Dalmatian language facts for kids

Cities on the Eastern Adriatic Sea, showing where Dalmatian dialects were spoken. Veglia is now the Croatian Island Krk, Crepsa is Cres, Arba is Rab, Zara is Zadar, Trau is Trogir, Splato is Split, Ragusa is Dubrovnik, and Cattaro is Kotor.

Dalmatian was a special language. It belonged to the Romance languages family, like Spanish or Italian. People spoke it in a region called Dalmatia. This area is on the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea.

Most of the Dalmatian language died out a long time ago. This happened during the Middle Ages. However, in some places, people kept speaking it until the 1700s or even the 1800s. Today, we don't have many old writings or records of it.

We know most about two main types of Dalmatian. One was spoken on the island of Veglia (now called Krk). The other was spoken in the city of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik). For other areas, we only have a few words or short sentences left.

Tuone Udaina, the very last person known to speak Dalmatian.

The Last Speaker: Tuone Udaina

The story of the Dalmatian language has a very important person. His name was Tuone Udaina. He was a postman and lived on the island of Krk. People called him burbur, which meant 'barber' in Dalmatian. He was the last known person to speak any form of the Dalmatian language.

Meeting a Language Expert

In 1897, a language expert named Matteo Bartoli visited Tuone Udaina. Bartoli was from a nearby area called Istria. He wanted to learn about the Dalmatian language directly from its last speaker.

Bartoli spent time with Tuone Udaina. He wrote down about 2,800 words that Tuone knew. He also recorded stories and details about Tuone's life. All this information was put into a book. The book was written in German and published in 1906. It was called Das Dalmatische.

His Important Legacy

This book is very important today. It gives us most of what we know about Dalmatian. It teaches us about its words, how they sounded, and how sentences were put together. Without Tuone Udaina and Matteo Bartoli, we would know much less about this lost language.

Sadly, one year after their meeting, Tuone Udaina died. He was 74 years old. He passed away in an accident during road work on June 10, 1898.

Images for kids

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  The Republic of Ragusa before 1808. Ragusa was one of the places where Dalmatian was spoken.

See also

In Spanish: Idioma dalmático para niños