173-501: Istrian Italians ( Italian : istriani italiani ; Slovene : Italijanski Istrani ; Croatian : Talijanski Istrani ) are an ethnic group from the Adriatic region of Istria in modern northwestern Croatia and southwestern Slovenia . Istrian Italians descend from the original Latinized population of Roman Histria , from the Venetian -speaking settlers who colonized the region during
346-664: A local language of Italy , most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin. Italian is a major language in Europe, being one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of the working languages of the Council of Europe . It is the third-most-widely spoken native language in the European Union (13% of the EU population) and it
519-623: A national revival , demanding linguistic and national rights that challenged the supremacy of the Italian language and culture in Istria. The Croatian-Slovene national movement gained force only in the second part of the 19th century, causing a clash with a parallel nationalist movement of the Istrian Italians. Many Istrian Italians looked with sympathy towards the Risorgimento movement that fought for
692-455: A "huge" emigration of Italians from Istria before World War I , reducing their percentage inside the peninsula inhabitants (there are some claims Italians made more than 50% of the total population for centuries, but at the end of the 19th century they were reduced to only two fifths according to some estimates). A limited tension with the Austrian state did not in fact stop the rise of the use of
865-907: A battlefield between the Nazi German army and the partisan (mostly Yugoslav) insurgency. Already in September 1943, several hundreds Istrian Italians were killed by the Yugoslav partisans because of their allegiance to the Italian State. This was the first wave of the Foibe massacres , which continued after the Yugoslav takeover of the region in May 1945. From 1943 until 1953, according to various data, between 200,000 and 330,000 Italians emigrated from these regions. This emigration of Italians (called Istrian–Dalmatian exodus ) reduced
1038-869: A day, with an average air temperature of 13.7 °C (56.7 °F) (6.1 °C (43.0 °F) in February to 26.4 °C (79.5 °F) in July and August) and sea temperature from 7 °C (45 °F) to 26 °C (79 °F). Pula is the largest city in Istria County , with a metropolitan area of 90,000 people. The city itself has 57,460 residents (census 2011), while the metropolitan area includes Barban /Barbana (2,802 residents), Fažana /Fasana (3,050 residents), Ližnjan /Lisignano (2,945 residents), Marčana /Marzana (3,903 residents), Medulin /Medolino (6,004 residents), Svetvinčenat /Sanvicenti (2,218 residents) and Vodnjan /Dignano (5,651 residents). Its population density
1211-760: A feudal culture. By the late 18th century, the vast majority of Austrian Istria were Slavic (Slovene and Croat) speakers. In 1797, during the Napoleonic wars , the Republic of Venice was dissolved. After the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797) Austria occupied the Venetian part of the peninsula. Istria was included in the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy from 1805 to 1809, and successively in the Illyrian Provinces from 1809. After
1384-450: A huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home languages— ciao is derived from the Venetian word s-cia[v]o ("slave", that is "your servant"), panettone comes from the Lombard word panetton , etc. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when
1557-464: A little over one million people in the United States speak Italian at home. Nevertheless, an Italian language media market does exist in the country. In Canada, Italian is the second most spoken non-official language when varieties of Chinese are not grouped together, with 375,645 claiming Italian as their mother tongue in 2016. Italian immigrants to South America have also brought a presence of
1730-504: A major shipbuilding centre. It was chosen for the base in 1859 by Hans Dahlerup [ da ] , a Danish admiral in the service of Austria. Subsequently, Pola grew from a fading provincial town into an industrial city. The island of Brioni (in Croatian renamed Brijuni ) to the North West of Pola became the summer vacation resort of Austria's Habsburg royal family . In World War I,
1903-1183: A part of Pula's economic crescendo during the Austro-Hungarian rule. After World War I, during the Fascist rule, the need for tram transportation declined and it was finally dismantled in 1934. Pula Airport is located north-east of Pula, and serves both domestic and international destinations. Similarly to nearby Rijeka Airport , it is not a major international destination. However, this has changed over recent years as low-cost airline Ryanair started scheduled flights to Pula in November 2006. Easyjet offers many flights to UK airports. Jet2 also offers flights from Newcastle, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds-Bradford, Belfast, Manchester, and East Midlands Airports. Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) operates scheduled flights from Stockholm and Copenhagen during summertime. Nearby international airports include Trieste in Italy, Zagreb , Croatia's capital and Ljubljana , Slovenia's capital. There are direct flights into Pula airport from London during
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#17328443313352076-645: A poetic and literary origin in the works of Tuscan writers of the 12th century, and, although the grammar and core lexicon are basically unchanged from those used in Florence in the 13th century, the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. However, Romance vernacular as language spoken in the Italian Peninsula has a longer history. In fact, the earliest surviving texts that can definitely be called vernacular (as distinct from its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae known as
2249-417: A renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century, sparked a debate that raged throughout Italy concerning the criteria that should govern the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. This discussion, known as questione della lingua (i.e., the problem of the language ), ran through the Italian culture until the end of the 19th century, often linked to the political debate on achieving
2422-509: A result. Starting in late medieval times in much of Europe and the Mediterranean, Latin was replaced as the primary commercial language by languages of Italy, especially Tuscan and Venetian. These varieties were consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italy and the rise of humanism and the arts . Italy came to enjoy increasing artistic prestige within Europe. A mark of
2595-455: A seven-vowel system, consisting of /a, ɛ, e, i, ɔ, o, u/ , as well as 23 consonants. Compared with most other Romance languages, Italian phonology is conservative, preserving many words nearly unchanged from Vulgar Latin . Some examples: Pula Pula ( Croatian: [pǔːla] ), also known as Pola ( Italian: [ˈpɔːla] ; Venetian : Pola ; Istriot : Puola ; Slovene : Pulj ; Hungarian : Póla ),
2768-463: A short French interim, Austria reconquered the whole peninsula in 1813, and unified it into a single province. As a result, Istrian Italians became a minority in the new administrative unit, although they maintained their social and part of their political power. From the Middle Ages to the 19th century, Italian and Slavic communities in Istria had lived peacefully side by side because they did not know
2941-474: A single language is that they have evolved so that they are no longer mutually intelligible ; this diagnostic is effective if mutual intelligibility is minimal or absent (e.g. in Romance, Romanian and Portuguese), but it fails in cases such as Spanish-Portuguese or Spanish-Italian, as educated native speakers of either pairing can understand each other well if they choose to do so; however, the level of intelligibility
3114-504: A united Italian state. Renaissance scholars divided into three main factions: A fourth faction claimed that the best Italian was the one that the papal court adopted, which was a mixture of the Tuscan and Roman dialects. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582–1583), the official legislative body of the Italian language, led to
3287-1002: A whole (between Croatia, Slovenia and Italy), more than half of them living in Italy: Source: Croatian Census - 2021. Slovenian Census - 2002. Italian Census - 1970/2001 Besides Croat language schools, in the Croatian County of Istria there are also kindergartens in Buje /Buie, Brtonigla /Verteneglio, Novigrad /Cittanova, Umag /Umago, Poreč /Parenzo, Vrsar /Orsera, Rovinj /Rovigno, Bale /Valle, Vodnjan /Dignano, Pula /Pola and Labin /Albona, as well as primary schools in Buje/Buie, Brtonigla/Verteneglio, Novigrad/Cittanova, Umag/Umago, Poreč/Parenzo, Vodnjan/Dignano, Rovinj/Rovigno, Bale/Valle and Pula/Pola, as well as lower secondary schools and upper secondary schools in Buje/Buie, Rovinj/Rovigno and Pula/Pola, all with Italian as
3460-609: Is 1,093.27/km (2,831.6/sq mi), ranking Pula fifth in Croatia. Its birth rate is 1.795 per cent and its mortality rate is 1.014 per cent (in 2001 466 people were born and 594 deceased), with a natural population decrease of −0.219 per cent and vital index of 78.45. The majority of its citizens are Croats representing 70.14% of the population (2011 census). The largest ethnic minorities are: 3,454 Serbs (6.01 per cent), 2,545 local Italians (4.43 per cent), 2,011 Bosniaks (3.5 per cent), 549 Slovenians (0.96 per cent). The city
