‘Un bel moretto’: Linguistic Interweavings in Songs from the Primorska Region

Abstract

“Lan sem biu u Gorici” (Last Year I was in Gorizia) is the most frequently transcribed bilingual song in which Slovenian and Italian dialect texts are interwoven. Unlike variants from Goriška Brda and Venetian Slovenia, where the song has largely been forgotten, the variants in Istria are experiencing a revival and are referred to as typical Istrian songs. The article traces the meandering transitions between different linguistic variants and local appropriations of this song.