Tuone Udaina (1823 – 10 June 1898; Antonio Udina in Italian) was the
last known speaker of
Dalmatian, a
Romance language that evolved from
Latin along the eastern coast of the
Adriatic Sea.[1][2] He was the main source of knowledge about his parents' dialect, that of the island of
Krk, for the linguist
Matteo Bartoli, who recorded it in 1897.
Udaina bore the nickname Burbur, the etymology of which is uncertain. Bartoli tentatively associated it with burbero, an Italian word for a surly, gruff, or ill-tempered person.[3] Other interpretations include "barbarian"[4] and "barber".[5]
He worked as a marine postman and as a sexton.[6]
Vegliot
Dalmatian was not Udaina's
native language, as he had learned it from listening to his parents' private conversations.[citation needed] Udaina had not spoken the Dalmatian language for nearly 20 years before the time he acted as a
linguistic informant. No sound recordings were ever made.
When Udaina was killed at 74 in an explosion during road work on 10 June 1898, the Dalmatian language is generally assumed to have become
extinct as no other speakers of the language were found or known to have lived.[7][8]