Author(s)

J. Božanić

Abstract

Dalmatia, as a coastal and island region of Croatia, has a very old maritime tradition. The maritime culture in Dalmatia maintains its continuity from the times of Greek colonization in the 4th century BC. Croats, being the only Slavic people in the Mediterranean, inherited together with the maritime culture also lingua franca, the common language of all seafarers throughout the entire Mediterranean including Portugal from the 13th to the 19th century. This spoken language of an extremely simplified grammar was created for the purposes of communication across the boundaries of ethos. Its roots can be found in Latin; however, its lexicon demonstrates obvious influence of Greek and Arabic idioms. Dalmatia inherited its maritime terminology from the language of the Dalmats - the old Dalmatian Romance language, but also from the Venetian idiom spoken in Dalmatia for four centuries. For the purposes of this analysis, the author selected 40 terms from the Dalmatian fishing and nautical terminology and compared them to the terminology of other Mediterranean languages. The author came to an astounding discovery regarding the interrelatedness of the maritime terminology throughout the entire Mediterranean, thus concluding that Dalmatia appertained to the Mediterranean cultural and linguistic universe. Keywords: lingua franca, fishing and nautical terminology, lexical, Dalmatia, Mediterranean, etymology, maritime heritage, Adriatic Sea, Croatian language. 1 Introduction 1.1 The Adriatic maritime culture Romans gave the east Adriatic region of Illyricum the name Dalmatia, a term which is probably linked to the Illyrian word delme, meaning sheep.

Keywords

lingua franca, fishing and nautical terminology, lexical, Dalmatia, Mediterranean, etymology, maritime heritage, Adriatic Sea, Croatian language.