Editing Istro-Romanian language (section)

==Recent history==
The Istro-Romanians have faced many significant challenges in preserving their language, culture and ethnic identity, including emigration from communism and migration to nearby cities and towns after [[World War II]], when a peace treaty of February 10, 1947, transferred Istria from Italy (which had held it since World War I) and awarded it to [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]], the parent country of present-day Croatia and Slovenia, which divided Istria between themselves, while Italy still retained a small portion near Trieste.

Before the 20th century, Istro-Romanian was spoken in a substantially broader part of northeastern Istria surrounding the [[Ćićarija]] mountain range (ancient ''Mons Carusadius''). The Istro-Romanians now comprise two groups: the ''Ćići'' around [[Žejane]] (denoting the people on the north side of Mt. Učka) and the ''Vlahi'' around [[Šušnjevica]] (denoting the people on the south side of Mt. Učka (Monte Maggiore). However, apart from borrowings from other languages which vary from village to village, their language is linguistically identical.

Several hundred native speakers live in the United States—not only in Queens, New York (as has been mistakenly believed by some),<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/nyregion/29lost.html |title=The Lost Languages, Found in New York |last=Roberts |first=Sam |date=29 April 2010 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=2018-11-24}}</ref> but throughout the five boroughs of New York City, as well as in upstate New York and the neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut. Native speakers also still live in California. Further groups of native speakers reside in Italy, Canada, Sweden and Australia.{{citation needed|date=August 2019}}

The number of Istro-Romanian speakers has been reduced by their assimilation into other linguistic groups that were either already present or introduced by their respective new rulers of Istria: in the 1921 [[Italy|Italian]] census, there were 1,644 declared Istro-Romanian speakers in the area, while in 1926, [[Romania]]n scholar [[Sextil Pușcariu]] estimated their number to be closer to 3,000. Studies conducted in Istria in 1998 (?) by the Croatian linguist [[August Kovačec]] revealed only 170 active speakers (but those counted presumably are only those still in villages where the language is actively spoken, thereby excluding those who moved to larger towns in Istria), most of them being bilingual (or trilingual), except for 27 children.{{citation needed|date=August 2019}}

On the other hand, the major northern village Žejane and nearby hamlets at the Slovenian border are less Italianized and more Slavicized. Many villages in the area have names that are of Romanian origin, such as ''Jeian'', ''Buzet'' ("lips"), ''Katun'' ("hamlet"), ''Letaj'', ''[[Jesenovik|Sucodru]]'' ("under a forest"), ''Costirceanu'' (a [[Romanian language|Romanian]] name). Some of these names are official (recognized by Croatia as their only names), while others are used only by Istro-Romanian speakers (ex. Nova Vas|Noselo).{{citation needed|date=August 2019}}