3633-427: Is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan , 85% with Sardinian , 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese , 78% with Ladin , 77% with Romanian . Estimates may differ according to sources. One study, analyzing the degree of differentiation of Romance languages in comparison to Latin (comparing phonology , inflection , discourse , syntax , vocabulary , and intonation ), estimated that distance between Italian and Latin
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#17328443313353806-473: Is Brioni island or Brijuni national park visited by numerous world leaders since it was the summer residence of Josip Broz Tito . Roman villas and temples still lie buried among farm fields and along the shoreline of the dozens of surrounding fishing and farming villages. The coastal waters offer beaches, fishing, wreck dives to ancient Roman galleys and World War I warships, cliff diving , and sailing to unspoiled coves and islands large and small. Pula
3979-681: Is also spoken by a minority in Monaco and France, especially in the southeastern part of the country. Italian was the official language in Savoy and in Nice until 1860, when they were both annexed by France under the Treaty of Turin , a development that triggered the " Niçard exodus ", or the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy, and the Niçard Vespers . Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about
4152-542: Is best known for its many surviving ancient Roman buildings, the most famous of which is its 1st-century amphitheatre , which is among the six largest surviving Roman arenas in the world. and locally known as the Arena . This is one of the best-preserved amphitheatres from antiquity and is still in use today during summer film festivals. During the World War II Italian fascist administration, there were attempts to dismantle
4325-458: Is first mentioned as the main settlement of the Histri, the oldest people on the peninsula, which was the eponym for Istria. Livy was the first who mentioned Nesactium, and the altar dedicated to Emperor Gordian from the 3rd century, where "Res Republica Nesactiensium" is mentioned, confirmed the actual existence of this city. The search for the city began in 1900, when Pietro Kandler first put together
4498-528: Is higher than that between Sardinian and Latin. In particular, its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian . As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino and is spoken fluently by the majority of the countries' populations. Italian is the third most spoken language in Switzerland (after German and French; see Swiss Italian ), although its use there has moderately declined since
4671-471: Is humid. Temperatures above 10 °C (50 °F) last for more than 240 days a year. There are two different kinds of winds here – the bora brings cold and clear weather from the north in winter, and the southern Sirocco bringing rain in summer. The ' Maestral ' is a summer breeze blowing from the inland to the sea. Like the rest of the region Pula is known for its mild climate and tame sea with an average of sunny days of 2,316 hours per year or 6.3 hours
4844-481: Is located on the edge of town just west of the Amphitheatre. From there, excellent service to a wide range of local, domestic, and international locations is available throughout the year. Several bus companies operate from this Terminus including the local service run by Pulapromet. There is also a guaranteed direct line from Pula to Trieste/Venice, especially into spring/summertime. Passenger ferries also operate from
5017-455: Is markedly lower between Italian-Spanish, and considerably higher between the Iberian sister languages of Portuguese-Spanish. Speakers of this latter pair can communicate with one another with remarkable ease, each speaking to the other in his own native language without slang/jargon. Nevertheless, on the basis of accumulated differences in morphology, syntax, phonology, and to some extent lexicon, it
5190-410: Is not difficult to identify that for the Romance varieties of Italy, the first extant written evidence of languages that can no longer be considered Latin comes from the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. These written sources demonstrate certain vernacular characteristics and sometimes explicitly mention the use of the vernacular in Italy. Full literary manifestations of the vernacular began to surface around
5363-542: Is now the territory of Slovenia and Croatia: 137,131 in Istria and 28,911 in Fiume/ Rijeka (1918). Meanwhile, the Italian 1936 census indicated approximately 230,000 people who listed Italian as their language of communication (in what is now the territory of Slovenia and Croatia, then part of the Italian state): nearly 194,000 in today's Croatia and 36,000 in today's Slovenia. After the Italian armistice of 1943, Istria became
Istrian Italians - Misplaced Pages Continue
5536-452: Is one of many fortresses in Pula that the Austrian empire erected to protect the port for its navy. Nesactium is an ancient hill fort settlement, which is considered to be the oldest urban settlement in Istria. The town is settled about 10 km north of Pula, next to Valtura and Pula Airport. The site itself is located above Bay of Budava, and it is well protected by its steep hills. Nesactium
5709-400: Is one of the few remaining gates after the city walls were pulled down at the beginning of the 19th century. It dates from the mid-2nd century, replacing an earlier gate. It consists of two arches, columns, a plain architrave , and a decorated frieze . Close by are a few remains of the old city wall. The Gate of Hercules dates from the 1st century. At the top of the single arch, one can see
5882-575: Is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%). Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom ) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million. Italian is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as
6055-466: Is the Venetian architecture of Poreč . Italian cultural influence has resulted in the resemblance of many Istrian dances to those of Northern Italy. This applies to dances done by the modern-day Croatian population and by the Italian national minority found today in the larger towns and some villages in the western part of Istria. Dances done by both the Croatian and the Italian communities include Molferina or Mafrina and Kvadrilja . Dances specific to
6228-571: Is the end point of the EuroVelo 9 cycle route that runs from Gdańsk on the Baltic Sea through Poland, the Czech Republic , Austria, Slovenia and Croatia . It is possible to track dinosaur footprints on the nearby seashores; certain more important finds have been made at an undisclosed location near Bale . Pula had an electric tramway system in the early 20th century. It was built in 1904 as
6401-556: Is the largest city in Istria County , Croatia , and the seventh-largest city in the country , situated at the southern tip of the Istrian peninsula in western Croatia, with a population of 52,220 in 2021. It is known for its multitude of ancient Roman buildings, the most famous of which is the Pula Arena , one of the best preserved Roman amphitheaters . The city has a long tradition of wine making , fishing, shipbuilding , and tourism. It
6574-532: Is the only language of instruction (although the official name of the university includes the Italian version, too). As per the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947 , those people who lived in the territories of the Kingdom of Italy ceded to Yugoslavia between 1940 and 1947 would lose their Italian citizenship , but could keep it should they decide to move to Italy in a ten-year-period following the treaty. As such,
6747-538: Is used, and the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continues to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Other examples are Cocoliche , an Italian–Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires , and Lunfardo . The Rioplatense Spanish dialect of Argentina and Uruguay today has thus been heavily influenced by both standard Italian and Italian regional languages as
6920-737: The Divine Comedy : "Sì come a Pola, presso del Carnaro, ch'Italia chiude e i suoi termini bagna" or "As Pola, along the Quarnero , that marks the end of Italy and bathes its boundaries". The Venetians took over Pula in 1331 and would rule the city until 1797. During the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, Pula was attacked and occupied by the Genoese, the Hungarian army and the Habsburgs; several outlying medieval settlements and towns were destroyed. In addition to war,
7093-501: The Il Globo (Australia) and the La gazzetta del Sud Africa (South Africa). Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language. In the 21st century, technology also allows for the continual spread of the Italian language, as people have new ways to learn how to speak, read, and write languages at their own pace and at any given time. For example,
Istrian Italians - Misplaced Pages Continue
7266-936: The La Voce del Popolo ( Croatia ), the Corriere d'Italia (Germany), the L'italoeuropeo (United Kingdom), the Passaparola ( Luxembourg ), the America Oggi (United States), the Corriere Canadese and the Corriere Italiano (Canada), the Il punto d'incontro (Mexico), the L'Italia del Popolo ( Argentina ), the Fanfulla (Brazil), the Gente d'Italia ( Uruguay ), the La Voce d'Italia ( Venezuela ),
