Tuone Udaina

Tuone Udaina or Antonio Udina in Italian (1821 – June 10, 1898) was the last native speaker of Dalmatic or Dalmatian, a Romance language of what is currently It's Croatia.

Life

Born in northern Dalmatia, Tuone Udaina had a relatively poor life. He attended primary school on his island Veglia. His father Francesco was a farmer

Yu yay foyt a skol day tšink yayn e dapu yu vay stat a skol tra yayn; yu yay studyút fenta i vapto yayn.

I went to school since I was five and then I was in school three years; I studied until I was eight years old.

M. Bartoli, Das Dalmatische Vienna, 1906

He was the main source of knowledge for the native dialect (that of the island of Veglia, modern-day Krk), although he was not an ideal informant. Vegliota Dalmatian was not her native language (Tuone spoke Venetian), and he had learned it from listening to her parents' private conversations. He also had not spoken the language for 20 years at the time he acted as an informant. He worked as a barber (hence his Dalmatic nickname burbur). A land mine killed it on June 10, 1898, making the language permanently extinct.