Italian language in Croatia

The Italian language is a minority language in Croatia, it is spoken by 0,46% of the total Croatian population. It is an officially recognized minority language in Istria County (where it is spoken by 7.69% of the population).Fact|date=May 2008

Italian Speaking Population

The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians in the country.Fact|date=May 2008 Ethnologue reported 70,000 Italian speakers in 1998: 40,000 ethnic Italians and 30,000 ethnic Croats and persons declared regionally as "Istrians". Native Italian speakers are largely concentrated along the western coast of Istria peninsula.
Because of strong trade and tourist relations of Croatia with Italy, many Croats have some knowledge of the language (mostly in the service and tourist industries).

Historically, the language had a much larger population than it does now. The Italian linguist Matteo Bartoli wrote that in 1797 (when the Republic of Venice was ended by Napoleon) nearly 60% of Istria was venetian speaking [Bartoli, Matteo. "Le parlate italiane della Venezia Giulia e della Dalmazia". Tipografia italo-orientale. Grottaferrata 1919. pag. 46] .

Some Italians moved to Istria during Mussolini's rule in areas given to Italy after WWI (Istria, Zadar, northern Adriatic islands) (44,000 according to Žerjavić), [http://www.vjesnik.hr/html/2003/05/28/Clanak.asp?r=kul&c=8 Vjesnik] Prešućivanje s poznatom namjerom] mostly from Calabria. Even 5,000 Dalmatian Italians moved to Istria from the areas of Dalmatia included in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia after 1920, mainly from the dalmatian islands of Krk, Rab and Vis.Fact|date=May 2008 In 1939, the Kingdom of Italy conducted a secret census of non-Italian population (Croats and Slovenians) in Istria, Kvarner, Zadar, Trieste and Gorizia. After the census, Italian authorities publicly stated that Italian speaking population in those areas increased. Secret data proved, instead, that share of Croatian language speaking population did not diminish in that period [ [http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/issuedetails.aspx?issueid=2ad35792-33e8-4a39-8d77-10d2fb863f3d&articleid=ad2daa31-80b7-42a3-bfde-21cf8e3be503#aad2daa31-80b7-42a3-bfde-21cf8e3be503 Časopis za suvremenu povijest br. 3/2002.] M. Manin: O povjerljivom popisivanju istarskih Hrvata provedenom 1939. godine (na temelju popisnoga materijala iz 1936. godine)
(Journal of Contemporary History: Secret Census of Istrian Croats held in 1939 based on 1936 Census Data), summary in English ] , showing indirectly that Fascism did not persecuted excessively the Slavs in Istria before WWII.

After the September 1943 capitulation of Italy, Istria started to suffer from the German occupation and the Yugoslav front conflict: a large number of Istrian Italians were killed in the foibes between 1943 and 1945. [Arrigo Petacco. "L'esodo. La tragedia negata degli italiani d'Istria, Dalmazia e Venezia Giulia". Mondadori. Milano, 1999. pag 74]

Many Italians left Croatia after the war because expelled or even using the opportunity to leave a supposedly hostile socialist country. Some Croatian academics (like Žerjavić) argue that post-war Italian propaganda may have inflated the number of exiled Italians, neglecting the numbers of Italianized Croats (typically with surnames on -ich, as well as other Croatian surname endings). They say even that in Italy there was a speculation with the following numbers:
*in 1958 about 201,440 Istrian-Italians exiledFact|date=May 2008
*in 1972 about 350,000 Istrian-Italians exiledFact|date=May 2008But, according to the official data of post-WWI Kingdom of Italy, on the areas under Italian rule on Eastern Adriatic, there were 411,629 inhabitants in ex-Austrian Istria (and so excluding Dalmatia). Furthermore, Italian scholars like Arrigo Petacco argue that the 350,000 included even 40,000 exiles from Dalmatia and Rijeka (Fiume) [http://books.google.com/books?id=hhD0R8DBr_UC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Petacco&ei=UY49R9e7OpeS7QKTuu3BAg&sig=093Luifi2PuSl4AyuVhwZFe-GUA#PPR8,M1] . European Community official Oscar De La Hoya pointed out in 2002 that the interior of Istria was still full of abandoned houses (by the Italians exiled) and this clearly showed the dimension of the Istrian exodus.Fact|date=May 2008

Italian in Use

Government services are provided in Italian and Croatian in Istria County, including the official government website (which is also available in English). There are some Italian-language schools in Istria: primary schools in Buje, Umag, Novigrad, Poreč, and secondary schools in Pula and Rovinj. According to the Croatian 2001 census, the municipality of Grožnjan near the Mirna river had 785 inhabitants of which 51,2% were Italians, which makes this little town the only municipality with majority share of ethnic Italians.

In Grožnjan 66% declared their native language Italian and nearly all of the inhabitants use a local form of Venetian dialect in daily comunication. In the town there it is a section of the Comunitá degli Italiani of Croatia. [ [http://www.unione-italiana.hr/comunitad.asp?cat=12&id_com=17 Unione Italiana - Talijanska unija - Italijanska Unija ] ]

See also

* Dalmatian Italians
* Italian cultural and historic presence in Dalmatia

References

ee also

* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ita Ethnologue Report for Italian]
* [http://www.piemonte-istria.com Official website of Italians from Grisignana/Piemonte d'Istria]
* [http://www.unione-italiana.hr Website of the Italian Community of Croatia and Slovenia (in Italian)]
* [http://www.istra-istria.hr/ Region of Istria Official Website]
* [http://www.dzs.hr/default_e.htm Republic of Croatia Central Bureau of Statistics]