Vlach ( ), also Wallachian and many other variants, is a term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate speakers of Eastern Romance languages living in Southeast Europe—south of the Danube (the Balkan peninsula) and north of the Danube.
Although it has also been used to name present-day Romanians, the term "Vlach" today refers primarily to speakers of the Eastern Romance languages - Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian - who live south of the Danube, in Albania, Bulgaria, northern Greece, North Macedonia and eastern Serbia. These people include the ethnic groups of the Aromanians, the Megleno-Romanians and, in Serbia, the Timok Vlachs. The term also became a synonym in the Balkans for the social category of shepherds, and was also used for non-Romance-speaking rural Christians (mostly Orthodox), in recent times in Dalmatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina derogatively. The term is also used to refer to the ethnographic group of Moravian Vlachs who speak a Slavic language but have Vlach origins, as well as for Morlachs and Istro-Romanians.
Etymology The word Vlach/Wallachian (and other variants such as Vlah, Valah, Valach, Voloh, Blac, Oláh, Vlas, Ilac, Ulah, etc.) is etymologically derived from the ethnonym of a Celtic tribe, adopted into Proto-Germanic *Walhaz, which meant 'stranger', from *Wolkā-Ringe, Don. "Inheritance versus lexical borrowing: a case with decisive sound-change evidence." Language Log, January 2009. (Caesar's , Strabo and Ptolemy's ). Via Latin, in Gothic, as , the ethnonym took on the meaning 'foreigner' or 'Romance-speaker' and later "shepherd', 'nomad'. The term was adopted into Greek as Vláhoi or Blachoi (), Albanian , Slavic as Vlah () or Voloh, Hungarian as oláh and olasz, etc. The root word was notably adopted in Germanic for Wales and Walloon, and in Switzerland for Romansh-speakers (), and in Poland Włochy or in Hungary olasz became an exonym for Italians. The Slovenian term Lahi has also been used to designate Italians. The same name is still used in Polish (Włochy, Włosi, włoskie) and Hungarian (Olasz, Olaszország) as an exonym for Italy, while in Slovak (Vlach - pl. Vlasi, Valach - pl. Valasi), Czech (Vlachy) and Slovenian (Laško, Láh, Láhinja, laško) it was replaced with the endonym Italia.
Other forms which were recognised by linguists to designate the "Vlachs" are: Blaci, Blauen, Blachi found in Western medieval sources, Balachi, Walati found in Western sources derived from medieval German, while the Germanic population from Transylvania used also the variants Woloch, Blôch. French sources used mostly Valaques while the medieval Song of Roland used Blos. In English and in modern German, the forms Wallachians, Walachen appear, respectively. In the Balkan Peninsula various names such as Rumer, Tzintzars, Morlachs, Maurovlachs, Armâns, Cincars, Koutzovlachs were used, while Muslim sources speak of Ulak, Ilak, Iflak.
Historical uses
The term 'Vlach' first appeared in medieval sources and was generally used as an exonym for speakers of the Eastern Romance languages. Although later associated with transhumance across most Southeastern Europe, the early medieval Vlachs were agriculturists and pastoralists, and the practice of transhumant pastoralism only took hold between the 14th and the 19th centuries. Testimonies from the 13th and the 14th centuries show that, although in Europe and beyond, they were called Vlachs or Wallachians (oláh in Hungarian, Vláchoi (Βλάχοι) in Greek, Volóxi (Воло́хи) in Russian, Walachen in German, Valacchi in Italian, Valaques in French, Valacos in Spanish), the Romanians used the endonym or , from the Latin , meaning 'Roman'. Aromanians use the endonym (: ) or (: ), from . From Latin are also the Albanian forms and , 'vlach'. Megleno-Romanians designate themselves with the Macedonian form Vla (: Vlaš) in their own language.
In historical sources the term "Vlach" could also refer to Slovaks, Hungarians, Balkans, Transylvanians, Romanians, or even Albanians.Jan Gawron; (2020) Locators of the settlements under Wallachian law in the Sambor starosty in XVth and XVIth c. Territorial, ethnic and social origins. p. 274–275; BALCANICA POSNANIENSIA xxVI, In late Byzantine documents, the Vlachs are sometimes mentioned as Bulgaro-Albano-Vlachs (Bulgaralbanitoblahos), or Serbo-Albano-Bulgaro-Vlachs. According to the Serbian historian Sima Ćirković, the name "Vlach" in medieval sources had the same rank as the name "Greek", "Serb" or "Latin".
In the Western Balkans, during the High Middle Ages, the word also acquired a socio-economic component, being used as an internal name for the pastoral population in the medieval Kingdom of Serbia, one that was also often engaged in the transport of goods, colonisation of empty lands, and military service. It will then expand to local interpretations with religious, ethnic, and social status particularities across the wider region, being employed as a name for Eastern Romance speaking people, Eastern Orthodox population in opposition to Catholic population, for the rural population of the hinterlands, the Christian population in general as opposed to Muslim population, or a combination of these aspects. During the early history of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, there was a military class of Vlachs in Serbia and Ottoman Macedonia, made up of Christians who served as auxiliary forces and were exempted of certain taxes until the beginning of the 17th century. In this context, a large part of the Dalmatian hinterland was repopulated by Slavic settlers, both Orthodox and Catholic, speaking the Shtokavian dialect and called Vlach or Morlach by the inhabitants of the Dalmatian coast and islands. In these areas, the term Vlah evolved to Vlaj () and is still used as a derogatory term to refer to the rural inhabitants of the hinterland, both Croats and Serbs, as "peasants" and "ignorants". In Istria, the ethnonym Vlach is used by the Chakavian-speaking Croatian inhabitants to refer to the Istro-Romanians and the Slavs who settled in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Nowadays, the term Vlachs (also known under other names, such as "Koutsovlachs", "Tsintsars", "Karagouni", "Chobani", "Vlasi", etc.The Balkan Vlachs: Born to Assimilate? at culturalsurvival.org) is used in scholarship for the Eastern Romance-speaking communities in the Balkans, especially those in Greece, Albania and North Macedonia. In Serbia the term Vlach (Serbian Vlah, plural Vlasi) is also used to refer to Romanian speakers, especially those living in eastern Serbia.
