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
According to Stjepan Pavičić (1931), the Romance Vlachs or Morlachs of the Dinara and Velebit lost their Romance language by the 14th or 15th century, or were at least bilingual at that time. The so-called Istro-Romanians, called by themselves "Rumeri" or "Vlasi", continued to speak their language on the island of Krk (extinct in the 20th century; recorded Pater Noster) and villages around the Čepić lake in Istria, while other communities in the mountains (Ćićarija) above the lake preserved the Shtokavian-Chakavian dialect with Ikavian accent from the southern Velebit and area of Zadar. The documents about Vlachs from Cetina county indicate Chakavian dialect with Ikavian accent.