Istriot-Dalmatian

A minor puzzle in Romance is where to place Istriot-Vegliot-Morlach-Dalmatian. Istriot, of course, is the only living member of the group and it's just barely breathing, from what Wikipedia tells me.
Back in the day most tended to see these as a unit of "Eastern Romance", along with Romanian.
Now there is more diversity of opinion with most seeing if as a unit of Western Romance, along with Italo-Franco-Ibero-Romance.
Some now see it as an early divergent break-off of Italian, others as part of Rhaeto-Romansch-Ladin-Friuli, others as Gallo-Italian (most closely related to Venetian).

What are your opinions and what're your bases?
Am I correct in lumping together Istriot and Damatian
Also note the strange dichotomy of palatalization of /k/ and /g/ before /i/ but not before /e/
And --Is trace of Illyrian or other substrate in Itriot-Dalmatian?

Here's what Wikipedia says
Istriot is a Romance language spoken in the Western Region on the coast of the Istrian Peninsula, especially in the towns of Rovinj (Italian: Rovigno) and Vodnjan (Italian: Dignano), on the upper northern part of the Adriatic Sea, in Croatia.
Its classification remains unclear, due to the specificities of the language, which has always had a very limited number of speakers. Istriot can be viewed:
* as an independent Northern Italian dialect, not belonging either to the Venetian language nor to the Gallo-Italicgroup (opinion shared by linguists Tullio De Mauro and Maurizio Dardano);
* as a transition variety between the Northern Italian Venetian language and the now extinct Dalmatian language;[by whom?]
* as an independent language of the Italo-Dalmatian group;
* as an independent Romance language.[by whom?]
Its speakers never called it "Istriot". Traditionally, it had six names after the six towns where it was spoken. InVodnjan it was named "Bumbaro", in Bale "Vallese", in Rovinj "Rovignese", in Šišan "Sissanese", in Fažana"Fasanese" and in Galižana "Gallesanese". The term Istriot was coined by the 19th century Italian linguistGraziadio Isaia Ascoli.
There are currently only about 1,000 speakers left, probably making it an endangered language.

Here's an example
La nostra zì oûna longa cal da griebani:
i spironi da Monto inda uò salvà, e 'l brasso da Vistro uò rastà scuio pei grutoni pioûn alti del mar, ca ruzaghia sta tiera viecia-stara. Da senpro i signemo pissi sensa nom, ca da sui sa prucoûra 'l bucon par guodi la veîta leîbara del cucal, pastadi dala piova da Punente a da Livante e cume i uleîi mai incalmadi. Fra ste carme zì stà la nostra salvissa, cume i riboni a sa salva dal dulfeîn fra i scagni del sico da San Damian; el nostro pan, nato gra li gruote, zi stà inbinideî cul sudur sula iera zbruventa da Paloû... e i vemo caminà par oûna longa cal da griebani, c'ancui la riesta lissada dali nostre urme.
with comparison to Italian

La nostra è una lunga strada irta di sassi:
gli speroni di Monto ci hanno salvato, ed il braccio di Vistro è rimasto scoglio per le grotte poste più in alto del mare, che erode questa antica terra. Da sempre siamo pesciolini che da soli si procurano il boccone per godere la libera vita del gabbiano, oppressi dalla pioggia di Ponente e di Levante come olivi senza innesti. Fra queste insenature è stata la nostra salvezza, come i riboni si salvano dal delfino fra le tane della secca di San Damiano; il nostro pane, nato tra le grotte, è stato benedetto col sudore nell'aia ribollente di Palù... ed abbiamo camminato per una lunga strada dissestata, che oggi rimane spianate dai nostri passi.

