The Aromanian language (, , , , , or , , ), also known as Vlach or Macedo-Romanian, is an Eastern Romance language, similar to Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian and Romanian, spoken in Southeastern Europe. Its speakers are called Aromanians or Vlachs (a broader term and an exonym in widespread use to define Romance communities in the Balkans).
Aromanian shares many features with modern Romanian, including similar morphology and syntax, as well as a large common vocabulary inherited from Latin. They are considered to have developed from Common Romanian, a common stage of all the Eastern Romance varieties. An important source of dissimilarity between Romanian and Aromanian is the adstratum languages (external influences); whereas Romanian has been influenced to a greater extent by the Slavic languages, Aromanian has been more influenced by Greek, with which it has been in close contact throughout its history.
Geographic distribution Aromanian is native to Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. In 2018, it was estimated that Aromanian had 210,000 native speakers, of which 50,000 were in Albania, 50,000 in Greece, 50,000 in Romania, 32,000 in Serbia, 18,200 in North Macedonia, and 9,800 in Bulgaria. Aromanian-speakers also exist in the diaspora, with at least 53 speakers recorded to be living in Australia at the time of the 2021 Australian census.
Official status Aromanian has a degree of official recognition in North Macedonia, where it is taught as a subject in some primary schools. In North Macedonia, Aromanian-speakers also have the right to use the language in court proceedings. Since 2006, Aromanian has had the status of a second official municipal language in the city of Kruševo,Aromanians the only place where Aromanian has any kind of official status apart from general state recognition.
Apart from North Macedonia, the Aromanians are also recognized in Albania as a national minority.
History
Aromanian, Daco-Romanian (Romanian), Istro-Romanian language, and Megleno-Romanian language are descendants of a proto-language called Common Romanian, itself descending from the Proto-Romance language. No later than the 10th century Common Romanian split into southern and northern dialects, and Aromanian and Romanian have developed differently from these two distinct dialects of the proto language over the course of the next one thousand years.
Greek influences are much stronger in Aromanian than in other Eastern Romance languages, especially because Aromanian has used Greek words to coin new words (neologisms), especially within Greece, while Romanian has based most of its neologisms on French. However, there has also been an increasing tendency for Aromanian-speakers outside of Greece to borrow terms from Romanian, due to the shared alphabet and contact with Romanian over the Internet, where Romanian-language material is much more available than it is in Aromanian.
With the arrival of the Turks in the Balkans, Aromanian also received some Turkish words. Still, the lexical composition remains mainly Romance.
Compared to other Balkan languages, the earliest documents and manuscripts of Aromanian appear late. This is due to the historical predominance of the Greek language in the region and the successive destruction of Aromanian books and documents throughout history. The oldest known written text in the language is an inscription from 1731 by Nektarios Terpos at the Ardenica Monastery, now in Albania. It is followed by the inscription of the so-called Simota Vase, dated to the first half of the 18th century. In the Monastery of the Holy Apostles near Kleino (), now Greece, there is an inscription in Aromanian dated from around 1780. The St. Athanasius Church in Moscopole, now Albania, also includes an old Aromanian writing. Other early Aromanian manuscripts are the Aromanian Missal potentially from the beginning of the 18th century, the works of Theodore Kavalliotis (1770), Constantin Ucuta (1797), Daniel Moscopolites (1802), Gheorghe Constantin Roja (1808/1809) and Mihail G. Boiagi (1813) and the Codex Dimonie possibly from the early 19th century.
Some scholars mention other old, little-studied written instances of Aromanian. German Byzantinist Peter Schreiner dated a small glossary of Aromanian from Epirus in a manuscript of the Chronicle of Ioannina to the 16th or 17th century based on its writing. There are also claims about an Aromanian inscription from 1426 in the St. Zacharia Church in the former village of in Greece, but according to Hristu Cândroveanu, it was destroyed during restoration works by order of Greek priests because it was not in Greek.
Dialects
Aromanian is not a homogenous linguistic entity. Its main varieties include the Pindus type, the Gramoste type, the Farsherot type, Olympus type, and the Moscopole type.
It has also several regional variants, named after places that were home to significant populations of Aromanians (Vlachs); nowadays located in Albania, North Macedonia and Greece. Examples are the Moscopole variant; the Muzachiar variant from Muzachia in central Albania; the variant of Bitola; Pelister, Malovište (), Gopeš (), Upper Beala; Gorna Belica () near Struga, Kruševo (), and the variant east of the Vardar river in North Macedonia.
Standardization efforts The Aromanian language is not standardized. However, there have been some efforts to do so. Notable examples include those of Matilda Caragiu Marioțeanu,Caragiu Marioțeanu, Matilda, capitolul „Dialectul aromân”, Iorgu Iordan (coord.), Crestomație romanică, vol. III, partea I, București, Editura Academiei, 1968; online: Dialectul aromân, Avdhela Project – Library of Aromanian Culture. Cunia, Tiberius, Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Constanța, Editura Cartea Aromână, 2010. and Iancu Ballamaci.Ballamaci, Iancu, Metoda aromână/vlahă, București, Editura Predania, Avdhela Project – Library of Aromanian Culture, 2010, ISBN 978-606-8195-07-0.