7439-668: The Exarchate of Ravenna (540–751). During this period Pula prospered and became the major port of the Byzantine fleet and an integral part of the Byzantine Empire . The Basilica of Saint Mary Formosa was built in the 6th century. From 788 onwards, Pula was ruled by the Frankish Empire under Charlemagne , with the introduction of the feudal system . Under the Franks it was part of
7612-703: The French Empire of Napoleon as part of the Kingdom of Italy , then placed directly under the French Empire's Illyrian Provinces . In 1813, Pola (with Istria) came back to the Austrian Empire . Under the compromise of 1867 , the town – under the original Italian name, Pola – remained in Austria-Hungary until the latter's defeat and dissolution in 1918. Under Austrian rule, Pola regained prosperity. Its large natural harbour became Austria's main naval base and
7785-401: The Gallo-Italic linguistic panorama of Northern Italy , the Italo-Dalmatian , Neapolitan and its related dialects were largely unaffected by the Franco- Occitan influences introduced to Italy mainly by bards from France during the Middle Ages, but after the Norman conquest of southern Italy , Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in
7958-487: The Kingdom of Italy . Pula became the seat of the elective counts of Istria until 1077. The town was taken in 1148 by the Venetians and in 1150 Pula swore allegiance to the Republic of Venice , thus becoming a Venetian possession. For centuries thereafter, the city's fate and fortunes were tied to those of Venetian power. It was conquered by the Pisans in 1192 but soon reconquered by the Venetians. In 1238 Pope Gregory IX formed an alliance between Genoa and Venice against
8131-399: The Kingdom of Italy in the Dodecanese ). Italian is widely spoken in Malta , where nearly two-thirds of the population can speak it fluently (see Maltese Italian ). Italian served as Malta's official language until 1934, when it was abolished by the British colonial administration amid strong local opposition. Italian language in Slovenia is an officially recognized minority language in
8304-698: The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia ), although the masses kept speaking primarily their local vernaculars. Italian was also one of the many recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city because the cities, until recently, were thought of as city-states . Those dialects now have considerable variety . As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian . The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are syntactic gemination of initial consonants in some contexts and
8477-416: The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna . The wall over the door contains a Byzantine carved stone panel. The 15th-century wall paintings may be restorations of Early Christian paintings. When the Venetians raided Pula in 1605, they removed many treasures from this chapel to Venice, including the four columns of oriental alabaster that stand behind the high altar of St Mark's Basilica . The Cathedral of
8650-907: The Middle Ages , the established written language in Europe was Latin, although the great majority of people were illiterate, and only few were well versed in the language. In the Italian Peninsula , as in most of Europe, most would instead speak a local vernacular. These dialects, as they are commonly referred to, evolved from Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, unaffected by formal standards and teachings. They are not in any sense "dialects" of standard Italian, which itself started off as one of these local tongues, but sister languages of Italian. Mutual intelligibility with Italian varies widely, as it does with Romance languages in general. The Romance languages of Italy can differ greatly from Italian at all levels ( phonology , morphology , syntax , lexicon , pragmatics ) and are classified typologically as distinct languages. The standard Italian language has
8823-477: The Middle Ages . The building was constructed under Austro-Hungarian rule and was the former k.u.k. Staatsgymnasium , the Austrian high school. The Aquarium Pula is the biggest aquarium in Croatia, located in the Austro-Hungarian fortress Verudela, which was built in 1886 on the peninsula 3 km (2 mi) from the centre of the city of Pula. Transforming the fortress into the aquarium has been in progress since 2002. The installation encompasses about 60 tanks on
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#17328443313358996-423: The Placiti Cassinesi from the province of Benevento that date from 960 to 963, although the Veronese Riddle , probably from the 8th or early 9th century, contains a late form of Vulgar Latin that can be seen as a very early sample of a vernacular dialect of Italy. The Commodilla catacomb inscription is also a similar case. The Italian language has progressed through a long and slow process, which started after
9169-472: The Roman Empire . Italian is the least divergent language from Latin , together with Sardinian (meaning that Italian and Sardinian are the most conservative Romance languages). Spoken by about 85 million people, including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy , San Marino , Switzerland ( Ticino and the Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and
9342-431: The Socialist Republic of Croatia , a federal state within SFR Yugoslavia , upon the ratification of the Paris Peace Treaties on 15 September 1947 – which also created the Free Territory of Trieste . Initially, Pola's population of 45,000 was largely made up of ethnic Italians, however, between December 1946 and September 1947, the vast majority of Italians fled to Italy. Subsequently, the city's Croatian name, Pula, became
9515-406: The Western Roman Empire's fall in the 5th century. The language that came to be thought of as Italian developed in central Tuscany and was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri , written in his native Florentine . Dante's epic poems, known collectively as the Commedia , to which another Tuscan poet Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed
9688-409: The plague , malaria and typhoid ravaged the city. By the 1750s there were only 3,000 inhabitants left in ancient city, an area now covered with weeds and ivy. With the collapse of the Venetian Republic in 1797 following Napoleon 's Treaty of Campo Formio , the city became part of the Habsburg monarchy . It was invaded again in 1805 after the French had defeated the Austrians. It was included in
9861-406: The 111 Italian lecturer sections belonging to foreign schools where Italian is taught as a language of culture. As of 2022, Australia had the highest number of students learning Italian in the world. This occurred because of support by the Italian community in Australia and the Italian Government and also because of successful educational reform efforts led by local governments in Australia. From
10034-450: The 11th century, most of the interior mountainous areas of northern and eastern Istria ( Liburnia ) were inhabited by South Slavs , while the Romance population continued to prevail in the south and west of the peninsula. Linguistically, the Romance inhabitants of Istria were most probably divided into two main linguistic groups: in the north-west, the speakers of a Rhaeto-Romance language similar to Ladin and Friulian prevailed, while in
10207-458: The 13th century in the form of various religious texts and poetry. Although these are the first written records of Italian varieties separate from Latin, the spoken language had probably diverged long before the first written records appeared since those who were literate generally wrote in Latin even if they spoke other Romance varieties in person. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of Standard Italian became increasingly widespread and
10380-449: The 14th century. The cloisters display some antique Roman artefacts. The Archaeological Museum of Istria is situated in the park on a lower level than the Roman theatre and close to the Twin Gates. Its collection was started by Marshall Marmont in August 1802 when he collected the stone monuments from the temple of Augustus. The present-day museum was opened in 1949. It displays treasures from Pula and surroundings from prehistory until
10553-438: The 1970s. It is official both on the national level and on regional level in two cantons : Ticino and Grisons . In the latter canton, however, it is only spoken by a small minority, in the Italian Grisons . Ticino, which includes Lugano , the largest Italian-speaking city outside Italy, is the only canton where Italian is predominant. Italian is also used in administration and official documents in Vatican City . Italian
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#173284433133510726-425: The 19th century, the use of the Venetian language even extended to some areas of former Austrian Istria, like the town of Pazin / Pisino. The Austrian censuses detected a gradual but constant rise of Italian speakers both in numerical and proportional terms: in 1848, around a third of Istrians were Italian (Venetian or Istriot) speakers. From the early 19th century onward, the local Croats and Slovenes engaged in
10899-401: The 1st century BC, close to the sea. In Roman times it was surrounded by temples of Jupiter , Juno and Minerva . This Roman commercial and administrative centre of the city remained the main square of classical and medieval Pula. It is still the main administrative and legislative centre of the city. The temple of Augustus is still preserved today. A part of the back wall of the temple of Juno
