Title page Calindaru lu rumeri din Istrie 1905

The Istro-Romanian alphabet is a variant of the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...

used by the

Istro-Romanian language The Istro-Romanian language ( ruo, rumârește, vlășește) is a Balkan Romance language, spoken in a few villages and hamlets in the peninsula of Istria in Croatia, as well as in the diaspora of this people. It is sometimes abbreviated to ...

. The language is not

standardized Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...

and therefore there are several writing systems for it. Up to three can be distinguished; one based on the

Romanian language Romanian (obsolete spellings: Rumanian or Roumanian; autonym: ''limba română'' , or ''românește'', ) is the official and main language of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. As a minority language it is spoken by stable communities in ...

, one based on the Croatian language and one with characteristics of both.

History

The

was first attested in 1698 in a document written by the Italian

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

Ireneo della Croce. He gives 13 single

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

s, 8 nouns with determiners and 2

sentences ''The Four Books of Sentences'' (''Libri Quattuor Sententiarum'') is a book of theology written by Peter Lombard in the 12th century. It is a systematic compilation of theology, written around 1150; it derives its name from the '' sententiae'' ...

with their Italian translation. The monk used typical Italian

letter Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...

s, belonging to the

Italian alphabet Italian orthography (writing) uses a variant of the Latin alphabet consisting of 21 letters to write the Italian language. This article focuses on the writing of Standard Italian, based historically on the Florentine dialect. Italian orthography ...

. Before this,

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

s and

person name A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...

s of probable Istro-Romanian origin had already been registered in previous documents. The first book entirely in Istro-Romanian, ''Calindaru lu rumeri din Istrie'' (Calendar of the Romanians of Istria), would be published centuries later in 1905 by the Istro-Romanian writer and politician

Andrei Glavina Andrei Glavina (30 November 1881 – 9 February 1925) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Istro-Romanian writer, professor and politician born in Šušnjevica. Known as the "Apostle of the Istro-Romanians", he is recognized for his struggle for the Is ...

and the Romanian historian Constantin Diculescu. The first attempt to standardize the language was made by the Romanian

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

and

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

Sextil Pușcariu in his work ''Studii Istroromâne'' (Istro-Romanian studies). He mixed elements of the

Romanian orthography The Romanian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Romanian language. It is a modification of the classical Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters, five of which (Ă, Â, Î, Ș, and Ț) have been modified from ...

with others of the Croatian one, giving rise to a mixed alphabet. In 1998, the Croatian linguist

August Kovačec August Kovačec (born 6 August 1938) is Croatian linguist and Romanicist. He was born in Donje Jesenje. He received a degree in Romance and Russian philology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb in 1960, and a PhD in 1965. From 1960 to 1962, ...

would publish an Istro-Romanian- Croatian dictionary in which he would update Pușcariu's hybrid version. There is also a version based on standard

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language *** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language ** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...

, created in 1928 by the Romanian journalist and professor Alexandru Leca Morariu. He introduced this system in ''Lu frati noștri: libru lu rumeri din Istrie'' (To our brothers: book of the Romanians of Istria), the second book written in Istro-Romanian. This system was accepted by several other Romanian researchers, such as Traian Cantemir. In 2009, the Croatian linguist and professor Zvjezdana Vrzić created a new alphabet, this time entirely based on the Croatian

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

. According to her, this alphabet represents all the

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s found in the Istro-Romanian language and is easy to learn for them since they are already literate in Croatian. Vrzić has already implemented this system on her website "Preservation of the Vlaški and Žejanski Language". Therefore, it is generally agreed that there are three spelling systems for the language, all of them with slight changes depending on the author. None of them has been officially adopted, making the Istro-Romanian still pending standardization.

Alphabet

Romanian orthography

Based on Morariu's 1928 version. It also includes the digraphs gh and ch.

Mixed orthography

Based on Kovačec's 1998 version.

Croatian orthography

Based on Vrzić's 2009 version. It also includes the digraphs dz, lj and nj.

References

External links

Alphabet and basic grammar of the Istro-Romanian language
''istro-romanian.com''
Pronunciation
''Preservation of the Vlaški and Žejanski Language''. {{Language orthographies Latin alphabets A