Croatian Folk Chants and the Material From O？tarije From a Linguistic Aspect

Sa？etak The paper analyses the language of the collection Hrvatske narodne pjesme i gra？a iz O？tarija, created between 1899 and 1901 by the O？tarije born Mijat Pribani？. The collection consists of three parts. The first one contains texts created by Pribani？, personally. The second group holds his writings of short folk proses, also mostly written in the Chakavian dialect of O？tarije. The third group is made of writings of different folk chants, congratulation songs, dinking songs etc., most of which written in the Shtokavian dialect with conspicuously different linguistic expressions than the ones found in the Chakavian idiom of O？tarije, while one part of the chants is a mixture of different dialects. This is the reason why this part has been given least attention, while the first one has served as a base for the dialectological analysis, at all linguistic levels. The text portrays the lost Chakavian features or those on the verge of becoming forgotten, still well preserved, nevertheless. Short folk stories of the second group have been analysed, too, and a particular interest has been given to the Chakavian dialectal characteristics that had not been indicated in the analysis of the first group. The linguistic analysis of these two groups has clearly demonstrated the extent to which the Chakavian dialect of O？tarije, as well as the mentioned dialect of that part of Croatia in general, had been better preserved in Pribani？’s time