Чакавский язык: история и современное состояние

South Slavic supradialect or language

Chakavian or Čakavian (/tʃ//æ/'/k//ɑː//v//i//ə//n/, /tʃ//ə// /, / /'/k//æ//v// /, proper name: čakavica or čakavština own name: čokovski, čakavski, čekavski) is a South Slavic supradialect or language spoken by Croats along the Adriatic coast, in the historical regions of Dalmatia, Istria, Croatian Littoral and parts of coastal and southern Central Croatia (now collectively referred to as Adriatic Croatia or Littoral Croatia), as well as by the Burgenland Croats as Burgenland Croatian in southeastern Austria, northwestern Hungary and southwestern Slovakia as well as few municipalities in southern Slovenia on the border with Croatia. Chakavian represents the basis for early literary standards in Croatia, and until the modern age was simply known and understood, along with the Kajkavian and Shtokavian idioms in Croatia, as the "Croatian language" (hrvatski jezik). Legal and liturgical to literary texts until the 16th century, including literary work by "the father of Croatian literature" Marko Marulić and the first Croatian dictionary authored by Faust Vrančić, among others, are mostly Chakavian in their form. The term Chakavian and definition of the dialect date from the mid 19th century. As of 2020, living Chakavian has a separate language ISO 639 3 code – ckm.

Historically, the classification of Chakavian has been a subject of much debate regarding both the question of how should it be named and whether it ought to be considered a dialect or a language, as well as the question of what its relation is to neighboring vernaculars (Kajkavian, Western Shtokavian and Eastern Shtokavian). Autonyms used throughout history by various Chakavian writers have been straightforward, ranging from mainly Croatian (harvatski, harvacki, hrvatski) to Slavic (slovinski) and Illyrian (illirski), but also other idioms, Kajkavian and Shtokavian, throughout history were named and understood as Croatian language. Chakavian compared to others is one of the oldest written South Slavic varieties that had made a visible appearance in legal documents—as early as 1275 (Istrian land survey) and 1288 (Vinodol codex), where the predominantly vernacular Chakavian is recorded, mixed with elements of Church Slavic. However, in both of them it is named as "Croatian language" (jazikom harvaskim/hrvatski/hervatski). The term Chakavian (noun čakavac) is first recorded in 1728 in the Ardelio Della Bella's Dizionario italiano latino illirico and in the beginning of the 19th century in Joakim Stulić's Lexicon latino–italico–illyricum, while adjective (čakavski) in Antun Mažuranić's analysis of Vinodol codex (1843). Croatian literary authors of what would later be known as Chakavian and Shtokavian idioms, from different parts of Dalmatia and Ragusa, in corresponding letters wrote that they belonged to the same Croatian nation, and spoke the same language ("časti našega jezika", "naš jezik") which they named as Croatian or Slavic ("kud jezik harvatski prohodi", "slovinski jezik"). With its name and dialectological or language form, it is mainly a creation advanced by linguists. Today, the term Chakavian is accepted by its speakers and linguists in Croatia, but usually for practical reasons. In its almost thousand years, Chakavian has undergone many phonetic, morphological, and syntactical changes chiefly in the turbulent mainlands, but less in isolated islands. The problem with classifying Chakavian within Western South Slavic stems in part from there being no unanimous opinion on the set of traits a dialect has to possess to be classified as Chakavian (usually argued only as a gradation of "Chakavism"). Its sub dialects have various differences but also closeness to neighboring Shtokavian and Kajkavian speeches, and all three dialects are part of a dialect continuum, while their diversification into dialects and languages is mostly political, ethnic and symbolic. From a linguistic point of view, national and other names based on interrogatory pronouns are practical, but also inaccurate as dialect/language definitions; linguists would more precisely replace these with complex isoglosses in the dialect continuum. Dialectologists and Slavists maintain that when the separation of Western South Slavic speeches happened, they separated into five divergent groups, more specifically two, one Slovene and second Serbo Croatian with four divergent groups Kajkavian, Chakavian, Western Shtokavian and Eastern Shtokavian. The latter group can be additionally divided into first (Kajkavian, Chakavian, Western Shtokavian) and second (Eastern Shtokavian, Torlakian). which was met with criticism. At the suggestion of American linguist Kirk Miller in 2019, the Chakavian dialect was recognized by SIL International as a living language with its own ISO 639 3 code – ckm in 2020. partly because it does not affect dialect status of Chakavian nor does it have relevancy in international and national linguistic science. Joško Božanić noted the paradox of SIL International, as the institute already registered in 2008 the Croatian language as a South Slavic language with three dialects (Kajkavian, Chakavian, Shtokavian). He considers that the re valorization of Chakavian idiom should not come from a foreign country, and Croatian initiatives possibly need to aim listing it on UNESCO's Red Book list on endangered languages in Europe. Croatian political scientist Viktor Matić considers that the Croatian "linguistic separatism" has antagonism against Croatian standard language but it is also result of previous fetishising of Croatian standard language and Serbo Croatian language.). The terms of Chakavian and Shtokavian dialect were introduced to Croatian linguistics by Antun Mažuranić and Vjekoslav Babukić in the mid 19th century. It is also well known for many maritime words and terms missing in the Croatian standard language. Many lexicons of local Chakavian varieties have been published. The representative modern work in the field is Čakavisch deutsches Lexikon, vol. 1. 3, Koeln Vienna, 1979–1983, edited by Croatian linguists Mate Hraste, Petar Šimunović and German linguist Reinhold Olesch; Janne Kalsbeek's work on The Čakavian Dialect of Orbanići near Žminj in Istria (1998); Keith Langston's Cakavian Prosody: The Accentual Patterns of the Cakavian Dialects of Croatian (2006); Josip Lisac's Hrvatska Dijalektologija 2. Čakavsko narječje (2009), various works by Iva Lukežić, Sanja Zubčić, Silvana Vranić, Sanja Vulić, Mate Kapović and so on.

