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
The term Vlachs () was initially used in medieval Croatian and Venetian history for a Romance-speaking pastoralist community, called "Vlachs" and "Morlachs", inhabiting the mountains and lands of the Croatian Kingdom and the Republic of Venice (Venetian Dalmatia) from the early 14th century. By the end of the 15th century they were highly assimilated with the Slavs and lost their language or were at least bilingual, while some communities managed to preserve and continue to speak their language (Istro-Romanians).