Istro-Romanians
Carnivals Zvončari from Žejane, 2006
|
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 76 [2] | |
| Languages | |
|
Istro-Romanian; also Croatian, Italian |
|
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholic | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Vlachs, Morlachs, Aromanians, Romanians |
Istro-Romanians / Istrorumeni (ethnonym: Rumeni and occasionally also Rumâri and Rumêri), also called Ćiribirci, Ćići, and Vlahi by the local population, and Istro-Romanians by linguists, are a small ethnic group living in small area of northeastern Istria, in the village Žejane in eastern plateau of mountain Ćićarija, and several villages in a region of former Lake Čepić west of Mt. Učka.
The 2001 Croatian census lists only 48 Romanian language speakers in Istria county. In the 2011 Croatian census, Istria listed 49 Romanians and 6 Vlachs.
The inhabitants of villages and hamlets speak the Čakavian dialect which it is believed originated in Dalmatia. However, there is no known record to show that the Istro-Romanians came from Dalmatia. That there are traces of Istro-Romanian words in the Cakavian Istrian vocabulary and vice versa indicate only that over the centuries the two neighboring linguistically different groups assimilated through daily social contact and intermarriages, as happens with other peoples and their languages throughout the world.
The first historical record of Romanians in the Istrian region purportedly dates back to 940 A.D. when scholarly Roman Emperor Constantine VII recorded in De Administrando Imperio" that there were Latin-language speakers in this area who called themselves Romans but who did not come from Rome. A later historical record of Romanians in Istria (not necessarily the "Ćići", and possibly the "Morlacchi" i.e. Vlachs) dates back to 1329, when Serbian chronicles mention that a Vlach population was living in the area, although there was an earlier mention from the 12th century of a leader in Istria called Radul which may have been a Romanian name.
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