Burgenland Croatian
| Burgenland Croatian | |
|---|---|
| gradišćanskohrvatski jezik | |
| Native to | Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia |
|
Native speakers
|
19,000 (in Burgenland) 50-60,000 (all speakers) (2001 census) |
| Official status | |
|
Recognised minority
language in |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | burg1244 |
Burgenland Croatian (gradišćanskohrvatski jezik) is a regional variety of the Chakavian dialect of the Croatian language spoken in Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Burgenland Croatian is recognized as a minority language in the Austrian state of Burgenland where it is spoken by 19,412 people according to official reports (2001). Many of the Burgenland Croatian speakers in Austria also live in Vienna and Graz, due to the process of urbanization, which is mostly driven by the poor economic situation of large parts of Burgenland.
Smaller Croatian minorities in western Hungary, southwestern Slovakia and southern Czech Republic are often also called Burgenland Croats. They use the Burgenland Croatian written language and are historically and culturally closely connected to the Austrian Croats. The representatives of the Burgenland Croats estimate their total number in all three countries and emigration at around 70,000.
Burgenland Croatian was the language of Croatian refugees who fled Croatia during the Turkish Wars and settled in the western part of what was then Hungary, the area where they still live. Burgenland Croats included speakers of all three dialects of the Croatian (Shtokavian, Chakavian and Kajkavian), with the majority being the Chakavians. They originally came from the river Una valley.
Burgenland Croats did not take part in the shaping of the present standard Croatian in the 19th century. Instead, they constructed their own written standard based mainly on the local Chakavian speech and adopted the Croatian alphabet, a modified Latin alphabet, as their script.
It is still a matter of debate whether Burgenland Croatian should be classified as a Slavic micro-language of its own. Burgenland Croatian dialects are mostly viewed as isolated dialects of the Croatian.
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Wikipedia