11072-432: The 5th century AD. Between 500 and 700 AD, Slavs settled in Southeastern Europe (Eastern Adriatic), and their number ever increased, and with the Ottoman invasion Slavs were pushed from the south and east. This led to Italic people becoming ever more confined to urban areas, while some areas of the countryside were populated by Slavs, with exceptions in western and southern Istria which remained fully Romance-speaking. By
11245-405: The 6th century, but was partially rebuilt in the 10th century. In 1583 it was assigned to the Orthodox community of Pula, mainly immigrants from Cyprus and Nauplion . The church owns several icons from the 15th and the 16th century and an iconostasis from the Greek artists Tomios Batos from the 18th century. The star-shaped castle with four bastions is situated on top of the central hill of
11418-411: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in the 6th century, when Pula became the seat of a bishopry, over the remains of the original site where the Christians used to gather and pray in Roman times. It was enlarged in the 10th century. After its destruction by Genoese and Venetian raids, it was almost completely rebuilt in the 15th century. It got its present form when a late Renaissance façade
11591-407: The Austrian surveys of the language of use (in the Austrian censuses, the ethnic composition of the population wasn't surveyed, only the "Umgangsprache") "overestimated the diffusion of the socially dominant languages of the empire... The capacity of assimilation of the Italian language suggests that amongst those who declared themselves Italian speakers in Istria, there were people whose mother tongue
11764-472: The Axis, by the partisans who together with the Yugoslav communists killed many soldiers and civilians, in the first episodes of what would have been named, later on, the Foibe massacres . After World War II , the Istrian Italians of Pula left Yugoslavia towards Italy ( Istrian-Dalmatian exodus ). For two years after 1945, Pola was administered by the Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories (AMG). Pola formed an enclave within south Istria that
11937-457: The Berlitz School; his students were mainly Austro-Hungarian naval officers who were stationed at the Naval Shipyard . While he was in Pola he organised the local printing of his broadsheet The Holy Office , which satirised both William Butler Yeats and George William Russell . Pula's surrounding natural environment, countryside and the turquoise water of the Adriatic have made the city popular summer holiday destination. The pearl nearby
12110-401: The Empire, and consequently against Pisa too. As Pula had sided with the Pisans, the city was sacked by the Venetians in 1243. It was destroyed again in 1267 and again in 1397 when the Genoese defeated the Venetians in a naval battle. Pula then slowly went into decline. This decay was accelerated by the infighting of local families: the ancient Roman Sergi family and the Ionotasi (1258–1271) and
12283-415: The Istrian Italians include La Veneziana , Bersagliera , Denci , Sette Passi and the very similar dances Vilota and Furlana . Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of
12456-510: The Istrian Italians leaving the zone B for elsewhere (mainly to Italy) because intimidated or preferring not to live in communist Yugoslavia. Yugoslav Istria was divided between Croatia and Slovenia , so that the Istrian Italians became subject to two different administrations. In 1961 25,651 Italians remained in Yugoslavia (this number included some small minorities in Dalmatia), around 10-12% of
12629-660: The Istrian population. Today, as a result of the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus (1943–1960), the majority of Istrian Italians live outside of the Istrian peninsula; however, a significant Italian minority still lives in the Croatian County of Istria (5.01%) and in Slovenian Istria (3.3%), where they are granted minority rights . According to the official Slovenian and Croatian censuses conducted in 2001 and 2002 respectively, they number around 22,000. The Istrian–Dalmatian exodus, on
12802-570: The Italian Renaissance . Other historians have attributed the ancient language of romanized Istrians as being the Istro-Romanian . In the 14th century, epidemics such as the Black Death decimated in those years the Istrian population, which was still mostly of Romance ethnicity. As a consequence of depopulation, Venice started settling Slavic communities to repopulate the interior areas of
12975-417: The Italian dialects has declined in the modern era , as Italy unified under Standard Italian and continues to do so aided by mass media from newspapers to radio to television, diglossia is still frequently encountered in Italy and triglossia is not uncommon in emigrant communities among older speakers. Both situations normally involve some degree of code-switching and code-mixing . Notes: Italian has
13148-485: The Italian language into a lingua franca used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts but also by the bourgeoisie . Italian literature's first modern novel, I promessi sposi ( The Betrothed ) by Alessandro Manzoni , further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno " ( Florence 's river), as he states in the preface to his 1840 edition. After unification,
13321-470: The Italian language, in the second part of the 19th century, when the population of predominantly Italian-speaking towns in Istria rose dramatically: in the part of Istria that eventually became part of Croatia, the first Austrian census from 1846 found 34 thousand Italian speakers, alongside 120 thousand Croatian speakers. Until 1910, the proportion changed: there were 108 thousand Italian speakers and 134 thousand Croatian speakers. Vanni D'Alessio notes (2008),
13494-635: The Italian population before World War II. Italians continued to emigrate in later decades (most of them to Australia, Canada, South America or the USA). Therefore, their population declined in each subsequent census to 15,132 inhabitants in 1981. It has to be emphasized that the data of the Yugoslav censuses are unreliable in relation to the real number of Italians, since many members of the Italian minority, for various reasons, chose to be nationally undeclared or preferred to use their regional identity and declared themselves as Istrians. Not surprisingly in 2001 (i.e. after
13667-670: The Italian side against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Among them, the most famous was the Nazario Sauro from Koper (Capodistria). After the end of the war, the whole peninsula was occupied by the Kingdom of Italy , and officially annexed to Italy with the Treaty of Rapallo of 1920. Istria was included in the administrative region known as the Julian March /Venezia Giulia. After the Fascist takeover of Italy in 1922, Italian became
13840-691: The Julian March. Indeed, before the Treaty of Rapallo, the Italians in Istria accounted for nearly half of the local inhabitants and were mostly an indigenous population, but after the treaty they were bolstered by some new arrivals of the so-called regnicoli (from the Kingdom of Italy), which were never well liked by the indigenous Istrians Italians. The Austrian 1910 census indicated approximately 182,500 people who listed Italian as their language of communication in what
14013-496: The Kingdom of Italy and learn the Italian language. Many left the city and went back to the newly created Yugoslavia . After the collapse of Fascist Italy in 1943, the city was occupied by the German Wehrmacht and remained a base for U-boats. Consequently, the city was subjected to repeated Allied bombing from 1942 to 1944. In the last phase of the war, Pola saw the arrest, deportation, and execution of people suspected of aiding
14186-550: The Mediterranean. The increasing political and cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of the rise of the Medici Bank , humanism , and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts. The Renaissance era, known as il Rinascimento in Italian, was seen as a time of rebirth, which is the literal meaning of both renaissance (from French) and rinascimento (Italian). During this time, long-existing beliefs stemming from
14359-481: The almost exclusively Croatian-speaking areas that were annexed to Yugoslavia after WWI ( Kastav and the island of Krk), Istria had 39% of Italian speakers, 37% of Croatian, and 14.7% Slovene speakers. Until the end of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the bourgeois Italian national liberal elites retained much of the political control in Istria. During World War One, many Istrians fought as volunteers on
14532-569: The area around Pula. The type of materials found in Bronze Age sites in Istria connects these with sites along the Danube. The inhabitants of Istria in the Bronze Age are known as Proto Illyrians. Greek pottery and a part of a statue of Apollo have been found, attesting to the presence or influence of Greek culture . Greek tradition attributed the foundation of Polai to the Colchians , mentioned in
14705-590: The arena and move it to mainland Italy, which were quickly abandoned due to the costs involved. Two other notable and well-preserved ancient Roman structures are the 1st-century BC triumphal arch , the Arch of the Sergii and the co-eval Temple of Augustus , built in the 1st century AD built on the forum during the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus . The Twin Gates ( Porta Gemina )
