Having spent a few hours toying with the etymology of furešt, the Istrian word of Venetian origin for “foreigner,” “stranger,” or “outsider,” I am hardly any wiser. To my surprise, there is no vocabulary of the Istrian dialect on the World Wide Web. Vocabularies of the Venetian dialect are there, all right, but they are not very instructive on this matter. The Italian forestièro for “foreigner,” “stranger,” or “alien” does lead to an interesting find, though. Based on the Latin root standing for “outside,” it also connects to forèsta or “forest,” which apparently has the same ancient root. That is, once upon a time all foreigners, as well as many other ghastly things, came straight from the forest. But why would I spend hours on such pitiful trifles? Because this is where I am coming from according to many an inhabitant of Motovun and the surrounding villages. Straight from the forest, indeed.

Addendum I (April 14, 2009)

This morning I found an electronic-mail message from Tomo Krajina from Poreč, who has contacted me via the feedback function on the Residua website. “It is not true that there is no Istrian vocabulary on the web,” he writes. “You can find it on www.istarski-rjecnik.com.” He concedes that the site is a bit awkward, though, as it requires registration. “It does not contain the word furešt, either,” he concludes, “but this is still better than nothing.” I thanked him for the information and pointed out that I must have missed this site because I was searching for this particular word only rather than a vocabulary of the Istrian dialect as such. At any rate, I can only hope the magical word will be added to it soon.

Addendum II (April 15, 2009)

The plot thickens. Today I received another feedback message from my website, this time from Mirjana Poropat, who does not mention where she is from. At any rate, she did find the word furešt on the site mentioned, but only when she searched for stranac or “foreigner” in Croatian. Otherwise, the word is not available. As she quips, the navigation of the vocabulary is not exactly according to Jacob Nielsen—an author, researcher, and consultant on user interfaces on the World Wide Web of quite some renown. My only remaining hope is that the vocabulary will eventually be enriched with the etymology of the magical word in line with my painstaking research. Straight from the forest, once again.