The Šavrin Hills subdialect (''šavrinski govor'', ''šavrinščina'', ''šavrinsko podnarečje'') is a Slovene subdialect of the

Istrian dialect This article uses Logar transcription. The Istrian dialect ( , ) is a Slovene dialect spoken in Slovene Istria, as well as some settlements in Italy and Croatia. The dialect borders the Inner Carniolan dialect to the north and northeast, the So ...

in the

Littoral dialect group The Littoral dialect group (''primorska narečna skupina'') is a group of very heterogeneous dialects of Slovene. The Littoral dialects are spoken in most of the Slovenian Littoral (except for the mountainous areas around Tolmin and Cerkno, wher ...

. It is spoken in the Šavrin Hills ( sl, Šavrinsko gričevje) south of a line from

Koper Koper (; it, Capodistria, hr, Kopar) is the fifth largest city in Slovenia. Located in the Istrian region in the southwestern part of the country, approximately five kilometres () south of the border with Italy and 20 kilometres () from Triest ...

to south of Zazid. It includes the settlements of Koper,

Izola Izola (; it, Isola ) is a town in southwestern Slovenia on the Adriatic coast of the Istrian peninsula. It is the seat of the Municipality of Izola. Its name originates from Italian ''Isola'', which means 'island'. History An ancient Roman po ...

Portorož Portorož (; it, Portorose) is a Slovenian Adriatic seaside resort and spa town located in the Municipality of Piran in southwestern Slovenia. Its modern development began in the late 19th century with the vogue for the first health resorts. In ...

Sečovlje Sečovlje (; it, Sicciole) is a settlement in the Municipality of Piran in the Littoral region of Slovenia. Name The modern Slovene name ''Sečovlje'' is an artificial creation dating from after 1945. It was coined from the Italian name of the ...

, Šmarje,

Sočerga Sočerga () is a village in the City Municipality of Koper in the Littoral region of Slovenia. Name Sočerga was mentioned in written sources in 1101 as ''Sanctus Syrus'' (and as ''Sanctus Sirgus'' in 1260–67, ''Sanctus Syricus'' in the 14th cen ...

, and

Rakitovec Rakitovec is a village in Croatia. References Populated places in Zagreb County Velika Gorica {{ZagrebCounty-geo-stub ...

Phonological and morphological characteristics

Like the Rižana subdialect, the Šavrin Hills subdialect is based on characteristics of the Lower Carniolan and

Littoral The littoral zone or nearshore is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal areas ...

dialect groups. The Šavrin Hills subdialect is additionally based on a mixture of Slovene,

Croatian Croatian may refer to: * Croatia *Croatian language *Croatian people *Croatians (demonym) See also * * * Croatan (disambiguation) * Croatia (disambiguation) * Croatoan (disambiguation) * Hrvatski (disambiguation) * Hrvatsko (disambiguation) * S ...

, and Serbian dialect elements connected with the settlement of the

Uskoks The Uskoks ( hr, Uskoci, , singular: ; notes on naming) were irregular soldiers in Habsburg Croatia that inhabited areas on the eastern Adriatic coast and surrounding territories during the Ottoman wars in Europe. Bands of Uskoks fought a g ...

in Istria in the 16th and 17th centuries.Filipi, Goran. 1999. "Diahrono in sinhrono prepletanje govorov v slovenski Istri na primerih ornitonimijskega gradiva." In: Zinka Zorko & Mihaela Koletnik (eds.). 1999. ''Logarjev zbornik: referati s 1. mednarodnega dialektološkega simpozija v Mariboru'', pp. 287–297. Maribor: Slavistično društvo, p. 291. Accented vowels do not have a length contrast. The vowel system differs from the Rižana subdialect in that the long accented vowels are monophthongal. Verbal

conjugation Conjugation or conjugate may refer to: Linguistics *Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form * Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language Mathematics *Complex conjugation, the change ...

lacks the dual. The Šavrin Hills subdialect shares many lexical features with the Rižana subdialect, with many

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...

s from

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language f ...

References

Slovene dialects {{Slavic-lang-stub