A dialect or a vernacular?

Abstract

Two decades of investigation of non-standard language varieties, vernaculars and dialects in everyday social contexts, seen as central task in social or urban dialectology, have not been properly reflected in Yugoslav linguistics. The reasons for such neglect can be roughly summarized in the following points: 1. There is a prejudice belonging to folk linguistics that the urban idiom is a corrupted type of speech; 2. Serbo-Croatian dialectologists have been primarily concerned with rural dialects; 3. Social background of the informants in dialectological studies has never been taken into consideration; 4, The Slavists who do most of the dialectological work are not very well acquainted with the most recent advances in sociolingulstic theory. This paper attempts to give some new descriptive data of the urban idiom in the city of Split. The discussion centers on the different degrees of the loss of dialect under the pressure of the standard language and its replacement by urban vernacular. The analysis of the 20-year-old inhabitants of Split certainly confirms the fact that Split urban idiom cannot be called 'pure’ čakavian dialect. This is evident from many non-čakavian characteristics as presented in the analysis. The author is of the opinion that this type of speech cannot be referred to as a dialect and gives arguments to call it urban vernacular. The dismissal of the label dialect in urban settings is supported by the same view expressed by M. Ivić (1965) and D. Kalogjera (1985). Contrary to some opinions, the author suggests that the conversational urban vernacular is not as chaotic or of such unsystematic nature as it might seem, but that it is a rather stable phenomenon with its own prestige.