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Tuone Udaina
Last known speaker of Dalmatian (1823–1898) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Tuone Udaina (1823 – 10 June 1898; Antonio Udina in Italian) was the last known speaker of Dalmatian, a Romance language that evolved from Latin along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea.[1][2] He was the main source of knowledge about his parents' dialect, that of the island of Veglia, for the linguist Matteo Bartoli, who recorded it in 1897.
Udaina bore the nickname Burbur, the etymology of which is uncertain. Bartoli tentatively associated it with burbero, an Italian word for a surly, gruff, or ill-tempered person.[3] Other interpretations include "barbarian"[4] and "barber".[5] He worked as a marine postman and as a sexton.[6]
Vegliot Dalmatian was not Udaina's native language, as he had learned it from listening to his parents' private conversations.[citation needed] Udaina had not spoken the Dalmatian language for nearly 20 years before the time he acted as a linguistic informant. No sound recordings were ever made.
When Udaina was killed when he was 74 in an explosion during road work on June 10, 1898, the Dalmatian language is generally assumed to have become extinct as no other speakers of the language were found or known to have lived.[7][8]
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