Dialects of Serbo-Croatian
Kajkavian is spoken in North Croatia, including the capital Zagreb, as well as in a few enclaves in Austria, Hungary, and Romania. Though its speakers are ethnic Croats and Kajkavian is thus generally considered a dialect of Serbo-Croatian, it is closer to neighboring Slovene than it is to Chakavian or Shtokavian. The Kajkavian area of Croatia is bordered on the northwest by Slovene language territory. It is bordered on the east and southeast by Shtokavian dialects roughly along a line that was the former division between Civil Croatia and the Habsburg Military Frontier; in southwest along Kupa and Dobra rivers, it persisted in ancient (medieval) contact with Chakavian dialects.
Vlachs in the history of Croatia
The Vlachs were predominantly Orthodox Christian by religion, and also, the traditional social grouping of Vlachs was the Orthodox group itself. The Orthodox Vlachs spoke the Eastern Herzegovinian dialect while the Catholic Vlachs (the Bunjevci), spoke the Western Herzegovinian dialect. The Vlachs were also called on some occasions as "Rasciani sive Serviani" and "Valachicae seu Rascianae gentis", which was an exonym for the Serbs or Orthodox Christians. In the 1500–1800 period in Europe, the religious difference was one of the main cultural differences in ethnic groups. The state triangle at Lika in what is today Croatia was an area in which Roman Catholicism, Serbian Orthodoxy, and Islam met. Ethno-confessionally, the Orthodox Vlachs were part of the Serb identity since the mid 16th-century.