EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / A8 Dialects 527 / 600
presented as something fundamental. However, it's not really so: for example,
Northwestern Čakavian dialects have a lot of similarities with the Littoral dialects in
Slovenia; ‘Kajkavian’ Zagorje-Međimurje dialects have many similarities with
Pannonian dialects in Slovenia; ‘Torlak’ dialects are often grouped with ‘Štokavian’,
but they have many similarities with dialects in Macedonia and Bulgaria as well;
there's no sharp border between Southeastern Čakavian and ‘Štokavian’ Western
Ikavian; ‘Štokavian’ Slavonian dialects have similarities with ‘Čakavian’ dialects, etc.
The Origin of Dialects
Western South Slavic Dialects differ in many ways, one of them is development of
old vowels. Western South Slavic, some 1000 years ago, had the following vowels
(the situation was different in Eastern South Slavic, i.e. today Macedonia and
Bulgaria), and all of them could be either short or long:
i u
ě ə ö
l r
e ë o
a
To mark long vowels, in descriptions of old, reconstructed forms, and in brief
descriptions of various dialects, I’ll just write them double, e.g. aa or ee. For
instance sun was sllnce and hand was rööka.
Developments of the old vowels ě and ə – often called yat and yer – are most
obvious to the majority of speakers. Actually, ‘Ijekavian’, ‘Ikavian’ and ‘Ekavian’ are
just different developments of the vowel ě (yat).
The vowels ë and ö were nasal, like in today French or Portuguese.
There were also two specific consonants, usually labelled as d' and t'. They were
palatal (softened) d and t. The verb doći (dođe) was earlier dojti (dojde); in some
dialects, jt and jd have later changed.
(I'm using slightly specific symbols here; usually, in specialized literature, ę and ǫ are
used instead of my ë and ö. Unfortunately, they are not displayed properly on some
mobile phones and e-book readers. Also, ḷ and ṛ are usually used instead of l and r.
Neither symbols are compatible with the IPA notation).
Then, we need marks for various types of stress. I’ll use the following marks for
stress and tones within one syllable:
a
aa
aa
short, stressed
long stressed vowel with a falling tone
long stressed vowel with a rising/flat tone
The tone I mark as aa is also called ‘neoacute’; it doesn’t exist in Standard Croatian.