In modern Slovak, Valasi, other than denoting people of Vlachian ethnicity or origin, is synonymously and even more prominently used to describe shepherds, more commonly apprentice shepherds. The term originated following Vlachian arrival in mounts and hills of present-day Slovakia in 14th century and coinciding development in sheep herding and dairy industry. Further west, in the Czech Republic, the area of Moravian Wallachia is known as Valašsko and the inhabitants as Valaši, names usually translated in English as Wallachia and Wallachians, respectively.
History
According to the theory of Daco-Roman continuity, the ancestors of modern Vlachs and Romanians originated from Dacians. For proponents of this theory, Eastern Romance languages prove the survival of the Thraco-Romans in the lower Danube basin during the Migration Period.According to Cornelia Bodea, Ştefan Pascu, Liviu Constantinescu: "România: Atlas Istorico-geografic, Academia Română 1996, , chap. II, "Historical landmarks", p. 50 (English text), the survival of the Thraco-Romans in the Lower Danube basin during the Migration Period is an obvious fact: Thraco-Romans haven't vanished in the soil & Vlachs haven't appeared after 1000 years by spontaneous generation. On the other hand, the other theory states that the Romanians and the Vlachs, including the ancestors of present-day Aromanians, were originally part of the same group of speakers of Eastern Romance languages, and that their origins should be sought in the southern Balkans (Thraco-Roman and Illyro-Roman populations). Early Romanian-speakers would have then moved northwards from the 12th century onwards.
10th century During the Middle Ages, the term "Magna Vlachia" appears in Byzantine documents. This name was used for Thessaly and present-day North Macedonia.
John Skylitzes mentioned that in 976 Vlachs fought with and killed David of Bulgaria, somewhere between Prespa and Kastoria.Spinei, V. (2009). The Romanians and the Turkic Nomads North of the Danube Delta from the Tenth to the Mid-Thirteenth Century. Brill, p. 152 A latter addition to the text by Skylitzes Continuatus names the Vlachs as "hoditōn", a word that was associated by historians with the Serbian "kjelatori": guides and guards of caravans in the Balkans.
Ibn al-Nadīm published in 998 the work Kitāb al-Fihrist mentioning "Turks, Bulgars and Blaghā". According to B. Dodge the ethnonym Blaghā could refer to Wallachians/Romanians.Ibn al Nadim, al-Fihrist. English translation: The Fihrist of al-Nadim. Editor și traducător: B. Dodge, New York, Columbia University Press, 1970, p. 37 with n.82Spinei, Victor, The Romanians and the Turkic Nomads North of the Danube Delta from the Tenth to the Mid-Thirteenth Century. Brill. 2009, p. 83 The original Arabic text does not contain the word "Blaghā" but rather "البلغار," which translates to "al-Bulghār," the term used in contemporary Arabic texts to refer to Volga Bulgaria. The new Arabic edition also features the word "al-Bulghār" ("البلغار") instead of "Blaghā." Furthermore, the first critical edition edited by Gustav Flügel in 1871, which includes the original Arabic text, likewise uses the designation "البلغار" ("al-Bulghār"). The word "البلغار" ("al-Bulghār") appears instead of "البلغم" ("al-Blagham") in both the 1971/1973/1988 Tehran/Beirut/Cairo critical editions as well. Thus, Bayard's translation is incorrect, as he mistakenly read "البلغار" ("al-Bulghār") as "البلغم" ("al-Blagham"). Therefore, the original Arabic text refers to Volga Bulgaria, not the Vlachs.
Mutahhar al-Maqdisi, "They say that in the Turkic neighbourhood there are the Khazars, Russians, Slavs, Waladj, Alans, Greeks and many other peoples."A. Decei, V. Ciocîltan, "La mention des Roumains (Walah) chez Al-Maqdisi", in Romano-arabica I, Bucharest, 1974, pp. 49–54 According to other non-Romanian historians, based on the context, the "Waladj" are not the Vlachs, but a people living around the Volga.
11th century
Vlachs were present in large numbers, on the Chalcidice peninsula around 1000, according to monastic documents from Mount Athos. On the peninsula, the Vlachs were famous for their cheese and meat products. In these texts sometimes they are called "Vlachorynhinii", which may be a mixture of the name "Vlach" and "Rynhini" a Slavic tribe who settled in the same area in the 7th century.
In 1013, a Byzantine document mentions the settlement of "Kimbalongu" in the mountains near Strumitsa, which was a Vlach settlement.
The names Blakumen or Blökumenn is mentioned in Nordic sagas dating between the 11th and 13th centuries, with respect to events that took place in either 1018 or 1019 somewhere at the northwestern part of the Black Sea and believed by some to be related to the Vlachs.Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana, in Drei lygisogur, ed. Å. Lagerholm (Halle/Saale, 1927), p. 29 Omeljan Pritsak, however, point out that the texts probably refer to a nomadic Turkic people, since the "Blakumen" in the texts are "non-christian heathens" and nomadic horsemans. Spinei contrasts Pritsak's view by claiming that there are several mentions of the Blakumen or Blökumen in contexts taking place decades before the earliest appearance of the Cumans in the Pontic steppe, and that translating the name to "Black Cumans" is not concordant with the Varangian ethnic terminology.