14878-450: The bearded head of Hercules , carved in high-relief , and his club on the adjoining voussoir . A damaged inscription, close to the club, contains the names of Lucius Calpurnius Piso and Gaius Cassius Longinus who were entrusted by the Roman senate to found a colony at the site of Pula. Thus it can be deduced that Pula was founded between 47 and 44 BC. The Augustan Forum was constructed in
15051-444: The case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. The economic might and relatively advanced development of Tuscany at the time ( Late Middle Ages ) gave its language weight, although Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life, and Ligurian (or Genoese) remained in use in maritime trade alongside
15224-444: The census 1857, and 73,000 in total population of 273.000 in the census 1869 (26,67 percent). In census 1880, when the language of everyday communication ("Umgangssprache") was recorded, there was 112,000 people of Italian langugage in the total population of 274,000 (40,87 percent). In the time of census 1910., Italian was the primary language of 36.5% (38,14% in the parts of Istria which would be annexed to Italy between WWI and WWII) of
15397-515: The centre of a diocese, attested by the remains of foundations of a few religious buildings. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire , the city and region were attacked by the Ostrogoths , Pula being virtually destroyed by Odoacer , a Germanic foederati general in 476 AD. The town was ruled by the Ostrogoths from 493 to 538 AD. When their rule ended, Pula came under the rule of
15570-441: The civil war of 42 BC of the triumvirate of Octavian , Mark Antony and Lepidus against Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius , the town took the side of Cassius, since the town had been founded by Cassius Longinus , brother of Cassius. After Octavian's victory, the town was demolished. It was soon rebuilt at the request of Octavian's daughter Iulia and was then called Colonia Pietas Iulia Pola Pollentia Herculanea . The colony
15743-521: The clash between Venice and Genoa for the control of the city and its harbour (late 13th and 14th centuries). In 1291, by the Peace of Treviso, Patriarch Raimondo della Torre gained the city as part of the secular realm of the Patriarchate of Aquileia , only to lose it to Venice in 1331, which then held it until its downfall in 1797. Pula is quoted by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri , who had visited Pula, in
15916-630: The colonial period. In the early 19th century, Eritrea was the country with the highest number of Italians abroad, and the Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. In Asmara there are two Italian schools, the Italian School of Asmara (Italian primary school with a Montessori department) and the Liceo Sperimentale "G. Marconi" (Italian international senior high school). Italian
16089-456: The context of the story of Jason and Medea , who had stolen the golden fleece . The Colchians, who had chased Jason into the northern Adriatic, were unable to catch him and ended up settling in a place they called Polai , signifying "city of refuge". In classical antiquity, it was inhabited by the Histri , a Venetic or Illyrian tribe . Strabo , Pomponius Mela and Lycophron wrote that it
16262-454: The country (some 0.42% of the total population). Their numbers dropped dramatically after World War II following the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , which caused the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Italian was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa from 1492 to 1807. It formerly had official status in Albania due to the annexation of
16435-458: The country to the Kingdom of Italy (1939–1943). Albania has a large population of non-native speakers, with over half of the population having some knowledge of the Italian language. The Albanian government has pushed to make Italian a compulsory second language in schools. The Italian language is well-known and studied in Albania, due to its historical ties and geographical proximity to Italy and to
16608-446: The country. A few hundred Italian settlers returned to Libya in the 2000s. Italian was the official language of Eritrea during Italian colonisation . Italian is today used in commerce, and it is still spoken especially among elders; besides that, Italian words are incorporated as loan words in the main language spoken in the country (Tigrinya). The capital city of Eritrea, Asmara , still has several Italian schools, established during
16781-514: The country. The official census, carried out in 2002, reported 2,258 ethnic Italians ( Istrian Italians ) in Slovenia (0.11% of the total population). Italian language in Croatia is an official minority language in the country, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians ) in
16954-464: The design and fashion industries, in some sports such as football and especially in culinary terms. In Italy, almost all the other languages spoken as the vernacular —other than standard Italian and some languages spoken among immigrant communities—are often called " Italian dialects ", a label that can be very misleading if it is understood to mean "dialects of Italian". The Romance dialects of Italy are local evolutions of spoken Latin that pre-date
17127-523: The diffusion of Italian television in the country. Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period , Italian is still understood by some in former colonies such as Libya. Although it was the primary language in Libya since colonial rule , Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi , who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of
17300-574: The dissolution of Yugoslavia), the Croatian and Slovenian censuses reported a total Italian population of 21,894 (with the figure in Croatia nearly doubling). In its 1996 report on 'Local self-government, territorial integrity and protection of minorities' the Council of Europe 's European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission ) put it that "a great majority of the local Italians, some thousands of Slovenes and of nationally undefined bilingual 'Istrians', used their legal right from
17473-472: The educated gentlemen was to make the Grand Tour , visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It was expected that the visitor would learn at least some Italian, understood as language based on Florentine. In England, while the classical languages Latin and Greek were the first to be learned, Italian became the second most common modern language after French, a position it held until
17646-458: The establishment of Italian, and as such are sister languages to the Tuscan that was the historical source of Italian. They can be quite different from Italian and from each other, with some belonging to different linguistic branches of Romance. The only exceptions to this are twelve groups considered " historical language minorities ", which are officially recognized as distinct minority languages by
17819-433: The fact that it was linguistically an intermediate between the northern and the southern Italian dialects. Thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy. Italian was progressively made an official language of most of the Italian states predating unification, slowly replacing Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as Spain in the Kingdom of Naples , or Austria in
17992-433: The following documents are required: Istrian culture has been deeply influenced by Venetian culture, especially from an architectural point of view. Istrian cities are characterized by architectural forms with a Venetian imprint, an influence that extends to urban planning, particularly in the grid formed by streets and squares. This influence is still visible today, both in cities and in smaller population centres. Noteworthy
18165-468: The free website and application Duolingo has 4.94 million English speakers learning the Italian language. According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , every year there are more than 200,000 foreign students who study the Italian language; they are distributed among the 90 Institutes of Italian Culture that are located around the world, in the 179 Italian schools located abroad, or in
18338-510: The ground floor, the moat, and the first floor of the fortress. In an area of approximately 2,000 m (21,528 sq ft), visitors can view inhabitants of the Northern and Southern Adriatic Sea, tropical marine and freshwater fish, and representatives of European rivers and lakes. From the roof of the fort, visitors may view the entire city of Pula. It is also possible to see the first marine turtle rescue centre in Croatia. Fort Bourguignon
18511-580: The interior towns of Albona / Labin and Pinguente / Buzet . This created a dichotomy that characterized Istria until the late 18th century. The Venetian culture and language left a profound impact on Venetian Istria. By the Baroque and Enlightenment periods, Istrian Italians were completely integrated into the wider Italian culture via their belonging to the Republic of Venice. The towns of Venetian Istria became almost exclusively Venetian-speaking, and Venetian Italian
18684-483: The island of Corsica (but not in the neighbouring Sardinia , which on the contrary underwent Italianization well into the late 18th century, under Savoyard sway: the island's linguistic composition, roofed by the prestige of Spanish among the Sardinians , would therein make for a rather slow process of assimilation to the Italian cultural sphere ). The rediscovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia , as well as
