The Istrian dialect has lost pitch accent on both long and short vowels, and the Šavrin Hills subdialect has lost differentiation between long and short vowels completely, whereas the Rižana subdialect is in the late stages of losing differentiation.[8] It has undergone the *ženȁ → *žèna, *məglȁ → *mə̀gla, *visȍk → vìsok, *ropotȁt → *ròpotat,[9] and (partially) *sěnȏ / *prosȏ → *sě̀no / *pròso (e.g., ˈsiːenȯ) shifts.[10]
Phonology
The dialect's phonology is in many aspects very close to the Inner Carniolan dialect, but in some features it barely shows similarities with other dialects from the Lower Carniolan dialect base. The greatest change happened to *ě̄ and non-final *ě̀, which in the Lower Carniolan dialect base diphthongized into eːi̯, but then monophthongized into ẹː in some dialects. In the Istrian dialect, however, it diphthongized again, this time into iːe. Stressed *ę and *e turned into i̯eː. Stressed *ǫ turned into uːo or uːə. Short *ò turned into uː in all positions and *ō turned into uːo. The vowels *ù and *ū turned into yː, and in the south also into uː, əː, or u̯ə. In the Šavrin Hills subdialect, diphthongs have monophthongized for a second time; *ě turned into ẹː, *e and *ę turned into eː.[8]
Newly accented *e turned into iːe in the north and into ä/ȧ in the south, and newly accented *ə remained ə in the north, but turned into ä/ȧ in the south. Newly accented *o turned into u̯ä in the south. Short accented *i and *u, or if before the accented syllable, turned into e. Final *o turned into ȯ, u, or u̯ə, final *ǫ turned into u̯o, and final *ę turned into i̯e.[8]
Velar *ł remained velar before central and back vowels. The second Slavic palatalization is still present for dorsal consonants in the north: k →t’/ć/č, g → j, x → ś/š. Syllabic *ł̥̄ turned into oːu̯ or uː. The consonant *g turned into ɣ in the north and palatal sounds remained, except that *t’ might have changed into ć or č. Final *m turned into n.[8]
The preposition pri is used with the genitive instead of the locative.[12] Apart from that, the morphology is poorly researched, but it is probably close to the Inner Carniolan dialect.
The Istrian dialect is split into two subdialects: the northern, more archaic Rižana subdialect and the southern Šavrin Hills subdialect, which is more influenced by Croatian. The main differences are monophthongization and the loss of length differentiation in the Šavrin Hills dialect.
References
^Smole, Vera. 1998. "Slovenska narečja." Enciklopedija Slovenije vol. 12, pp. 1–5. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, p. 2.
^Rigler, Jakob. 2001. Zbrani spisi: Jezikovnozgodovinske in dialektološke razprave. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, p. 232.
Logar, Tine (1996). Kenda-Jež, Karmen (ed.). Dialektološke in jezikovnozgodovinske razprave [Dialectological and etymological discussions] (in Slovenian). Ljubljana: Znanstvenoraziskovalni center SAZU, Inštitut za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša. ISBN961-6182-18-8.
Šekli, Matej (2018). Legan Ravnikar, Andreja (ed.). Topologija lingvogenez slovanskih jezikov (in Slovenian). Translated by Plotnikova, Anastasija. Ljubljana: Znanstvenoraziskovalni center SAZU. ISBN978-961-05-0137-4. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)