Aromanians
The Aromanians (Aromanian: Armãnji, Rrãmãnji)[12] are an ethnic group native to the southern Balkans who speak Aromanian, an Eastern Romance language.[13] They traditionally live in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, northern and central Greece and North Macedonia, and can currently be found in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, south-western and eastern North Macedonia, northern and central Greece, southern Serbia and south-eastern Romania (Northern Dobruja). An Aromanian diaspora living outside these places also exists. The Aromanians are known by several other names, such as "Vlachs" or "Macedo-Romanians"[14][15][16] (sometimes used to also refer to the Megleno-Romanians).[17]
Not to be confused with Arameans, Armenians, or Romanians.
The term "Vlachs" is used in Greece and in other countries to refer to the Aromanians, with this term having been more widespread in the past to refer to all Romance-speaking peoples of the Balkan Peninsula and Carpathian Mountains region (Southeast Europe).[18]
Their vernacular, Aromanian, is an Eastern Romance language very similar to Romanian, which has many slightly varying dialects of its own.[19] It descends from the Vulgar Latin spoken by the Paleo-Balkan peoples (Romanized Thracians and the related Dacians for example) subsequent to their Romanization. The Aromanian language shares many common features with Albanian, Bulgarian and Greek; however, although it has many loanwords from Greek, Slavic, and Turkish, its lexicon remains majority Romance in origin.[20]
Kutsovlachs in 1915