18857-450: The language of instruction. Besides Slovene language schools, in Slovenian Istria there are also kindergartens, primary schools, lower secondary schools and upper secondary schools with Italian as the language of instruction in Koper /Capodistria, Izola /Isola and Piran /Pirano. At the state-owned University of Primorska , however, which is also established in the bilingual area, Slovene
19030-631: The language to that continent. According to some sources, Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina after the official language of Spanish, although its number of speakers, mainly of the older generation, is decreasing. Italian bilingual speakers can be found scattered across the Southeast of Brazil as well as in the South. In Venezuela , Italian is the most spoken language after Spanish and Portuguese, with around 200,000 speakers. In Uruguay , people who speak Italian as their home language are 1.1% of
19203-491: The late 18th century when it tended to be replaced by German. John Milton , for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. Within the Catholic Church , Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. Italian loanwords continue to be used in most languages in matters of art and music (especially classical music including opera), in
19376-525: The late 19th to the mid-20th century, millions of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Brazil and Venezuela, as well as in Canada and the United States, where they formed a physical and cultural presence. In some cases, colonies were established where variants of regional languages of Italy were used, and some continue to use this regional language. Examples are Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil, where Talian
19549-563: The law. On the other hand, Corsican (a language spoken on the French island of Corsica ) is closely related to medieval Tuscan , from which Standard Italian derives and evolved. The differences in the evolution of Latin in the different regions of Italy can be attributed to the natural changes that all languages in regular use are subject to, and to some extent to the presence of three other types of languages: substrata, superstrata, and adstrata . The most prevalent were substrata (the language of
19722-530: The line remains disconnected from the rest of the Croatian Railways network. Plans to tunnel the 'missing link' between this line and from Rijeka have existed for many years, and despite work commencing on this project previously, have never seen completion. People traveling to Rijeka or Zagreb by train must get off in Lupoglav and take a bus to Rijeka. Pula Bus Terminus/Terminal is the main hub for Istria and
19895-525: The local Italian residents who opted to remain in Istria , Rijeka , Lastovo and other territories lost their Italian citizenship. On 8 March 2006, the Italian government approved law n. 124, which would provide a possibility to regain Italian citizenship to "those Italians and their descendants residing in Istria , Fiume , and Dalmatia between 1940 and 1947, when they relinquished it upon these territories being ceded to Yugoslavia . To access this initiative,
20068-572: The meeting of the Council of Ministers of 12 November 1866, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria outlined a wide-ranging project aimed at the Germanization or Slavization of the areas of the empire with an Italian presence: His Majesty expressed the precise order that action be taken decisively against the influence of the Italian elements still present in some regions of the Crown and, appropriately occupying
20241-465: The mosaics. The windows of the aisles underwent reconstruction in Gothic style after a fire in 1242. The belfry in front of the church was built between 1671 and 1707 using stones from the amphitheatre. There also used to stand a baptistery from the 5th century in front of the church, but it was demolished in 1885. The Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas with its Ravenna-style polygonal apse originally dates from
20414-794: The municipalities of Santa Tereza and Encantado in Brazil . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia . Italian is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania , although Italian is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries. Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties ) and
20587-412: The nation was unified in 1861. Italian is a Romance language , a descendant of Vulgar Latin (colloquial spoken Latin). Standard Italian is based on Tuscan , especially its Florentine dialect , and is, therefore, an Italo-Dalmatian language , a classification that includes most other central and southern Italian languages and the extinct Dalmatian . According to Ethnologue , lexical similarity
20760-399: The national identification, given that they generically defined themselves as "Istrians", of "Romance" or "Slavic" culture. Although the incorporation into the Austrian Empire caused deep changes in the political assets of the region, it did not alter the social balance. Venetian-speaking Istrian Italians continued to dominate the region both culturally and economically. In the first half of
20933-467: The number of printing presses in Italy grew rapidly and by the year 1500 reached a total of 56, the biggest number of printing presses in all of Europe. This enabled the production of more pieces of literature at a lower cost and Italian, as the dominant language, spread. Italian became the language used in the courts of every state in the Italian Peninsula , as well as the prestige variety used on
21106-589: The official census only 36,000 Italians lived in Yugoslavia , 16% of the Italian population before World War II, and another 35,000 lived in the zone B of the Free Territory of Trieste (FTT). After the dissolution of the FTT in 1954, and the definitive handover of zone B to Yugoslavia, almost the totality of Istria became officially part of Yugoslavia. This triggered the last wave of the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , with most of
21279-580: The official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta . Italian has a significant use in musical terminology and opera with numerous Italian words referring to music that have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide. Almost all native Italian words end with vowels , and the language has a 7-vowel sound system ('e' and 'o' have mid-low and mid-high sounds). Italian has contrast between short and long consonants and gemination (doubling) of consonants. During
21452-430: The official name. Today the city of Pola or Pula is officially bilingual, Croatian and Italian, hence both Pula and Pola are official names. Since the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991, Pula has been part of the Republic of Croatia . The city lies on and beneath seven hills on the inner part of a wide gulf and a naturally well-protected port (depth up to 38 m (125 ft)) open to the northwest with two entrances: from
21625-416: The old Romance (either Rhaeto-Romance or Italo-Dalmatian ) languages with the Venetian language . Only in the extreme south of the peninsula did the original Istrian Romance language survive: under strong Venetian influences it transformed itself into the modern Istriot language . Until the early 19th century, Dalmatian continued to be spoken on the island of Veglia / Krk , and a dialect of Friulian in
21798-563: The old city. It was built, over the remains of the Roman capitolium , by the Venetians in the 17th century, following the plans of the French military architect Antoine de Ville . Since 1961 it now houses the Historical Museum of Istria . Close by, on the north-eastern slopes, one can see the remains of a 2nd-century theatre. The Church of St. Francis dates from the end of the 13th century. It
21971-630: The openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local language (for example, in informal situations andà , annà and nare replace the standard Italian andare in the area of Tuscany, Rome and Venice respectively for the infinitive "to go"). There is no definitive date when the various Italian variants of Latin—including varieties that contributed to modern Standard Italian—began to be distinct enough from Latin to be considered separate languages. One criterion for determining that two language variants are to be considered separate languages rather than variants of
22144-584: The original inhabitants), as the Italian dialects were most probably simply Latin as spoken by native cultural groups. Superstrata and adstrata were both less important. Foreign conquerors of Italy that dominated different regions at different times left behind little to no influence on the dialects. Foreign cultures with which Italy engaged in peaceful relations with, such as trade, had no significant influence either. Throughout Italy, regional varieties of Standard Italian, called Regional Italian , are spoken. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors:
22317-453: The other hand, almost everyone still speaks the Corsican idiom , which, due to its linguistic proximity to the Italian standard language, appears both linguistically as an Italian dialect and therefore as a carrier of Italian culture, despite the French government's decades-long efforts to cut Corsica off from the Italian motherland. Italian was the official language in Monaco until 1860, when it
