accented on the same syllable as in Serbo-Croatian, as opposed to most Slovene dialects. Language vs. dialect There is disagreement between native speakers of the dialect and linguists regarding whether Resian should be considered a separate language or only a dialect of Slovene. Resians were isolated from other Slovenes from the 14th century onward, before standard Slovene was developed, and later they never had the chance to learn it because there were no Slovene schools in that area and none of the Italian schools taught Slovene, not even as a foreign language. Resians thus not only have a hard time understanding Slovene, but they also do not feel themselves part of the Slovene nation because they were left out, and they consider themselves an ethnic group separate from Slovenes. In 2004, 1,014 out of 1,285 (78.9%) inhabitants of Resia signed a petition declaring that they are not Slovenes. The dialect also has its own orthography, which existed and was actively used even before standardization. Resian is also used instead of standard Slovene on bilingual signs and in public announcements. On the other hand, linguists have always treated Resian as a dialect. It does not show any features sufficiently distinct to qualify it as a separate language. To avoid disputes, it is thus often referred to as a Slavic microlanguage. Accent The Resian dialect, in contrast to neighboring dialects, does not have pitch accent and seems to have lost distinctions in vowel length, with the only difference in length being tied to stress (stressed vowels are longer than short) and breathiness (breathy vowels are shorter than non-breathy), although standard Resian forms still differentiate between length. From the historical perspective, Resian has undergone only the > accent shift since Alpine Slovene, making it two accent shifts different from standard Slovene, which has not undergone the > accent shift, but has undergone the → and optionally → accent shifts. Phonology Due to years of isolated evolution from other Slovene dialects, Resian has developed some iconic features, particularly breathy, centralized vowels that are almost exclusive to Resian, with only some microdialects of the Torre Valley dialect also having a similar sound. Its consonant inventory is shared with the Littoral dialects, retaining palatal sounds. Consonants Han Steenwijk recorded 25 consonant phonemes in San Giorno () and then also generalized the pronunciation to the other three standard forms, which are definitely similar, except that Stolvizza ()