Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana, december 1979, št. 9—10 103 
  
Summary 
THE CROAT LINGUISTIC MINORITY IN THE ITALIAN PROVINCE MOLISE 
When speaking of the linguistic minority in the Italian province Molise we have in 
mind the specific enclave of the Croat population of 35C0—40C0 persons, living in three 
hamlets at the east foot of the Apenini mountain chain: Acquaviva Collecroce (in Croatian 
Kruč), San Felice del Molise (Filié) and Montemitro (Mundimitar), Naturally jt has to be 
underlined explicitely that this Croat population does not present a completely “developed” 
national minority. As the adherents of this community are wholly aware of this fact, they 
define themselves as linguistic minority. 
Their country of origin is the district of Imot and Makarska. They emigrated at the 
beginning of the 16th century; the emigration thus coincides with culmination of Turkish 
advancing on the Balkan peninsula. The fact the emigration took place during the men- 
tioned period can be made out of at least two proofs: there is a certain inscription on 
the church in Palata, a town at the Italian seaside, along the line Termoli-Campobaso-Be- 
nevento, which reads as follows: “Hoc primum Dalmatiae gentis incoluere castrum ac 
fundamentis erexere templum anno 1531" (The Dalmatians are the first who settled this 
place and built the church on the foundations in the year 1531); their language is an even 
better proof which confirms the statement that Croats settled there at the beginning of 
the 16th century. There are, namely, no Turkish words in their language, which is the most 
evident proof of the fact that this population had very few or even no contacts with the 
Turks. 
Generally, however, it is their specific speech which is the most firm indicator of exi- 
Stance of the Croat enclave in Italy. “Our language" (as they usually call their speech) 
is in fact a conglomeration of "inherited" ikavski dialect) with the elements of štokavski; 
the pronunciation of sound i instead of e and the joints št, žd for šč and žž; with the 
active verbal adjectives without the final o; the omission of final i with the infinitive) and 
the Italian language (in fact the Molisian dialect), which, in course of 500 years must have 
influenced — to a certain extent — the formation of the modern colloquial language of 
tne Croats. 
Each ethnic community which begins to be aware of its specific characteristics, also 
wants to keep them, not in the form of "folklore", but by means of such legal protection, 
which would permit its overall development. That's what the Molisidn Croats tried 
to do. Although the struggle for protection has been going on for some years, the last 
three years signify a sort of its climax. During this period namely, the comune-council and 
the executive council of the comune of Zivavoda-Krué have passed a decree, in which 
they demanded from the governement in Rome resp. from the competent Ministry the esta- 
biishment of the autonomous state secondary school, which the pupils of all three Croat 
communes would attend, and in which also the “Slavonic language” (lingua slava) would 
be taught. 
Unfortunately this initiative remained just a dead letter on the paper, as along with the 
fact that they grind extraordinarily slowly, the wheels of Italian administration, appropriate 
the exclusive competence to decide upon all the questions, which “disturb” the ethnic 
purity of the Italian nation.