Orthographic practices and social meanings: writing Istro-Romanian, an endangered language in Croatia

Abstract This paper documents and analyzes the different orthographic systems created throughout time to put into writing Istro-Romanian, Vlashki or Zheyanski, a small severely endangered Romance language spoken in Croatia. While the language has not been used in education or virtually at all in written contexts in everyday life in the community, orthographic representations of the language have existed since the second half of the 19th century and were devised mostly by the scholars of the language. These orthographic representations are discussed and compared with those created spontaneously by community members in the late 20th century. The analysis first considers the linguistic bases for the different writing systems and weighs their advantages and disadvantages. Then, it evaluates the indexical potential of different orthographic choices and practices and social meanings created by them. The paper also discusses the ideological, symbolic and even political motivations that may have been at play when different orthographic choices were made and points to the complex decisions that creating a standardized orthography for this endangered language would require.