The specific historical position of the Kingdom of Dalmatia resulted in a certain degree of political and cultural isolation; consequently, Dalmatian intellectuals often remained in the shadow of proponents of other linguistic conceptions elsewhere in Croatia. This was the motivation behind the present monograph, which aims to document the linguistic practices attested in the Kingdom of Dalmatia from the second half of the 19th century until its political dissolution in 1918. By analyzing the language used for official purposes, the study seeks to interpret its forms, formation, changes, and processes of self-definition. This specific language variety represents a continuation of the grammatical tradition of the Zagreb Philological School while gradually transitioning toward the normative model advocated by the Croatian “Vukovci” (followers of Vuk Karadžić’s linguistic principles). In general terms, this signifies a shift from the mid-19th-century norm—characterized by features such as the “-ah” genitive suffix, distinct dative, locative, and instrumental forms, and the non-application of assimilation rules in writing—to the coherent system prescribed by Vuk-aligned grammars at the close of the century. The monograph demonstrates that the language of the second half of the 19th century was deeply divided at the level of linguistic concepts. On the one hand, the speed of change in certain linguistic areas is striking. On the other, despite the influence of the Vukovci—evident from the very beginning of the period under study—traditional practices continued to persist to a considerable extent. Therefore, one cannot speak of a single, coherent system, particularly when examining the influence from the Illyrian movement and the Vukovci alongside older linguistic concepts and grammatical solutions. Nevertheless, the fifty-year period reveals a gradual shift from the older linguistic system to the new one, so that by the beginning of the 20th century, we find a language that is grammatically and orthographically very similar to contemporary standard language. From 1867—marked by the firmly established conception of the Zagreb Philological School—through to 1918, the language evolved into a precise reflection of the Vukovci linguistic conception. Linguistic analysis has shown that numerous attempts to standardize the literary language in Dalmatia resulted in a situation where no unified system of norms existed. In principle, the language represented in the corpus sometimes appears to distance itself from rules established over time, expected word-formation patterns, and standardization efforts. This was a consequence of the marginalization of linguistic debates in Dalmatia, as well as a certain sense of disorientation resulting from prevailing circumstances, the system’s lack of cohesion and homogeneity, and the delayed unification of orthography. Ultimately, we see how the Croatian language in Dalmatia synthesized the best aspects of these linguistic changes. Over the fifty years of administrative texts examined, the language evolved from an inconsistent and heterogeneous idiom into a stable, standardized, and grammatically and lexically regulated multifunctional idiom that could rightfully be termed the Croatian standard language. The language of official administrative publications in the Kingdom of Dalmatia was the result of deliberate efforts to codify and establish Croatian as an official language—efforts driven from northern Croatia, a region physically, formally, and legally distinct from the south, yet linguistically deeply connected to it.
