[5] 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 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).
[citation needed] Some loanwords suggest that before coming to Istria, Istro-Romanians lived for a period of time on the Dalmatian coast near the Dinara and Velebit mountains.
[7] August Kovačec (1998)[citation needed] hypothesizes that the Istro-Romanians migrated to their present region about 600 years ago from the territory of present-day Romania, after the bubonic plague depopulated Istria.
This hypothesis is based on chronicles of the Frankopan princes that state that in the 15th century they accepted the migrating Vlachs from the nearby mainland and from the northern part of Krk (Veglia) island, and settled them in isolated villages in Poljica and Dubašnica, between the castles of Dobrinj and Omišalj, and in the port of Malinska.
[13] Even so, Istro-Romanian has managed to preserve a few words from Latin that are not found in other Eastern Romance languages: gåbu "yellow" (