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.
Vlachs in the history of Croatia
Socioculturally, there were two main ethnic divisions in the Croatian Military Frontier, those of the "native" "Croats" and "immigrant" "Vlachs". The Croats were Catholics, Habsburg subjects, made up of an agrarian population concentrated around frontier towns, of nuclear families, and linguistically predominantly Chakavian-speaking (or Chakavian-based speech). The Vlachs were holders of patriarchal-pastoral culture of the Dinaric, refugees from Ottoman and Venetian territories, of extended families, and linguistically Neo-Shtokavian-speaking.