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.
Italian language in Croatia
For various reasons—mainly related to nationalism and armed conflict—the numbers of Italian speakers in Croatia declined during the 20th century, especially after the Second World War in a period known as the Istrian exodus, when about 90% Italian-speaking Istrians and Dalmatians left Yugoslav dominated areas in the eastern Adriatic. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians in the country.