Languages
The official language until 1472 was Latin. Later, the Senate of the Republic decided that the official language of the Republic would be the Ragusan dialect of the Romance Dalmatian language (as opposed to Croatian), and forbade the use of the Slavic language in senatorial debate. The gospari (the aristocracy) held on to their language for many a century, while it slowly disappeared.
Although the Latin language was in official use, inhabitants of the republic were mostly native speakers of the Croatian language (as confirmed by P. A. Tolstoj in 1698, when he noted In Dalmatia... Dubrovnikans... called themselves as Croats). Dalmatian was also spoken in the city. Italian, as spoken in the republic, was heavily influenced by Venetian language and Tuscan dialect. Italian took root among the Dalmatian Romance-speaking merchant upper classes, as a result of Venetian influence.
When Ragusa was part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, between 1808 and 1810, the Italian language was in official use.
Read more about this topic: Republic Of Ragusa
Famous quotes containing the word languages:
“I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Wealth is so much the greatest good that Fortune has to bestow that in the Latin and English languages it has usurped her name.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)
“No doubt, to a man of sense, travel offers advantages. As many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so many times is he a man. A foreign country is a point of comparison, wherefrom to judge his own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)