Southern Čakavian

Southern Čakavian (Croatian: "južnočakavski dijalekt") or Ikavian Čakavian is one of the dialects of the Čakavian Croatian dialect system.

It is spoken in the area southern of the Middle Čakavian area, in a narrow strip of Croatian Littoral and the neighbouring islands: outskirts of Split and Zadar; Korčula, Pelješac, Brač, Hvar, Vis and Šolta.

Speech of the major Croatian city Split belongs to this dialect, but under the influence of Štokavian immigrants and standard Croatian promoted by the state media, a local idiom developed which lost many of characteristic Čakavian traits, even though a part of older population retains Čakavian dialect in their speech.

Lots of speeches of this dialect mix Čakavian and Štokavian features. It is assumed that in the past this dialect covered larger territory in the hinterland, being gradually suppressed by constant migrations who carried Štokavian speech at its cost.

Common Slavic yat phonome had a reflex of /i/ in this dialect. Thus we have "lip", "divojka", "mriža", as opposed to standard Neoštokavian croatian "lijȇp", "djèvōjka", "mrȅža", all descending from earlier Proto-West-South-Slavic forms *lěpъ, *děvojka, *mrěža.

Molise Croatian dialect also belongs to this dialect, which is organically Western Štokavian with Ikavian reflex of yat but with massive Čakavian adstratum.

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