Demographics of Croatia
Croatian replaced Latin as the official language of the Croatian government in 1847. The Croatian lect is generally viewed as one of the three standard varieties of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language. Croatian is written using the Latin alphabet and there are three major dialects spoken on the territory of Croatia, with the Shtokavian idiom used as the literary standard. The Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects are distinguished by their lexicon, phonology, and syntax.
Slovene Istria
According to the 2002 census, Slovene is spoken as the first language by 70.2% of the inhabitants of Slovenian Istria, Italian by 3.3%, and various forms of Serbo-Croatian, dominated by Croatian, by 16% of the population. The highest percentage of Italian speakers is in the municipality of Piran (7%), while the highest percentage of Croatian speakers is in Izola (31%). General population polls have shown that the majority of the population in Slovenian Istria conversational in several languages: Slovene, Italian, Croatian and English.