Post-Communist Linguistic Problems in the North Adriatic Area*
In: Nationalities papers: the journal of nationalism and ethnicity, Band 27, Heft 1, S. 93-101
ISSN: 1465-3923
The population of the North Adriatic area has always been linguistically mixed. Slovene, Croatian and Italian populations have lived here for 14 centuries; German people moved here in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the city of Trieste became the official harbor of the Empire, and, as a consequence, the town grew, attracting others immigrants: Greeks, Jews, Serbs, and so on. Linguistically three main groups lived in Trieste: German, Italian and Slovene speakers. The Slovenes in Trieste owned many important activities, such as banks and trading companies. They were organized in the fields of education and culture with their own theater, private schools, library, daily newspaper and magazines. The Slovenes in Trieste also had their own political movement electing some representatives to the Parliament in Vienna. On the whole, they were considered a very well organized linguistic group. The Italians in Trieste were similarly well organized, and many supported a strong irredentist movement, economical and political organizations, as well as the theater. The German speakers were mostly immigrants who had moved to Trieste for business reasons or as civil servants.
