In addition, they count several similarities with the Transylvanian Romanians and Timok Vlachs, suggesting that the Istro-Romanians originate from the current areas west of Romania or Serbia.

Even now, with several associations and projects that aim to preserve their culture and with the support of both Croatian and Romanian governments, the Istro-Romanians are not officially recognized as a national minority.

The Istro-Romanians prefer to use names derived from their native villages, which are Jesenovik, Kostrčani, Letaj, Nova Vas, Šušnjevica, Zankovci, the Brdo area and the isolated Žejane.

[3] This denomination was used for the first time by the Romanian writer and historian Gheorghe Asachi (as istroromâni),[4] and then by the Slovene philologist Franz Miklosich, (as istrischen Rumunen and istro-rumunisch),[5] from which the name of the Istro-Romanian language and its speakers would be generalized.

It has been suggested that it could come from the Italian word cicaleccio, derived from the verb cicalare, meaning "insistent and confused (indistinct) talking", since Slavs could not understand the Istro-Romanians.

[11][13] In Istro-Romanian, as a result of secondary palatalization, t becomes ț ("c") in Šušnjevica and č in Nova Vas and Žejane, hence the term cincari or tsinstari could come from Vulgar Latin tsintsi (compare to Megleno-Romanian ținți), meaning "five" and deriving as tsintsi-ținți-cinci-činči-(n)-čiči-ćići.

[7] The first mention of a Romance-speaking population in Istria during the Middle Ages dates back to 940 when the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII reported in his De Administrando Imperio that there were Romance peoples in the peninsula which called themselves Romans although they did not come from Rome.

However, this point of view is now refuted due to the similarities of the Istro-Romanians with the Romanians from the west of Romania and the Timok Valley[3] and the differences with the geographically close Dalmatian language (now extinct).

[19] There is also an intermediate theory belonging to Elena Scărlătoiu suggesting that the "great mass of Istro-Romanians" came from several nuclei in the center, west and northwest of Transylvania, as well as from the south of the Danube, namely, the area between the Timok Valley and Prizren.

In the Ragusan trade, caseus vlachescus or vlachiscus (brença, cheese, as it appears in a document from 1357) was of such importance that it was also used as a payment method, and its price was set by the authorities.

[21] In the 15th century, there were epidemics of devastating plague in Istria,[16] and the Senate of the Republic of Venice, ruler of the peninsula, favored the settlement of Morlachs,[18] as well South Slavs who escaped from the Ottoman Empire.

Therefore, during the second half of the 15th century, he started to settle the less populated or uninhabited parts, such as the western zone of the island, that is, in and around the areas of Dubašnica and Poljica and in the land between the castles of Dobrinj and Omišalj.

[26] In a 1641 work about Istria, the scholar and bishop of Cittanova (now Novigrad) Giacomo Filippo Tomasini mentions the name morlaci, claiming that "they have their own language, which is in many words similar to Latin".

The only thing left of the smallest settlements in the Croatian and Slovenian region of Ćićarija and the rest of Istria is the toponomy of the places, which proves that at some point, the Istro-Romanians were more widespread.

[24] Unlike the other Romance peoples such as the Romanians or the Aromanians, the Istro-Romanians did not suffer a national renaissance, probably due to the small size of their population and the influence of assimilation factors.

[16] Towards the end of the 19th century, Istria was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, of the Austrian Littoral crown land, and was inhabited by several ethnic groups, mainly Croats and Italians.

[37] The Romanian ethnographer and folklorist Teodor Burada found in 1896 that poverty was high among Istro-Romanians during this time: pastoralism had fallen, zootechnics were neglected and agriculture was poorly productive.

[29] At the beginning of the 20th century, the Istro-Romanian from Šušnjevica Andrei Glavina returned to Istria from Romania (where he studied at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași) to awaken the identity of his people.

This person is known for writing the first work entirely in Istro-Romanian[38] in collaboration with Diculescu,[7] Calindaru lu rumeri din Istrie (Calendar of the Romanians of Istria), published in 1905.

[2] Some Istro-Romanians also began to leave Istria completely and emigrate to other countries such as Australia, the United States, Canada, France[16] and Italy (especially Trieste), a sizeable amount estimated to be composed by 500 people since 1945.

In 1997, the Congress of the Federal Union of European Nationalities adopted a resolution appealing Croatia to officially recognize the Istro-Romanians and the use of their language in education, media and religion.

[42] In 2008, the Moldovan politician Vlad Cubreacov initiated a draft resolution presented in Strasbourg called "Istro-Romanians must be saved", in which he urges Croatia and Romania to give more financial and institutional support.

[2] Nowadays, the biggest goal of the Istro-Romanians is the full recognition by Croatia as an ethnic minority and a wider use of their language in education, newspapers, TV broadcasting and radio, all of this with the support of the Croatian Government.

In one of these dances, called Columbaro, the peasants of the villages spend hours holding each other's hands in a closed circle, giving steps without order and with jumps without cadence.

Another author who investigated in depth the Istro-Romanian songs was the Romanian writer Petru Iroaie, identifying their similarities with those of Maramureș and Bukovina and the main motifs of them.

Among them are Knd am tire ("When [I asked] you"), Mes-am oča ši kola ("I went around"), Oj ljepure nu žuka ("Do not dance, rabbit") and Fina feta ("A nice girl").

[16] The famous folk group Žejanski Zvončari (Žejane's Bell Ringers), founded by Mauro Doričić[3] in 1997, advocates the preservation of the old carnivalesque Istro-Romanian traditions.

There is a misă (table), scanie (chairs) and a scriniu (closet), and on the boards over the ceiling, several portions of food such as cheese, bacon and pork legs, where "they smoke very well, as if they were in the vault of the chimney".

[51] The first Istro-Romanian newspaper, Scrisoare către fråț rumer, has been publishing cult literature, such as the poems of the brothers from Nova Vas Gabriela and Gabriel Vretenar of 1997.

Some of the best known proverbs are nu ie cårne far de ose ("there is no meat without bones"), lu Domnu și lu Drîcu nu se pote sluji o votę ("you cannot serve God and the Devil at the same time"), mora bure måcire și bovån ("the good mill can [even] grind rocks"), din cala lu omu bet și Domnu se dåie la o bande ("even God avoids the drunk") and cåsta lume făcuta ie cu scåle: uri mergu ăn sus, ål'ți ăn jos ("the world is made of stairs: some go up, others down").