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|armãneashce, armãneashti, rrămăneshti.|
|Native to||Greece, Albania, Romania, Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey.|
|estimated 250,000 (1997)|
|Latin (Aromanian alphabet)|
Official language in
|Recognised as minority language in parts of:
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|By region or country|
Aromanian (limba armãneascã, armãneshce, armãneashti, rrămăneshti), also known as Macedo-Romanian or Vlach, is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe. Its speakers are called Aromanians or Vlachs (which is an exonym in widespread use to define the communities in the Balkans).
It shares many features with modern Romanian, having similar morphology and syntax, as well as a large common vocabulary inherited from Latin. An important source of dissimilarity between Romanian and Aromanian is the adstratum languages: while Romanian has been influenced to a greater extent by the Slavic languages, Aromanian has been more influenced by the Greek language, with which it has been in close contact throughout its history.
The greatest number of Aromanian speakers are found in Greece, with substantial numbers of speakers also found in Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and in the Republic of Macedonia. Macedonia is the only country where Aromanians are officially recognized as a national minority. In Albania the Aromanians are recognized as a cultural or linguistic minority.
Large Aromanian-speaking communities are also found in Romania, where some Aromanians migrated from Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and Serbia, mainly after 1925. Aromanians may have settled in Turkey due to the influence of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. However, there are a small number of any Aromanians living in Turkey.
The Aromanian language has a degree of official status in the Republic of Macedonia where Aromanian is taught as a subject in some primary schools (in Skopje, Bitola, Štip and Kruševo). In the Republic of Macedonia Aromanian speakers also have the right to use the language in court proceedings. Since 2006 the Aromanian language has been the second official municipal language (after Macedonian) in the city of Kruševo (Crushuva), even though it is spoken by ~ 10% of the municipal population. The language has no official status in any other country, despite the even higher numbers of Aromanians in some other countries, e.g. Greece.
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The language is similar to Romanian and its greatest difference lies in the vocabulary. There are far fewer Slavic words in Aromanian than in Romanian, and many more Greek words, a reflection of the close contact of Aromanian with Greek through much of its history.
It is generally considered that sometime between 800 and 1,200 years ago, Vulgar Latin spoken in the Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire, which is also known as Proto-Eastern Romance, broke up into four languages: Romanian, Aromanian, Meglenian and Istro-Romanian. One possibility for the origin of Aromanian is that in the same way standard Romanian is believed to be descended from the Latin spoken by the Getae; Dacians (Daco-Thracians) and Roman settlers in what is now Romania, Aromanian descended from the Latin spoken by Thracian and Illyrian peoples living in the southern Balkans (Epirus, Macedonia and Thrace).
Greek influences are much stronger in Aromanian than in other Eastern Romance languages, especially because Aromanian used Greek words to coin new words (neologisms), while Romanian based most of its neologisms on French.
Aromanian has three main dialects, Gramustean, Pindean, and Farsherot.
It has also several regional variants, named after places that were home to significant populations of Aromanians (Vlachs); nowadays located in Albania, the Republic of Macedonia and Greece. Examples are the Moscopole variant (from the Metropolis of Moscopole, also known as the "Aromanian Jerusalem"); the Muzachiar variant from Muzachia in central Albania; the variant of Bitola; Pilister, Malovište, Gopeš, Upper Beala; Gorna Belica (Aromanian: Beala di Supra) near Struga, Krusevo (Aromanian: Crushuva), and the variant east of the Vardar River in Macedonia.
An Aromanian dictionary currently under development can be found here.
Aromanian has differences from standard Romanian in its phonology, some of them probably due to influence from Greek. It has spirants that do not exist in Romanian, such as: (/ð/, /ɣ/, /x/, /θ/). Other differences are the sounds /dz/ and /ts/, which correspond to Romanian /z/ and /tʃ/, and the sounds: /ʎ/, final /u/, and /ɲ/, which do not exist in Romanian. It is written with a Latin or a Greek script, with an orthography which resembles both that of Albanian (in the use of digraphs such as dh, sh, and th) and Italian, (in its use of c and g), along with the letter ã, used for the sounds represented in Romanian by ă and â/î.
The grammar and morphology are very similar to those of other Romance languages:
The Aromanian language has some exceptions from the Romance languages, some of which are shared in Romanian: the definite article is a clitic particle appended at the end of the word, both the definite and indefinite articles can be inflected, and nouns are classified in three genders, with neuter in addition to masculine and feminine.
Aromanian grammar does have some features that distinguish it from Romanian, an important one being the complete disappearance of verb infinitives which is a shared feature of the Balkan sprachbund. As such, the tenses and moods that in Romanian use the infinitive (like the future simple tense and the conditional mood) are formed in other ways in Aromanian. For the same reason, verb entries in dictionaries are given in their indicative mood, present tense, first person, singular form.
Aromanian verbs are classified in four conjugations. The table below gives some examples, indicating also the conjugation of the corresponding verbs in Romanian.
(ind. pres. 1st sg.)
(ind. pres. 1st sg.)
|a cânta I
a da I
a lucra I
|a vedea II
a şedea II
a rămâne III (or a rămânea II)
|a duce III
a cunoaşte III
a arde III
|a muri IV
a fugi IV
a îndulci IV
run away, flee
The future tense, is formed using an auxiliary invariable particle "va" or "u" and the subjunctive mood.
gramushtean / farsherot
|va s-cãntu / u s-chentu||va să cânt||o să cânt||voi cânta||I will sing|
|va s-cãnts / u s-chents||va să cânţi||o să cânţi||vei cânta||you (sg.) will sing|
|va s-cãntã / u s-chente||va să cânte||o să cânte||va cânta||(s)he will sing|
|va s-cãntãm / u s-căntem||va să cântăm||o să cântăm||vom cânta||we will sing|
|va s-cãntats / u s-căntats||va să cântaţi||o să cântaţi||veţi cânta||you (pl.) will sing|
|va s-cãntã / u s-chente||va să cânte||o să cânte||vor cânta||they will sing|
Whereas in Romanian the pluperfect (past perfect) is formed synthetically (as for instance in literary Portuguese), Aromanian uses a periphrastic construction with the auxiliary verb am (have) as the imperfect (aveam) and the past participle, as in Spanish and French, except that French replaces avoir (have) with être (be) for intransitive verbs. Aromanian shares this feature with Meglenian as well as other languages in the Balkan language area.
Only the auxiliary verb inflects according to number and person: aveam, aveai, avea, aveamu, aveatu, avea, whereas the past participle does not change.
|avea mãcatã / avia mãcatã||vea mancat||mâncase||(he/she) had eaten|
|avea durnjitã / avia durnjitã||vea durmit||dormise||(he/she) had slept|
The gerund which exists in Aromanian is only applied to some verbs, not all. These verbs are:
Even before the incorporation of various Aromanian-speaking territories into the Greek state (1832, 1912), the language was subordinated to Greek, traditionally the language of education and religion in Constantinople and other prosperous urban cities. The historical studies cited below (mostly Capidan) show that especially after the fall of Moscopole (1788) the process of Hellenisation via education and religion gained a strong impetus mostly among people doing business in the cities.
The Romanian state began opening schools for the Romanian influenced Vlachs in the 1860s, but this initiative was regarded with suspicion by the Greeks, who thought Romania was trying to assimilate them. 19th-century travellers in the Balkans such as W M Leake and Henry Fanshawe Tozer noted that Vlachs in the Pindus and Macedonia were bilingual, reserving the Latin dialect for inside the home. A notable and perhaps not so well known (outside Greece) fact regarding the Greek Aromanian speakers is the contributions made by the community to the evolution and institutions of the Greek state during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The National Technical University of Athens—known as "Metsovion" (of Metsovo)—the Greek Vlach village in the Pindus from where its two main benefactors originated (Nikolaos Stournaras and Michail Tositsas), The Zappeion megaron, and the foundation of the Bank of Greece to name but a few were realised by the donations of notable Greek-Vlach benefactors. The fact that this occurred at a time when the majority of Vlachs resided outside the then Kingdom of Greece served to seriously undermine any Romanian claims that they constituted a persecuted minority group.
Romanian interference in the first half of the 20th century eventually led to antagonism between Aromanians with a Hellenic national consciousness (pejoratively known in Romania as grecomans) who rejected what they perceived as Romanian propaganda, and those who espoused a Latin identity as promoted in the Romanian schools. According to the Romanian nationalist point of view the "grecomans" and the Greek militia (known as "andarti") "terrorized" the Pindus region between 1903–1912 leading to a diplomatic crisis with Romania in 1911 (see Adina Berciu, Maria Petre: 2004). The Greek nationalist point of view maintains that the newly incorporated Romanian state was seeking to divert attention from more serious territorial disputes with Russia and Bulgaria by using Greek Vlachs as leverage. It is noteworthy that Romanian nationalists touring the Greek Vlach villages were invariably struck by the locals' lack of interest in the Romanian cause.
By 1948, the new Soviet-imposed communist regime of Romania had closed all Romanian-run schools outside Romania and since the closure, there has been no formal education in Aromanian and speakers have been encouraged to learn and use the Greek language. This has been a process encouraged by the community itself and is not an explicit State policy. The decline and isolation of the Romanian orientated groups was not helped by the fact that they openly collaborated with the Axis powers of Italy and Germany during the occupation of Greece in WWII. Notably the vast majority of Vlachs fought in the Greek resistance and a number of their villages were destroyed by the Germans.