Since Chakavian was the first South Slavic dialect to emerge from the Church Slavic matrix, both literacy and literature in this dialect abound with numerous texts from legal and liturgical to literary: lyric and epic poetry, drama, novel in verses, as well as philological works that contain Chakavian vocabulary. Chakavian idiom was de facto the main public and official language in medieval Croatia up to the 16th century. Chakavian literature uses many words of Latin, Dalmatian, and Italian origin due to the millennial long contacts with these languages. When compared different epochs with different status of Chakavian dialect (i. e. Croatian language), such words became more widespread in local speeches in the last few centuries, creating various Chakavian Italian hybrid words. Monuments of literacy began to appear in the 11th and 12th centuries, and artistic literature in the 15th. There were two zones of Chakavian, northern and southern (both mainly along the Adriatic coast and islands, with centres like Senj, Zadar, Split, Hvar, Korčula). Many of these used Chakavian, and up to the 17th century the texts were written in both Glagolitic, Bosnian Cyrillic and Latin alphabet. The Chakavian language by far surpassed the position of a simple vernacular dialect and strongly influenced other Croatian literary dialects, particularly Western Shtokavian: the first Shtokavian texts such as the Vatican Croatian Prayer Book, dated to 1400, exhibit numerous literary Chakavianisms. The early Shtokavian literary and philological output, mainly from Dubrovnik (1500–1600) up to Džore Držić, was essentially a mixed Shtokavian–Chakavian idiom. The most famous early Chakavian author is Marko Marulić in 15th 16th century, the "father of Croatian literature", and were written first Croatian novels and poems. Also, the first Croatian dictionary, authored by Faust Vrančić, is mostly Chakavian in its form. Although in the 18th century was with Kajkavian and Shtokavian one of the basis of Croatian literary centre in Ozalj (led by Croatian noble families Frankopan and Zrinski), the tradition of the Chakavian literary language had declined in the same century, but it has helped shape both Croatian literary language and the standard Croatian language in many ways, chiefly in morphology and phonetics, and Chakavian dialectal poetry is still a vital part of Croatian literature. In the Croatian and world literature, it remerged in the 20th century thanks to early writing of Tin Ujević, Marko Uvodić, Miljenko Smoje, and the most prominent representatives in the 20th century are Mate Balota, Vladimir Nazor and Drago Gervais. In 1938, Balota's collection of poems Dragi kamen was published in Zagreb, while his only novel, Tight Country: A Novel from Istrian Folk Life, was published in 1946. The novel became a cult among Kvarner and Istrian Croats. At the end of the 1980s in Istria and Kvarner there began a special subgenre of pop rock music movement hr (Cha wave); artists that were part of this scene used the Chakavian dialect in their lyrics, and often fused rock music with traditional Istra Kvarner music (most notably Alen Vitasović, Gustafi, hr).

The biannual periodical Čakavska rič (Chakavian Word), with 50 annual volumes, published from 1971 by the Literary Association (Književni krug) in Split. The annual periodical Pannonische Jahrbuch with dozen volumes partly in Chakavian of Burgenland Croats, published since 1994 by the Pannonisches Institut in Gutterbach (Burgenland, Austria). The annual periodical Vinodolski zbornik with a dozen volumes published in Crikvenica, including different texts in the local Chakavian of the Vinodol Valley. The annual singing festival Melodije Istre i Kvarnera takes place every year in different towns of the Istria and Kvarner regions. Performers perform in local Chakavian dialects exclusively. A major perpetual program in the Chakavian of Dalmatia is given by the local television stations in Split, Rijeka, and Pula. Other minor half Chakavian media with temporary Chakavian contents also include the local radio programs in the cities of Split and Rijeka and Krk island radio.