Project Approved for the Preservation of Istrian Istro-Venetian Children’s Rhymes

The Centre for Research into the Linguistic and Cultural Heritage of Istria, affiliated with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, has been awarded funding for the project “Voci dell’infanzia istriana: documentazione, analisi e valorizzazione delle filastrocche in istroveneto – Phase I”, supported by the Istrian Region within its 2026 funding programme for cultural projects. The project focuses on the field collection, documentation and scholarly analysis of children’s rhymes in Istro-Venetian, an important component of the intangible linguistic and cultural heritage of Istria and the Rijeka area. Particular attention will be given to local variants and their oral transmission, thereby contributing to the preservation of a tradition increasingly threatened by contemporary linguistic and social change. The first phase comprises field research, audiovisual documentation of the collected materials, as well as their transcription and archiving. The overall project is planned to continue until December 2028 and will additionally include scholarly analysis of the corpus, the publication of a monograph, the development of an interactive digital map, and activities aimed at facilitating access to and promoting the documented heritage. The project is being carried out by Centre members Ana Debeljuh Giudici, PhD, Sarah Zancovich, lecturer and Sandro Manzin, prof.