22490-675: The other hand, numbers between 230,000 and 350,000 people from Istria, mainly ethnic Italians. Throughout history, Istrian Italians exerted a vast and significant influence on Istria, especially cultural and architectural. The number of people resident in the Croatian part of Istria declaring themselves to be Italian nearly doubled between 1981 and 1991 (i.e. before and after the dissolution of Yugoslavia). Social standing of Italian language and Italian culture in Istria tended, historically, to be good, or even dominant: Italian language in Slovenia and Italian language in Croatia are spoken even today as
22663-527: The peace treaty to 'opt out' of the Yugoslav controlled part of Istria". In several waves, they moved to Italy and elsewhere (also overseas, mainly in the Americas ) and claimed Italian or other citizenship. Today Istrian Italians are mostly a national minority in Croatia. Croatian municipalities with a significant Italian population include Grisignana / Grožnjan (36%), Verteneglio / Brtonigla (32%), and Buie / Buje (24%). The last census (2001) showed that there are nearly 50,000 Istrian Italians in Istria as
22836-455: The peninsula. These were mostly Čakavian and partially Štokavian speaking South Slavs from Dalmatia and present-day Montenegro (differently from Kajkavian and proto- Slovene speakers that lived in the northern areas of the peninsula). At the same time, settlers from the Veneto region were used to resettle the towns. This caused a language shift of the local Romance population who replaced
23009-406: The population of Italy could speak Standard Italian. He reports that in 1951 that percentage had risen to 87%. The ability to speak Italian did not necessarily mean it was in everyday use, and most people (63.5%) still usually spoke their native dialects. In addition, other factors such as mass emigration, industrialization, and urbanization, and internal migrations after World War II , contributed to
23182-452: The port was the main base for Austro-Hungarian dreadnoughts and other naval forces of the Empire. During this period many inhabitants were Italian speaking. The 1910 Austrian census recorded a city population of 58,562 (45.8% Italian speaking; 15.2% Croatian, the rest were mostly German-speaking military). Following the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, Pola and the whole of Istria – except
23355-528: The posts of public, judicial, masters employees as well as with the influence of the press, work in South Tyrol , Dalmatia and Littoral for the Germanization and Slavization of these territories according to the circumstances, with energy and without any regard. His Majesty calls the central offices to the strong duty to proceed in this way to what has been established. This tension created - by some claims -
23528-458: The primary language of communication in many ethnically mixed and prevalently non-Italian local communities and within many ethnically non-Italian families. Native Italian speakers are largely concentrated along the western coast of the Istrian peninsula. Historian Theodor Mommsen wrote that Istria (included in the Regio X Venetia et Histria of Roman Italy since Augustus ) was fully romanized in
23701-469: The proliferation of Standard Italian. The Italians who emigrated during the Italian diaspora beginning in 1861 were often of the uneducated lower class, and thus the emigration had the effect of increasing the percentage of literates, who often knew and understood the importance of Standard Italian, back home in Italy. A large percentage of those who had emigrated also eventually returned to Italy, often more educated than when they had left. Although use of
23874-528: The pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" between vowels in many words: e.g. va bene "all right" is pronounced [vabˈbɛːne] by a Roman (and by any standard Italian speaker), [vaˈbeːne] by a Milanese (and by any speaker whose native dialect lies to the north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line ); a casa "at home" is [akˈkaːsa] for Roman, [akˈkaːsa] or [akˈkaːza] for standard, [aˈkaːza] for Milanese and generally northern. In contrast to
24047-415: The publication of Agnolo Monosini 's Latin tome Floris italicae linguae libri novem in 1604 followed by the first Italian dictionary in 1612. An important event that helped the diffusion of Italian was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy some decades after and pushed
24220-479: The referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the Italian Savoyards ) took refuge in Italy in the following years. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles . Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859. Giuseppe Garibaldi called for the inclusion of the " Corsican Italians " within Italy when Rome
24393-466: The same period, the Istrian Slovenes and Croats, who represented around three-fifths of the Istrian population, increased their demands for national and linguistic emancipation. The result was the intensification of the ethnic strife between the two groups, although it was limited to institutional battles and it rarely manifested in violent forms. Indeed, in 1910, the ethnic and linguistic composition
24566-405: The sea and through Fažana channel. Today, Pula's geographical area amounts to 5,165 ha (12,760 acres), 4,159 ha (10,280 acres) on land and 1,015 ha (2,510 acres) at sea, bounded from the north by islands Sv. Jerolim and Kozada, city areas Štinjan/Stignano, Veli Vrh/Monte Grande and Sianna with its 'Kaiserwald' forest; from the east area Monteserpo, Valmade, Busoler and Valdebek; from
24739-414: The sole language of administration and education. A fierce policy of Italianization was followed which prohibited all use of any language but Italian. Many Slovenes and Croats left the region, which strengthened the Italian positions. However, ethnic tensions grew, and a Slovenian and Croatian anti-Fascist insurgency started to appear in the late 1920s, although it was much less strong than in other parts of
24912-607: The south with the old gas works, commercial port Veruda and island Veruda; and from the west Verudela, Lungomare and Musil. Protected from the north by the mountain chain of Alps as well the inner highland, the climate is humid subtropical ( Köppen climate classification : Cfa ), with the highest air temperature averaging 23 °C (73 °F) during July and August and lowest averaging 6 °C (43 °F), in January and February. Summers are usually quite hot, although some unusual heat wave patterns are also common. Normally, it
25085-619: The south, the natives most probably spoke a variant of the Dalmatian language . One modern claim suggests the original language of the romanized Istrians survived the invasions, this being the Istriot language which was spoken by some near Pula . Republic of Venice influenced the neolatins of Istria for many centuries from the Middle Ages until 1797, until conquered by Napoleon : Capodistria and Pola were important centres of art and culture during
25258-464: The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church began to be understood from new perspectives as humanists —individuals who placed emphasis on the human body and its full potential—began to shift focus from the church to human beings themselves. The continual advancements in technology play a crucial role in the diffusion of languages. After the invention of the printing press in the 15th century,
25431-677: The territory of Castua Kastav – went to Italy. Pola became the capital of the Province of Pola . The decline in population after World War I was mainly due to economic difficulties caused by the withdrawal of Austro-Hungarian military and bureaucratic facilities and the dismissal of workers from the shipyard. Under the Italian Fascist government of Benito Mussolini , non-Italians, especially Croatian residents who came to Pola under Austro-Hungarian rule, faced stringent political and cultural repression because they had now to integrate themselves into
25604-401: The time of the Republic of Venice , and from the local Croatian people who culturally assimilated. According to some estimates, Italians made more than 50% of the total population of Istria for centuries. In the Austrian census 1846 there was 59,000 people with Italian as the family language ("Muttersprache") in the total Istrian population of 215,000; 62,000 in total population of 220,000 in
25777-463: The title Divina , were read throughout the peninsula and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language. In addition to the widespread exposure gained through literature, the Florentine dialect also gained prestige due to the political and cultural significance of Florence at the time and
25950-467: The toponym Vizače with ancient Nesactium. As a result of its rich political history, Pula is a city with a cultural mixture of people and languages from the Mediterranean and Central Europe, ancient and contemporary. Pula's architecture reflects these layers of history. Residents are commonly fluent in both Croatian and Italian but also in foreign languages like German and English. From 30 October 1904 to March 1905 Irish writer James Joyce taught English at
26123-529: The total population of the country. In Australia, Italian is the second most spoken foreign language after Chinese, with 1.4% of the population speaking it as their home language. The main Italian-language newspapers published outside Italy are the L'Osservatore Romano ( Vatican City ), the L'Informazione di San Marino ( San Marino ), the Corriere del Ticino and the laRegione Ticino ( Switzerland ),