Here's what Wiki sez about Dalmatian
Almost every city developed its own dialect; however, most disappeared before they were recorded, so the only trace of these ancient dialects is some words borrowed into local dialects of today's Croatia.
[edit]Ragusan
Ragusan is the Southern dialect. Its name is derived from the Romance name of Dubrovnik, Ragusa. It was discovered in two letters, from 1325 and 1397, and other medieval texts, which show a language influenced heavily by Venetian. The available sources include hardly 260 Ragusan words. Surviving words includepen (bread), teta (father), chesa (house) and fachir (to do), which were quoted by the Dalmatian, Filippo Diversi, the rector of Ragusa in the 1430s.
The Republic of Ragusa had at one time an important fleet, but its influence decreased. The language was in trouble in the face of Croatian expansion, as the Ragusan Senate decided that all debates had to be held in lingua veteri ragusea (ancient Ragusan language) and the use of the lingua sclava (Slavic) was forbidden. Nevertheless, in the 16th century, Ragusan fell out of use and became extinct.
[edit]Vegliot
Vegliot (the native name being Viklasun[1]) is the Northern dialect and it is derived from the Italian name of Krk, Veglia, an island in Kvarner. On the inscription dating from the beginning of the 4th century, Krk is named as "Splendissima civitas Curictarum". The Croatian name derives from the Roman name (Curicum, Curicta), while the younger title Vecla – Vegla – Veglia (meaning "Old Town") was created in the medieval Romanesque period.
The last speaker of any Dalmatian dialect was the Burbur Tuone Udaina (Italian: Antonio Udina), who was killed by a bomb on June 10, 1898.[2] [3] His language was studied by the scholar Matteo Giulio Bartoli, himself a native of nearby Istria, who visited him in 1897 and wrote down approximately 2800 words, stories, and accounts of his life, which were published in a book that has provided much information on the vocabulary, phonology, and grammar of the language. Bartoli wrote in Italian and published a translation in German (Das Dalmatische) in 1906. The Italian language manuscripts were reportedly lost, and the work was not re-translated into Italian until 2001.
[edit]History
The Roman Empire gradually came to occupy the territory of Illyria between 229 and 155 BC. Merchants and authorities settling from Rome brought with them the Latin language, and eventually the indigenous inhabitants mostly abandoned their languages (prevalently a variety of Illyrian tongues) for a so-called vulgar Latin (Lat. vulgarus - people's, popular, of lower register/speech). After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Illyrian towns continued to speak Latin (see Illyro-Roman), which evolved over time, first into regional variants of Latin, and subsequently into distinct, independent Romance languages. That known as Dalmatian was spoken along the Dalmatian coast of the Balkan shore of the Adriatic, from Rijeka as far south as Kotor in Montenegro. Speakers lived mainly in the coastal towns of Jadera (Zadar), Tragurium (Trogir), Spalatum (Split), Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and Acruvium (Kotor), and also on the islands of Curicta (Krk),Crepsa (Cres) and Arba
(Rab). Almost every city developed its own dialect, but the most important dialects we know of were the Vegliot, a northern dialect spoken on the island of Curicta, and the Ragusan, a southern dialect spoken in and around modern-day Dubrovnik.
We know about the Dalmatian dialect of Ragusa from two letters, dated 1325 and 1397, as well as from other medieval texts. The oldest preserved documents written in Dalmatian are 13th century inventories in Ragusan. The available sources include roughly 260 Ragusan words. Surviving words include pen (bread), teta (father), chesa (house) and fachir (to do), which were quoted by the Dalmatian,Filippo Diversi, the head of school of Ragusa in the 1430s. The earliest reference to the Dalmatian language dates from the 10th century and it is estimated that about 50,000 people spoke it at that time, though the main source of this information, the Italian linguist Matteo Bartoli, may have exaggerated his figures[citation needed].
Dalmatian was influenced particularly heavily by the Venetian language and Croatian (despite the latter, the Latin roots of Dalmatian remained prominent). A 14th century letter from Zadar (origin of the Iadera dialect) shows strong influence from Venetian, the language that after years under Venetian rule would extinguish Iadera and other dialects of Dalmatian. Other dialects met their demise with the settlement of populations of Slavic speakers.
[edit]Characteristics
Once thought to be a language that bridged the gap between the Romanian language and Italian, it was only distantly related to the nearby Romanian dialects, such as the nearly extinct Istro-Romanian, also spoken in nearby Istria, Croatia.
Some of its features are quite archaic. Dalmatian is unique in that it is the only Romance language that palatalised /k/ and /g/ before /i/, but not before /e/ (all the others palatalise in both situations, except Sardinian, which did not palatalise at all): Latin civitate > Vegliot: cituot (city), Latin cenare > Vegliot: kenur (to dine).
Some of its words have been preserved as borrowings in South Slavic languages, chiefly in dialectal Croatian (Chakavian).
[edit]Similarities to Romanian
Among the similarities with Romanian, there are some consonant shifts that can be found among the Romance languages only in Dalmatian and Romanian:
source
destination
Latin
Vegliot
Romanian
Italian
Meaning
/kt/ /pt/ octo guapto opt otto eight
/ŋn/ /mn/ cognatus comnut cumnat cognato brother-in-law
/ks/ /ps/ coxa copsa coapsa coscia thigh
[edit]Vocabulary
Dalmatian kept Latin words related to urban life, lost (or if preserved, not with the original sense) in Romanian, such as čituot "city" (in Romanian cetate means "fortress", not "city"; compare also Albanian qytet "city", borrowed from Latin). The Dalmatians retained an active urban society in their city states, whereas most Romanians were driven into small mountain settlements during the Great Migrations of the Dark Ages.[4]

Venetian became a major influence on the language as Venice's commercial influence grew. The Čakavian dialect and Dubrovnik Štokavian dialect, which was spoken outside the cities since the Slavs migrated, gained importance in the cities by the 16th century, and it eventually completely replaced Dalmatian as a day-to-day language.
[edit]Grammar
Main article: Dalmatian grammar
An analytic trend can be observed in Dalmatian: nouns and adjectives began losing their gender and number inflections, the noun declension disappeared completely and the verb conjugations began to follow the same path; however, the verb maintained a person and number distinction, except in the third person (in common with Romanian and several dialects of Italy).
The definite article is used as a preposition, unlike the Eastern Romance languages (like Romanian) which have it postposed to the noun.
[edit]Language sample
Here are examples of the Lord's prayer in Latin, Dalmatian, Friulian, Italian, Istro-Romanian and Romanian:
Latin
Dalmatian
Friulian
Italian
Istro-Romanian
Romanian
Pater noster, qui es in caelis: Tuota nuester, che te sante intel sil, Pari nestri che tu sês in cîl, Padre nostro, che sei nei cieli, Ciace nostru car le şti en cer, Tatăl nostru care eşti în ceruri,
sanctificetur Nomen Tuum; sait santificuot el naun to. che al sedi santifiât il to nom. sia santificato il tuo nome. neca se sveta nomelu teu. sfinţească-se numele tău.
adveniat Regnum Tuum; Vigna el raigno to. Che al vegni il to ream. Venga il tuo regno. Neca venire craliestvo to. Vie împărăţia ta.
fiat voluntas Tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra. Sait fuot la voluntuot toa, coisa in sil, coisa in tiara. Che e sedi fate la tô volontât sicu in cîl cussì ancje in tiere. Sia fatta la tua volontà, come in cielo così in terra. Neca fie volia ta, cum en cer, aşa şi pre pemânt. Facă-se voia ta, precum în cer, aşa şi pe pământ.
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie; Duote costa dai el pun nuester cotidiun. Danus vuê il nestri pan cotidian Dacci oggi il nostro pane quotidiano Pera nostre saca zi de nam astez. Pâinea noastră cea de toate zilele [ = cotidiană], dă-ne-o nouă astăzi.
et dimitte nobis debita nostra, E remetiaj le nuestre debete, E pardoninus i nestris debits E rimetti a noi i nostri debiti, Odproste nam dutzan, şi ne iartă nouă păcatele noastre,
Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris; coisa nojiltri remetiaime a i nuestri debetuar. sicu ancje nô ur ai pardonìn ai nestris debitôrs. come noi li rimettiamo ai nostri debitori. ca şi noi odprostim a lu nostri dutznici. precum şi noi le iertăm greşiţilor noştri.
et ne nos inducas in tentationem; E naun ne menur in tentatiaun, E no stâ menânus in tentazion, E non ci indurre in tentazione, Neca nu na tu vezi en napastovanie, Şi nu ne duce pe noi în ispită,
sed libera nos a Malo. miu deleberiajne dal mal. ma liberinus dal mâl. ma liberaci dal male. neca na zbăveşte de zvaca slabe. ci ne izbăveşte de cel rău.
[edit]Parable of the Prodigal Son
...E el daic: Jon ciairt jomno ci avaja doi feil, e el plé pedlo de louro daic a soa tuota: Tuota duoteme la puarte de moi luc, che me toca, e jul spartait tra louro la sostuanza e dapù pauch dai, mais toich indajoi el feil ple pedlo andait a la luorga, e luoc el dissipuat toich el soo, viviand malamiant. Muà el ju venait in se stiass, daic: quinci jomni de journata Cn cuassa da me tuota i ju bonduanza de puan e cua ju muor de fum.
[edit]Translation
And He said: There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father: 'Father give me the share of his property that will belong to me.' So he divided the property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. But when he came to himself he said: 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!
[edit]Some Dalmatian words in today's Croatian language
garma[citation needed] - (Čakavian) - natural hole in the karst landscape or natural cut in the karst coast
gira / girica[citation needed] - (Čakavian) - picarel (fish)
gripa / gripela / hripa / hripela[citation needed] - (Čakavian) - stone road in Dalmatia
gusterna / gustirna / gustrina[citation needed] - (Čakavian) - rainwater reservoir
kapula[citation needed] - (Čakavian Croatian) - onion
temple / timpre[citation needed] - (Korčula / Lošinj) - temple (anatomical)
trakta / tratka[citation needed] - (Cavtat / Montenegro) - fishing net