Northern Čakavian

Northern Čakavian (Croatian: sjevernočakavski dijalekt) is one of the dialects of the Čakavian Croatian dialect system.

It is spoken in the area northern of the Middle Čakavian area: eastern Istria, outskirts of Žminj and Pazin, Croatian Littoral up to Bakar, on the islands of Cres and northern Lošinj.

Speech of the major Croatian city of Rijeka used to belong to this dialect, but under the influence of Štokavian immigrants a local idiom developed which lost most of the characteristical Čakavian features.

In this dialect Common Slavic yat phoneme yielded /e/, and only exceptionally /i/ (e.g. divõjka 'maiden, girl' < Common Slavic *děvojka).

References

• Dalibor Brozović (1988) (in Croatian). Čakavsko narječje; Jezik srpskohrvatski / hrvatskosrpski, hrvatski ili srpski,. Zagreb: JLZ Miroslav Krleža. ISBN 953-0-30225-8.