čakavsko narječje (2009); and various works by Iva Lukežić, Sanja Zubčić, Silvana Vranić,Sanja Vulić,Mate Kapović, etc.[49][50]
At the suggestion in 2019 of the American linguist Kirk Miller,SIL International recognized the Chakavian dialect as a living language with its own ISO 639-3 code,ckm, in 2020.[51][52] This recognition was mostly met with silence and ignorance in Croatia and by Croatian linguists and scientists until early 2023 news media reports,[51] partly because it did not affect the dialectical status of Chakavian, nor was it relevant to international and national linguistic science.[51]
Silvana Vranić, a leading academic expert on Chakavian, stated that Chakavian is a group of Croatian subdialects that emerged from Western South Slavic and that cannot stand as its own language. She criticized Miller's documentation as based on two irrelevant, unscientific sources containing "scientific falsehood" (including the false claim of there being few differences between Chakavian subdialects).[53] Joško Božanić noted the paradox of this recognition, since in 2008 SIL International had already registered the Croatian language as a South Slavic language with three dialects (Kajkavian, Chakavian, and Shtokavian). He believes that the recognition of Chakavian should not come from a foreign country and that Croatians should aim to have it listed in UNESCO'sRed Book list of endangered languages in Europe.[53]
Josip Bratulić and Mira Menac-Mihalić consider that such recognition would achieve nothing, including the preservation of Chakavian, which would not be spoken or studied more than it has been to date.[53]Domagoj Vidović [hr] openly criticized SIL International for its ignorance and misunderstanding of the Croatian language, as well as the history, definition, and characteristics of the Chakavian dialect. He relates it to the modern Croatian phenomenon of "linguistic separatism," which argues that various Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Shtokavian idioms should be preserved from the influence of standard Croatian; note that in Croatia various efforts are already being made for such preservation and popularization, and linguistic separatists ignore the comparatively much longer influence of theItalian language on Chakavian.[22][2] Croatian political scientist Viktor Matić considers that while Croatian "linguistic separatism" is antagonistic toward standard Croatian, it is also the result of previous fetishization of the standard Croatian and Serbo-Croatian languages.[3]

In the Middle Ages, the three dialects of Chakavian, Western Shtokavian, and Kajkavian formed in the territory ofmedieval Croatia.[54] Initially, Chakavian covered a much wider area than today: the major part of western-central and southern Croatia south ofKupa and west of theUna river, bordering on western and southwesternBosnia and Herzegovina, including all of the Eastern Adriatic islands northwest ofMljet, while a substratum of Chakavian in Dalmatia possibly existed all the way toDubrovnik.[55][32][56][57] Croatian dialectologistPetar Šimunović believes that this entire area up to Dubrovnik originally spoke Chakavian.[56] The Dubrovnik area's phonology is closer to that of Southern Chakavian than that of Eastern Shtokavian.[56] Some Chakavian idioms may also have been used in early-medievalMontenegro andAlbania.[58] However, linguists warn that it is impossible to draw a historical border between Chakavian and Shtokavian, especially Western Shtokavian, with certainty.[59][55][38] According to Serbian linguistPavle Ivić, "the question of where the border of these two dialects was in the Middle Ages is not quite appropriate."[60]
During and after the Ottoman invasion and subsequent warfare (15th–19th centuries) in the territory of Croatia, the Chakavian dialectical area (jazik hrvatski[61]) was significantly reduced; on the Croatian mainland, it has been almost completely replaced by the adjacent Shtokavian dialect.[62] The evident dialect continuum was broken in the process as old transitional dialects were lost.[55][63] Based on 35 letters by Ottoman officers in their native language between the mid-16th and mid-17th century in Dalmatia, almost all of them were Chakavian–SchakavianIkavian.[64] Today, onlyNorthern Chakavian and in part theBuzet dialect are widely spoken in the areas where they were originally located, all other Chakavian dialects having lost a great deal of territory or been assimilated into Shtokavian.[65]
According toJosip Lisac, the Chakavian dialect would have been the best dialectological option as a basis for the Croatian standard language (Chakavian and Kajkavian nevertheless played important active roles in the standardization of Croatian).[62] It was not chosen as such in the 19th century due to its significant reduction in range due to previous migrations and change of dialectical contacts, but other linguists disagree, claiming that this argument has only hindered scientific research into the matter.[66] It certainly was the main, but not only, reason, as the "results of convergent Croatian literary and linguistic development" can be traced to literary and sacral works no later than the first half of the 16th century.[67] Over time, Chakavian came to be perceived as an archaic, less prestigious dialect.[68]
