My university Croatian language studies didn't seem to be all that helpful when living in Tisno. Although there is a standard Croatian language, many different dialects can be found throughout the country, especially in Dalmatia. And Tisno itself has its own unique version of the Croatia language. This makes it all very confusing, especially for someone who is is not a native speaker.
However, I find it extremely fascinating that people's language and verbal expression is subject to many differences within one nation state, or even within a few kilometres. For example, the people of Tisno speak completely differently to the people of Murter and there are only eight kilometres between the two towns. I worked in Murter for about 2 months during my stay in Tisno, and during this time I did have a few difficulties understanding the Murterini (the people of Murter), especially the elder generation who still speak the old town dialect.
Officially, the Croatian language is divided into three dialects - čakavski, štokavski and kajkavski. For example, standard Croatian is based on the štokavski dialect, so the phrase 'what are you doing' is translated to 'što radiš', but in the kajkavski dialect, which is dominant in Zagreb, the phrase is translated to 'kaj delaš' - this completely confused me when a Zagrebčan once asked me 'kaj delaš' - and my response was a completely blank expression. Tišnjanski (the language of the people of Tisno) is based on the štokavski dialect. I say based, as it is a variation of this dialect. For example, rather than utilising the word 'što' for 'what', the Tišnjani say 'šta', substituting the -o ending with -a (again, this once confused an Australian/Croatian friend of mine whose parents were from the island of Korčula where they utilise the word 'što' and he had never heard the word 'šta' - this dialectic confusion resulted into an hilarious night in Tisno of 'što je 'šta?' - literally 'what is what?').
There are a number of words that are unique to Tisno, some of which the outsider has absolutely no knowledge or comprehension of. Here is a small list of a few words that vary from the standard štokavski dialect (other towns on the Dalmatian coast my use some of these words, but I'm sure a few are indigenous to the town). I've presented them with the English version, the Tišnjanski version and the standard Croatian version. From this you can see how completely different the dialect is to standard Croatian:
Beach / Banj / Plaža Socks / Bičva / Čarapa
Pen / Lapiš / Olovka Bell tower / Kampanel / Zvonik
Slap / Triska / Pljuska Hole / Buža / Rupa
Piece / Bokun / Komad To chat / Čakulati / Razgorvarati
Another aspect of Tišnjanski which makes it unique is the replacement of the 'ije' and 'je' sounds (the letter 'j' is pronouced as an English 'y') with a 'i' sounds (this is common throught Dalmatia and it's usually this part of pronunciation that identifies an individual as originating from Dalmatia - that and their tendancy to add Italian originated words into their speech - we call tomatoes 'pomidoro' and a kitchen 'kužina' which cannot be mistaken from the Italian 'pomodoro' and 'cucina'). So words such as mlijeko (milk), bijelo (white) and ljeto (summer), we pronounce as mliko, bilo and lito. Also, in words ending in -m, the 'm' is replaced with an 'n'. For example, 'ja idem' (I'm going) is changed to 'ja iđen', 'govorim' (I'm speaking) becomes 'govorin' and mislim (I'm thinking) becomes 'mislin'.
It is unfortunate that the younger generation, being more educated and exposed to the world outside of Tisno, are slowly losing many aspects of the town dialect, favouring standard Croatian and anglicised words - such as friendica (a female friend) instead of prijatelica. Interestingly, Tišnjani who migrated to ocountries such as Australia in the 50s, 60s and 70s, are the ones who have best preserved the intricacies of the Tišnjanski language, since they have had less exposure to the evolution of the language.
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