The issue of Aromanian-language education is a sensitive one, partly because of the resurgence in Romanian interest on the subject. Romanian nationalism maintains that Greek propaganda is still very strong in the area, inferring that Greeks define Aromanians as a sort of "Latinized Greeks". The fact remains that it is the majority of Greek Vlachs themselves that oppose the Romanian propaganda (those that supported it having emigrated in the early 20thC to other countries), as they have done for the past 200 years. Most Greek Vlachs oppose the introduction of the language into the education system as EU and leading Greek political figures have suggested, viewing it as an artificial distinction between them and other Greeks. For example, the former education minister, George Papandreou, received a negative response from Greek-Aromanian mayors and associations to his proposal for a trial Aromanian language education programme. The Panhellenic Federation of Cultural Associations of Vlachs (Πανελλήνια Ομοσπονδία Πολιτιστικών Συλλόγων Βλάχων) expressed strong opposition to EU's recommendation in 1997 that the tuition of Aromanian be supported so as to avoid its extinction.. On a visit to Metsovo, Epirus in 1998, Greek President Konstantinos Stephanopoulos called on Vlachs to speak and teach their language, but its decline continues.
A recent example of the sensitivity of the issue was the 2001 conviction (later overturned in the Appeals Court) to 15 months in jail of Sotiris Bletsas , a Greek Aromanian who was found guilty of "dissemination of false information" after he distributed informative material on minority languages in Europe (which included information on minority languages of Greece), produced by the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages and financed by the European Commission. His conviction met with broad condemnation in Greece  and it emerged that his case was zealously pursued by Aromanian leaders who viewed themselves as patriotic Greeks and felt affronted by the suggestion that they belonged to a "minority". Bletsas was eventually acquitted .
The following text is given for comparison in Aromanian and in Romanian, with an English translation. The spelling of Aromanian is that decided at the Bitola Symposium of August 1997. The word choice in the Romanian version was such that it matches the Aromanian text, although in modern Romanian other words might have been more appropriate. The English translation is only provided as a guide to the meaning, with an attempt to keep the word order as close to the original as possible.
|Vocala easti un son dit zburãrea-a omlui, faptu cu tritsearea sonorã, libirã sh-fãrã cheadicã, a vimtului prit canalu sonor (adrat di coardili vocali shi ntreaga gurã) icã un semnu grafic cari aspuni un ahtari son.||Vocala este un sunet din vorbirea omului, făcut cu trecerea sonoră, liberă şi fără piedică, a vântului prin canalul sonor (compus din coardele vocale şi întreaga gură) sau un semn grafic care reprezintă un atare sunet.||The vowel is a sound in human speech, made by the sonorous, free and unhindered passing of the air through the sound channel (composed of the vocal cords and the whole mouth) or a graphic symbol corresponding to that sound.|
|Ashi bunãoarã, avem shasili vocali tsi s-fac cu vimtul tsi treatsi prit gurã, iu limba poati si s-aflã tu un loc icã altu shi budzãli pot si sta dishcljisi unã soe icã altã.||Aşa bunăoară, avem şase vocale ce se fac cu vântul ce trece prin gură, unde limba poate să se afle într-un loc sau altul şi buzele pot să stea deschise un soi sau altul.||This way, we have six vowels that are produced by the air passing through the mouth, where the tongue can be in one place or another and the lips can be opened in one way or another.|
|Vocalili pot s-hibã pronuntsati singuri icã deadun cu semivocali i consoani.||Vocalele pot să fie pronunţate singure sau deodată cu semivocale sau consoane.||The vowels can be pronounced alone or together with semivowels or consonants.|
|Aromanian (person)||(m.) armãn, (f.) armãnã||(m.) aromân, (f.) aromână|
|Aromanian (language)||limba armãneascã; armãneashti/armãneashce/rrãmãneshti||limba aromână, aromâneşte|
|Good day!||Bunã dzua!||Bună ziua!|
|What's your name?||Cumu ti chljamã? (informal)||Cum te cheamă? (informal)|
|How old are you?||di cãtsi anji eshti?||câţi ani ai? / de câţi ani eşti? (archaic)|
|How are you?||Cumu hits? (formal) Cumu eshci? /Cumu eshti?(informal)||Ce mai faci? / Cum eşti? (informal)|
|What are you doing?||Tsi fats? Tsi adari? (popular)||Ce faci? (informal)|
|Goodbye!||S-nã videmu cu ghine!,/ghini s'ni videmu||La revedere! (Să ne vedem cu bine!)|
|Bye!||s'nâ avdzâmu ghiniatsa,Ciao!||Ciao! (informal), Salut! (informal), La revedere! (formal)|
|Please.||Vã-plãcãrsescu. (formal) Ti-plãcãrsescu (informal)||Vă rog. (formal), Te rog. (informal)|
|Sorry.||Ãnj yini râu||Scuze. (Îmi pare rău)|
|I don't understand.||Nu achicãsescu.||Nu înţeleg.|
|Where's the bathroom?||lju easte toaletlu?,/lju esti tualetu?||Unde este toaleta?|
|Do you speak English?||Zburats anglicheashce?,/grits anglikiashti?||Vorbiţi englezeşte? (formal)|
|I am a student.||Mine escu studentu,/mini estu student||Sunt student. (m.)|
|You are beautiful.||Hi mushat(ã), Eshci mushat(ã)/eshti mushat(ã)||Eşti frumos/frumoasă. (informal,)|
|Eastern Romance languages|
|Vulgar Latin language
|Aromanian edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia|
|Look up Aromanian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.|