Aromanian language
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| Aromanian (armăneashce) | |
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| Spoken in: | Greece, Albania, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia |
| Region: | Eastern Europe, Greece |
| Total speakers: | 300,000-800,000 |
| Ranking: | Not in top 100 |
| Genetic classification: | Indo-European Italic |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | - |
| Regulated by: | - |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | - |
| ISO 639-2 | roa |
| SIL | RUP |
| See also: Language – List of languages | |
Macedoromeno.gif
Aromanian (also known as Macedo-Romanian in Romania or Vlach in most other countries; in Aromanian: Armăneashce or Vlăheshte) is a language in the eastern group of the Romance languages, spoken in the Balkans. It was formed after the Romanisation of the Balkans and despite its proximity to Romanian, most linguists consider it a separate language.
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Geographic distribution
The Aromanian language and people are officially recognised as a minority in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but large Aromanian communities are also found in: Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro as well as in Romania (some Aromanians having migrated there from the Balkans after the destruction of the Aromanian settlements in Moscopole and Gramoste/Grammos).
History
The language is similar to Romanian, but it does exhibit some differences, especially in 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 throughout its history.
It is generally considered that sometime between 800 and 1,200 years ago, the Vulgar Latin spoken in the Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire split into four languages: Daco-Romanian (today's Romanian), Aromanian, Meglenitic and Istro-Romanian. They all contain the same common words with Albanian (considered to be of Dacian origin) and 70 early Slavic borrowings, but no Hungarian language words.
Greek influences are much stronger in Aromanian than in other East Romance languages, especially because Aromanian used Greek words to coin new words (neologisms), while Romanian based most of its neologisms on Italian and French.
Also, with the coming of the Turks in the Balkans, Aromanian received some Turkish words as well.
Still the lexical composition remains mainly Romance. Just as in Romanian, the morphology is rather different from other descendants of Latin. For example, the article is appended to the end of the word, and both definite and indefinite articles can be declined. Nouns have common (or neuter) gender in addition to masculine and feminine genders. On the other hand, the sequence of tenses is absolutely absent.
Dialects
There are two major Aromanian dialects which are named after two respective places: the Moscopole dialect (from the town of Moscopole, also known as the "Aromanian Jerusalem") and the Gramustean dialect (from the Gramostea/Grammos region).
Greek hypothesis
There is a controversial hypothesis among some Greek scholars that the Aromanians are Greeks who were Latinised in ancient times. They believe that some non-Romance words in Aromanian, which have cognates in ancient Greek (ex: Aromanian udare, ancient Greek ουθαρ), are evidence for their claim. This view, however, is not accepted by the majority of scholars, and it does not explain many features of Aromanian (such as the definitive article at the end of words) not found in ancient Greek or Romance.
References
- Capidan, Theodor. Aromânii, dialectul Aromân, Academia Română, Studii şi cercetării, XX 1932.
- Rosetti, Alexandru. Istoria limbii române, 2 vols., Bucharest, 1965-1969.
See also
External links
- Ethnologue entry for Aromanian (http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=rup)roa-rup:Armãneashce
de:Aromunische Sprache el:Βλάχικη γλώσσα fr:Aroumain li:Aroemeens nds:Arumuunsch pl:Język arumuński pt:Macedo-Romeno ro:Limba macedo-română