26296-683: The total population of the region and altered its ethnic structure. After the Yugoslav Communist troops occupied Istria in May 1945, many Italians started leaving Istria under the pressure of the new authorities who demanded the annexation of Istria to Yugoslavia. With an agreement between the Allied forces and Tito 's Yugoslav government, a line of demarcation known as the Morgan Line was set in June 1945: most of Istria remained under Yugoslav occupation, while
26469-455: The town of Muggia : both became extinct in the mid 19th century, replaced by Venetian. In 1374 Because of the implementation of a treaty of inheritance, central and eastern Istria fell to the House of Habsburg , while Venice continued to control the northern, western and south-eastern portion of the peninsula, including the major coastal towns of Capodistria / Koper , Parenzo / Poreč , Rovigno / Rovinj , Pola / Pula , Fianona / Plomin , and
26642-450: The towns of Pula and Muggia were transferred to Allied administration. With the peace treaty of 1947, most of Istria (including Pula) was assigned to Yugoslavia. This triggered the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , the departure of the large majority of Istrian Italians. Only the north-western portion was assigned to zone B of the short-lived Free Territory of Trieste , but de facto remained under Yugoslav administration. In 1953 according to
26815-401: The triumphal Arch of the Sergii , the Gate of Hercules (in which the names of the founders of the city are engraved), and the Twin Gates. During the reign of the emperor Septimius Severus the name of the town was changed to "Res Publica Polensis". The town was the site of an execution of two reigning caesares , Crispus in 326 AD and Constantius Gallus in 354 AD. In 425 AD the town became
26988-421: The unification of Italy. However, after 1866, when the Veneto and Friuli regions were ceded by the Austrians to the newly formed Kingdom Italy , Istria remained part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire , together with other Italian-speaking areas on the eastern Adriatic ( Trieste , Gorizia and Gradisca , Fiume ). This triggered the gradual rise of Italian irredentism among many Italians in Istria, who demanded
27161-425: The unification of the Austrian Littoral , Fiume and Dalmatia with Italy. Under Austrian rule in the 19th century, it included a large population of Italians , Croats , Slovenes , some Vlachs / Istro-Romanians and even a few Montenegrins . The Italians in Istria supported the Italian Risorgimento : as a consequence, the Austrians saw the Italians as enemies and favoured the Slav communities of Istria During
27334-428: The whole year and several other large airports in Western Europe during summer. On 9 April 2015 European Coastal Airlines established a daily seaplane service from the downtown seaplane terminal at the city's main waterfront. Destinations as of April 2015 are Rijeka , the island of Rab and Mali Lošinj . The airline ceased operation in 2016. A train service operates north from Pula through to Slovenia, however,
27507-413: Was added in the early 16th century. The church still retains several Romanesque and Byzantine characters, such as some parts of the walls (dating from the 4th century), a few of the original column capitals and the upper windows of the nave. In the altar area and in the room to the south one can still see fragments of 5th- or 6th-century floor mosaics with memorial inscriptions from worshippers who paid for
27680-439: Was also introduced to Somalia through colonialism and was the sole official language of administration and education during the colonial period but fell out of use after government, educational and economic infrastructure were destroyed in the Somali Civil War . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Although over 17 million Americans are of Italian descent , only
27853-419: Was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy , but King Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it. Italian is generally understood in Corsica by the population resident therein who speak Corsican , which is an Italo-Romance idiom similar to Tuscan. Francization occurred in Nice case, and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy. In Corsica, on
28026-436: Was built in 1314 in the late Romanesque style with Gothic additions such as the rose window . The church consists of a single nave with three apses . An unusual feature of this church is the double pulpit , with one part projecting into the street. A 15th-century wooden polyptych from an Emilian artist adorns the altar. The west portal is decorated with shell motifs and a rose window . The adjoining monastery dates from
28199-417: Was built in the 6th century (before 546) in the form of a Greek cross, resembling the churches in Ravenna . It was built by Maximianus of Ravenna , then a deacon , but later Archbishop of Ravenna . It was, together with another chapel, part of a Benedictine abbey that was demolished in the 16th century. The floors and the walls are decorated with 6th-century mosaics. The decoration bears some resemblance to
28372-499: Was completely mixed and the Italians were reduced to a minority, although still significant. According to the Austrian census results, out of 404,309 inhabitants in the " Margravate of Istria ", 168,116 (41.6%) spoke Croatian , 147,416 (36.5%) spoke Italian , 55,365 (13.7%) spoke Slovene , 13,279 (3.3%) spoke German , 882 (0.2%) spoke Romanian , 2,116 (0.5%) spoke other languages and 17,135 (4.2%) were non-citizens, which had not been asked for their language of communication. Excluding
28545-407: Was different." D'Alessio notes even the people who immigrated from non-Croatian and non-Italian parts of the Habsburg Empire tended to use Italian, after living in Istrian towns long enough. Contrasting the claims of a "huge emigration" of Italians from Istria, D'Allesio writes about an important influx of immigrants from the Kingdom of Italy to Istria, during the last decades of the Austrian rule. In
28718-447: Was inhabited by Colchians . The Istrian peninsula was conquered by the Romans in 177 BC, starting a period of Romanization. The town was elevated to colonial rank between 46 and 45 BC as the tenth region of the late Roman Republic , under Julius Caesar . During that time the town grew and had at its zenith a population of about 30,000. It became a significant Roman port with a large surrounding area under its jurisdiction. During
28891-494: Was integrated into the Communal Palace in the 13th century. Two Roman theatres have withstood the ravages of time: the smaller one (diameter c. 50 m; 2nd century AD) near the centre, the larger one (diameter c. 100 m; 1st century AD) on the southern edge of the city. The city's old quarter of narrow streets, lined with Medieval and Renaissance buildings, are still surfaced with ancient Roman paving stones. The Byzantine chapel of Santa Maria del Canneto (or St. Mary Formosa)
29064-443: Was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. An increase in literacy was one of the main driving factors (one can assume that only literates were capable of learning Standard Italian, whereas those who were illiterate had access only to their native dialect). The percentage of literates rose from 25% in 1861 to 60% in 1911, and then on to 78.1% in 1951. Tullio De Mauro , an Italian linguist, has asserted that in 1861 only 2.5% of
29237-436: Was occupied by Yugoslavia since 1945 with the help of Churchill. The AMG was occupied by a company of the United States 351st Infantry and a British battalion of the 24th Guards Brigade . Istria was partitioned into occupation zones until the region became officially united with the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ( SFR Yugoslavia ) on 15 September 1947, under terms of the Paris Peace Treaties . The city became part of
29410-401: Was part of Venetia et Histria , a region of Roman Italy . Great classical constructions were built of which a few remain. A great amphitheatre , Pula Arena , was constructed between 27 BC and 68 AD, much of it still standing to this day. The Romans also supplied the city with water and sewage systems. They fortified the city with a wall with ten gates. A few of these gates remain:
29583-406: Was replaced by the French. This was due to the annexation of the surrounding County of Nice to France following the Treaty of Turin (1860) . It formerly had official status in Montenegro (because of the Venetian Albania ), parts of Slovenia and Croatia (because of the Venetian Istria and Venetian Dalmatia ), parts of Greece (because of the Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands and by
29756-609: Was the administrative centre of Istria from ancient Roman times until superseded by Pazin in 1991. Evidence of the presence of Homo erectus one million years ago has been found in the cave of Šandalja near Pula. Pottery from the Neolithic period (6000–2000 BC), indicating human settlement , has been found around Pula. In the Bronze Age (1800–1000 BC), a new type of settlement appeared in Istria, called 'gradine', or hill-top fortifications. Many late Bronze Age bone objects, such as tools for smoothing and drilling, sewing needles, as well as spiral bronze pendants, have been found in
29929-420: Was the language of commerce, culture and administration. Nevertheless, significant numbers of South Slavic speakers (mostly Slovene and Čakavian Croatian ) continued to dwell in the rural areas of Venetian Istria, especially in the north of the province and on the border with Austrian Istria. On the other hand, interior and eastern Istria were included in the Central European cultural sphere and were dominated by
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