What is Venice and Dalmatia?
[[File:Zadar PortaTerraferma.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Venetian Gate of Zara (actual Zadar) in Dalmatia]] '''Venice and Dalmatia''' were an [[Italy|Italian]] city-state and an eastern [[adriatic sea|adriatic]] region very much related from the [[Middle Ages]] until the 19th century. ==Middle Ages== [[Venice]] influenced [[Dalmatia]] [[Commerce|commerciall]]<nowiki/>y from the times of [[Charlemagne]]. At the end of the [[1st millennium|first millennium]] the [[Republic of Venice]] started to conquest Dalmatia.<ref>{{cite book| last = Wolff| first = Larry| title = Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=B2LFRiT1nfYC&pg=PA128| year = 2002| publisher = Stanford University Press| isbn = 978-0-8047-3946-7| page = 128 }}</ref> After the fall of the [[Western Roman Empire]], [[Illyria|Illyrian]] towns on the Dalmatian coast continued to speak [[Latin]]. Their language [[Evolution|evolved]] relatively independent from other [[Romance languages]]. It became a distinct language called ''[[Dalmatian language]]''. The earliest reference on the language dates from the 10th century. According to the linguist Matteo Bartoli about 50,000 people spoke it at that time. It was spoken along the eastern Adriatic in the [[Dalmatia]]n coast from [[Rijeka|Fiume]] (Rijeka) as far south as [[Kotor]] (Cattaro) in [[Montenegro]].[[File:Republik Venedig.png|thumb|right|350px|Map of the Venetian Republic, circa 1000. The republic is in dark red, borders in light red.]]The Dalmatian speakers lived mainly in the coastal towns of [[Zadar]], [[Trogir]], [[Split, Croatia|Split,]] [[Dubrovnik]] and [[Kotor]] and on the islands of [[Krk]], [[Cres]] and [[Rab]]. Each of the cities had a local dialect. ''Vegliot'' was spoken on the island of Krk. ''Ragusan was'' spoken at Dubrovnik We know about the Dalmatian dialect of Ragusa from two letters, from 1325 and 1397. They show a language influenced heavily by [[Venetian language|Venetian]]. The available sources include hardly