Use of Chakavian varies by the region where it was historically spoken. It is now mostly confined to Croatia along the eastern Adriatic: the Adriatic islands, and sporadically on the mainland coast, with rare inland enclaves up to central Croatia and minor enclaves in Austria and Montenegro. All of these areas were in contact withItalo-Dalmatian andEastern Romance languages, which heavily influenced the development of Chakavian.[69] It is estimated that the share of Croatian language speakers who spoke a Chakavian dialect fell from 23% to 12% over the course of the 20th century.[68]
Areas where Chakavian is spoken include:


There is no consensus on the traits required for a dialect to be classified as Chakavian (rather than its admixture with Shtokavian orKajkavian).Josip Lisac mentions up to 21, but many of them are not common to all Chakavian subdialects and often can be found in non-Chakavian dialects.[71] The following traits were mostly proposed:
The Chakavian dialect is divided along several criteria. In the older literature ofAleksandar Belić,Stjepan Ivšić,Pavle Ivić,Dalibor Brozović and others it was mostly divided into two (Northern and Southern, later, Northwestern and Southeastern) or three main varieties (Northwestern, Central, Southeastern), while in the work by Willem Vermeer and Keith Langston there are three main varieties (Northwestern, Central, Southeastern).[72][73][74]
According to the reflex of the Common Slavic phonemeyat */ě/, there are four varieties:
Obsolete literature commonly refers to Ikavian–Ekavian dialects as "mixed", which is a misleading term because the yat reflexes were governed by Jakubinskij's law. According to Lisac, division per reflex of yat is most reasonable, although even then exist significant sub-level differences.[75]
According to their tonal (accentual) features, Chakavian dialects are divided into the following groups:
Using a combination of accentual and phonological criteria, Croatian dialectologistsDalibor Brozović (1988) andJosip Lisac (2009) divide Chakavian into six (sub)dialects:[68][72]
| Name | Reflex of Common Slavicyat | Distribution |
|---|---|---|
| Buzet dialect | Ekavian (closede) | Northern Istria aroundBuzet; transitional Northern Chakavian-Slovene dialect |
| Northern Chakavian | Ekavian | Northeastern Istria, Central Istria aroundPazin andŽminj,Labin,Kastav,Rijeka,Cres |
| Central Chakavian (Middle Chakavian) | Ikavian–Ekavian | Dugi Otok,Kornati,Lošinj,Krk,Rab,Pag,Ugljan (except the southernmost Southern Chakavian village ofKukljica, exhibiting many shared features with Ugljan's otherwise Central Chakavian dialects),Vinodol,Ogulin,Brinje,Otočac,Duga Resa, part of Central and Northeastern Istria |
| Southern Chakavian | Ikavian | Korčula,Pelješac,Brač,Hvar,Vis,Šolta, outskirts ofSplit andZadar, Northwestern Istria |
| Southwestern Istrian | Ikavian | Southwestern and Northeastern ("Vodice oasis") part of Istria; transitional Southern Chakavian-Western Shtokavian dialect |
| Southeastern Chakavian | Ijekavian | Lastovo,Janjina on Pelješac,Bigova on the south ofMontenegro |
Besides the usual Chakavian (with typical pronoun "ča"), in some Adriatic islands and in eastern Istria another special variant is also spoken which lacks most palatals, with other parallel deviations called"tsakavism" (cakavizam):
The largest area of tsakavism is in eastern Istria at Labin, Rabac and a dozen nearby villages; minor mainland enclaves are the towns Bakar and Trogir. Atavism[definition needed] is also frequent in Adriatic islands: part of Lošinj and nearby islets, Ist, Baška in Krk, Pag town, the western parts of Brač (Milna), Hvar town, and the entire island of Vis with adjacent islets.
The first two features are similar tomazurzenie in many dialects of Polish and totsokanye, which occurs in theOld Novgorod dialect.
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The basic phonology of Chakavian, with representation inGaj's Latin alphabet and IPA, is as follows:
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m m | n n | ɲ nj | ||
| Plosive | p b p b | t d t d | c ć | k ɡ k g | |
| Affricate | ts c | tʃ č | |||
| Fricative | f f | s z s z | ʃ ʒ š ž | x h | |
| Approximant | ʋ v | l l | j j | ||
| Trill | r r |
Nadalje, do XIX. stoljeća nije bilo naziva "štokavski", "kajkavski" ni "čakavski". Te su klasifikacije de facto uobličene tek u XIX. stoljeću, a obrazovnim sustavom popularizirane tek kasnijih desetljeća. Hrvati čakavci, štokavci i kajkavci svoj jezik nikada nisu nazivali "čakavskim", "kajkavskim" ni "štokavskim", a sebe "Čakavcima", "Kajkavcima" ni "Štokavcima". Svoj su jezik vrlo često nazivali "hrvatskim", a sebe "Hrvatima" (u raznim fonološkim varijacijama), i to stoljećima prije Hrvatskoga narodnoga preporoda, formiranja moderne hrvatske nacije i kasnijega populariziranja pojmova "štokavski", "kajkavski" i "čakavski".
Autorica dalje ističe da se naziv čakavski u narodu prihvaća tek tijekom XX. stoljeća, a da se do tada mjesni govor nazivao ili hrvatski ili po imenu mjesta kojemu govor pripada, navodeći i primjere hrvatske dijaspore, ali i one iz djela hrvatske književnojezične baštine ... U izboru velikoga broja primjera autorica ukazuje na bitno različita rješenja u dvama čakavskim govorima i utvrđuje kako nije moguće govoriti o jedinstvenom čakavskom sustavu na koji se pozivaju oni koji neoprezno pogrješno govore o posebnom čakavskom jeziku.
Poznato je, naime, da kompletno južnoslavensko područje predstavlja jedan dijasistem ili, kako drugi termin za to isto glasi, kontinuum dijalekata (Hetzer 1993, 33; Friedmann 1999, 8; Alexander 2000, 4; Kristophson 2000, 180)...