The Slavonian Dialect: between Autochtony and Influence

The paper examines the Slavonian dialect on all linguistic levels. Special attention is given to the genesis of this štokavian dialect, and to the problems of its subdivision. The subgroups of the Slavonian dialect have been located since the mediaeval period on the extreme North-East of the Croatian language area, i.e. they are located on the North-West of the štokavian area within the Central South Slavic dialect continuum, which means that they have a peripheral position and peripheral traits, traits which the Slavonian dialect (and other West štokavian dialects) shares with the čakavian and kajkavian dialects. To a great degree the Slavonian dialect still preserves the combinations šć, jt, jd, somewhat less čr-, exceptionally l; the acute is practically always preserved, often also old case endings in the plural. It is probable that initial w with a semi-vowel quite early became u-, that vs produced sv , that vocalic l produced u or maybe a closed o and that Common Slavic ď became đ. However, it is quite possible that prior to this, examples of the type tuji included j, which in modern times is less frequent in Slavonia than in the Croatian štokavian speech in Bosnia. The Slavonian dialect group was certainly linked to the Bosnian one, as is shown, for example, by the shift of the short i + r into a short yat + r (e.g. četjeri). This change is old, from the period before substitution of the yat. The speech of Posavina also shows other traits common with Bosnian dialects. After the period of intense migrations, the Slavonian dialect group, to a certain degree, lost its connections with the kajkavian dialect, although the results of former ties are still visible in certain details. These ties were certainly relatively stronger among North-West speakers of the Slavonian dialect, since kajkavians were their neighbours and the influence of other štokavian dialects was less than in Posavina. The Slavonian development was natural: šwa produced a, as is mainly the case also in other štokavian dialects, and the back nasal produced u, as among other štokavians. This process was natural, because during the period of Turkish rule Slavonia significantly lost population, and even then started to attract populations from economically poorer areas, which was to occur even more in later periods. Often the immigrants came precisely from Herzegovina: ikavian Croats and ijekavian Serbs, who influenced the physiognomy of the local population’s speech