Phonology Aromanian exhibits several differences from standard Romanian in its phonology, some of which are probably due to influence from Greek or Albanian. It has spirants that do not exist in Romanian, such as and which are a Greek influence. Other differences are the sound , which corresponds to Romanian , and the sounds: and , which exist only in local variants in Romanian. Aromanian is usually written with a version of the Latin script with an orthography that 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. It can also be written with a modified Romanian alphabet that includes two additional letters, ń and ľ, and rarely with a version of the Greek script.
Compared to Daco-Romanian, the Aromanian varieties have preserved from Proto-Romanian the word-final glide alongside (in the Pindean and Gramostean types), while the Farsharot and Grabovean types have neither diphthongs nor the phoneme .
Consonants LabialDental/AlveolarPost-alveolarPalatalVelarGlottalcentralsibilantStopvoicelessvoicedAffricatevoicelessvoicedFricativevoiceless[]()voiced[]NasalTrillApproximantlateralmedian
Central approximant consonants only occur as a result of a word-initial or intervocalic and when preceding another vowel. , can have allophones as , when preceding front vowels. , are in free variation among different dialects.
Vowels
FrontCentralBackCloseMidOpen Two vowel sounds /, / are both represented by one grapheme; ã.
Orthography The Aromanian alphabet consists of 27 letters and 9 digraphs.Aromanian alphabet at OmniglotCunia, Tiberius. On the Standardisation of the Aromanian System of Writing
Letter Name Pronunciation (IPA) Notes A, a a – Ã, ã ã , – B, b bã – C, c cã , , when followed by "a", "o", "u" or another consonant ( in some dialects); when followed by "e" or "i" D, d dã – Dh, dh dhã Used only for notation in particular accents where this phoneme is present, otherwise "d" is used Dz, dz dzã – E, e e – F, f fã – G, g gã , , before "a", "o", "u" or another consonant ( in some dialects); before "e" and "i" H, h hã – I, i i – J, j jã – K, k ca before "e" or "i" only L, l lã – Lj, lj lj Found in Macedonian Latin alphabet M, m mã – N, n nã – Nj, nj nj Found in Macedonian Latin alphabet O, o o – P, p pã – Q, q kiu Used only in foreign words – "c" is normally used instead R, r rã – Rr, rr rrã ? Used only for notation in particular accents where this phoneme is present, otherwise "r" is used S, s sã – Sh, sh shã – T, t tã – Th, th thã Used only for notation in particular accents where this phoneme is present, otherwise "t" is used Ts, ts tsã – U, u u – V, v vã – W, w dublã vã Used only in foreign words X, x csã/gzã , Same pronunciation as found in English Y, y i greacã , before "e" and "i", elsewhere; of Greek influence – cf. Greek άγιος "holy" – γ is pronounced in this case. Z, z zã –
In addition, the digraph "gh" ( before "e" and "i") is used as well.
Grammar
The grammar and morphology are very similar to those of other Romance languages: It has two grammatical numbers: singular and plural (no dual). It is a null-subject language. Verbs have many conjugations, including: A present tense, a preterite, an imperfect, a pluperfect and a future tense in the indicative mood, for statements of fact. An imperative mood, for direct commands. Three non-finite forms: infinitive, gerund, and past participle. Distinct active and passive voices, as well as an impersonal passive voice. The Aromanian language has some exceptions from the Romance languages, some of which are shared with 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. Unlike other Romance languages, Aromanian lacks an infinitive form for verbs, the synthetic infinitive inherited from Latin became a noun like in Romanian (for example < ).
Verbs Aromanian grammar has features that distinguish it from Romanian, an important one being the complete disappearance of verb infinitives, a 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 and indicates the conjugation of the corresponding verbs in Romanian.Iancu Ianachieschi-Vlahu Gramatica armãneascã simplã shi practicã, Crushuva 1993, 1997; Μιχάλη Μπογιάτζη Βλαχική ήτοι μάκεδοβλαχική γραμματική Βιέννη, and Κατσάνης Ν., Κ. Ντίνας, 1990, Γραμματική της κοινής Κουτσοβλαχικής.
ConjugationAromanian(ind. pres. 1st sg.)Romanian(ind. pres. 1st sg.)Romanian(infinitive)English I cãntu dau lucredzu cânt dau lucrez a cânta I a da I a lucra I sing give work II ved shed rrãmãn văd șed rămân a vedea II a ședea II a rămâne III (or a rămânea II) see sit stay III duc cunoscu ardu duc cunosc ard a duce III a cunoaște III a arde III carry, lead know burn IV mor fug ndultsescu mor fug îndulcesc a muri IV a fugi IV a îndulci IV die run away, flee sweeten
Future tense
The future tense is formed using an auxiliary invariable particle "u" or "va" and the subjunctive mood. In Romanian, declension of the future particle plus an infinitive is used.