On the Dialect of the Moravian Croats1

Abstract

The article deals with the northernmost variety of what is traditionally called Burgenland Croatian (with ‘Burgenland’ used in a very broad sense). Because of its marginal geographic position, the dialect is potentially of great importance to anyone interested in Burgenland Croatian. However, the information on the dialect to be found in the linguistic literature is scarce. This is partly due to the fact that after the Second World War the speakers, who originally lived in three villages in southern Moravia, were forced to leave their homes and were spread over a large number of villages, mostly in northern Moravia. After the political changes in Czechoslovakia and its successor states it became possible to trace the Moravian Croats and to investigate their dialect, but until now only one article has appeared (Lončarić 1998). The present author, in contradistinction to Lončarić, is of the opinion that the dialect has a three-way accentual opposition in stressed syllables: vowels can be long or short, long vowels can be rising or falling. There is a length opposition in the first posttonic syllable. A number of characteristics distinguish the dialect from the neighbouring Čakavian dialects, the most important being (a) consistent lengthening of originally stressed short a; (b) no stress retraction from internal syllables to a preceding long syllable. Both these characteristics are relevant for the historical dialectology of Burgenland Croatian. 1 I am very grateful to Andrej Novik (Prague) for travelling with me to the Moravian Croats in Šternberk, Frielištof and Vienna and introducing me to them. I also wish to thank all the Moravian Croats I spoke with for their hospitality, time, patience and support, especially Josef Hubený (Šternberk) and Josef Lawitschka (Vienna). My fieldwork was financially made possible by the Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG).