The Dialect
Komiški belongs to the Čakavian group of Croatian, its southern (Ikavian) dialect — and within it, to the cakavian speeches of the island of Vis. Vis is the southernmost point of cakavism in Croatia, and komiški is, in Joško Božanić's words, probably the best-preserved cakavian idiom of all.
Ca, ś and ź — the cakavica
Where standard Croatian says što ("what"), a Komižanin says ca. Instead of č comes c (covik, cudo), and instead of s/š and z/ž the "soft" sounds ś and ź: śunce, śardela, źena, Komiźa. That is why the speech is called a cakavica — and it is the first thing Komižani themselves point to as theirs.
Glova and brud — the vowel shift
Long a became o (glava → glova "head", dan → don "day", ja → jo "I"), and long o became u (brod → brud "boat", noć → nuć "night", moj → muj "my"). It even created minimal pairs: roj ("heaven") vs ruj ("bee swarm"). The dialect is also Ikavian: lipo, vrime, dite, beśida.
Kal, śal, ol, pul — the soft-l rule
At the end of a syllable, d and t turn into l: kad → kal ("when"), sad → śal ("now"), od → ol ("from"), put → pul (pul doma — homewards). Christmas Eve is Bolnji Don. Božanić calls it euphony: komiški "does not tolerate consonant clusters".
Three accents
Komiški preserves the old Čakavian three-accent system — short falling, long falling, and the rising Čakavian acute — with vowel length even before the stress. That is why only recordings of native speakers can carry the true sound of the dialect; a synthetic voice never could.
The fishermen's tongue
Komiža was the greatest fishing port of the Adriatic, and its speech keeps a vast Romance (Venetian) layer: gajeta, falkuša, śvićor, vojga, brušket, tramuntona, garbin… Božanić calls it the lingua halieutica — the fishermen's language.
Protected cultural heritage
The cokavian speeches of the island of Vis — viški and komiški — were inscribed in 2017 in Croatia's Register of Cultural Goods as intangible cultural heritage (Z-6990).
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glava → glova · brod → brud