Vinirã di t alte lokuri

Trã z veadã anoastre tropuri

They came from other places
To see our customs
AROMANIAN SONG

Introduction

The Aromanians are people who live in the Balkans on the territory of Greece,
Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and
Serbia; they speak a language called Aromanian/ limba Armânească/
armãneashti.

Aromanians are often confuse with Vlachs The groups that can be historically
called Vlach include: modern-day Romanians or Daco-Romanians, Aromanians,
Morlachs, Megleno- Romanians and Istro-Romanians.

Vlach is a German blanket term to name the several Latin peoples descending
from the Latinised populations and speaking Neolatin languages in Central,
Eastern and South- Eastern Europe.

The word was later adopted to define the Aromanians and the Romanians, not
making any difference between them, which often brings to
misunderstandings, moreover in all the Balkan languages the word became a
pejorative synonym for any shepherding community.

These people simply call themselves and want to be called Armânji, on the
Northern part of the massif Pindus in Greece rrmâni recalling to the Latin word
“romanus” as they speak a Neolatin language.

Greeks call them Vlachs or Koutsovlachs/Κουτσόβλαχοι, a word that can be

sometimes, but not always, offensive because koutso/ κουτσό means “lame”.
An other interpretation suggests that the term might have a Turkish etymology
where küçük means little: so the Aromanians are the “smaller” Vlachs in
comparison to the Daco-Romanians, who are more numerous.
In Serbia they are known as Tsintsars/Cincari because they very often use the
sound “c” in their language, that in Serbian is pronounced /Ts/, for example
the word meaning “five” is pronounced “tsintsi”.
Albanians call them either Vllech or çoban (meaning: pastoralist) referred to
their original socio-professional specialisation or Llaciface (similar to the
Serbian definition Tsintsar, it has a bad connotation related to their language).
In Romania they are known as Macedoromanians or “Macedonians”.
Gustav Vajgand , a German ethnographer, in the mid-19th century named for
the first time this population Aromanians and the definition was accepted on
the international level.
Because the written documents are rare, the discussion about their origin is
still open and very controversial. The Byzantine sources mention them as
Vlachs and affirm that they originated by the mixture of Thracian, Illyrian,
Greek and Macedonian people that were Romanised after the Roman conquest.
After the Avar and Slavic invasions they moved on the mountains, living as
shepherds and they became with in the course of time successful tradesmen.
According to the Hellenic sources they are a Greek population that was
Latinised after the arrival of the Romans. Moreover, some historians think that
they are the descendants of Latinised Illyrians and Roman legionaries because
several linguistic studies proved that the Aromanian language has a similar
structure as Albanian, the only surviving Illyrian language. Romanians affirm
that the Armânji are actually Romanian and Romania is their mother country.

The massif Pindus, that is a mountain located between Northern Greece and
Southern Albania, together with the nearby regions of Thessaly, Epirus and
Macedonia, represent the most significant areas for the history and the
language of this population.
It is possible to distinguish three main Aromanian branches: Gramustians,
Farsherots and Moscopolitans.
The Gramustians were essentially shepherds and take their name from the
mountain “Gramos” that is located on the border between Greece and Albania.
Most of them are concentrated in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
(Veles, Malovishte) and in South- Eastern Bulgaria.
The Farsherots, who call themselves “Rrmâni”, derive their name from a place
called Frasher/Frashër that is nowadays located in Albania, even though they
came from the massif Pindus. They believe that their language is, among the
others, the most similar to Latin. As the Gramustians, they were nomadic
pastoralists or muleteers and they nowadays live in Greece and in Southern
Albania.
The Moscopolitans are from Moscopole (Greek: Moscopolis, Albanian:
Voskopojë), in today’s Albania. This city used to be a very important
economical and cultural centre situated on the major routes of international
trade. For a short period, Moscopole was the second biggest city in the
Ottoman Empire until its decline, due to the raids of Albanians, culminated
later with its total destruction by hand of Ali Pasha, a local Turkish lord in
1788. The Moscopolitans were widely-known as very successful and skilled
tradesmen or craftmen and led mostly a urban lifestyle, e.g. they were the first
who changed the traditional clothes for more modern ones.
After the destruction of Moscopole the Aromanians left the city and started to
emigrate north. Once the Turskish Empire dissolved, the new borders of the
national states found them dispersed through Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, the
former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia.
Their current situation changes from coutry to country. It has to be stressed
that they are full Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian, Serbian or
Romanian citizens. They fluently speak the language of the country in which
they live in or even several ones and they tend to fully integrate into the
national societies.They generally preserved their language, even though the
younger generations use it less and less so that the Aromanian language and
culture are today threatened with extinction. It is extremely difficult to declare
the exact number of Aromanians currently living in the Balkans. The Union for
the Aromanian Culture and Language and the Association of French
Aromanians estimate that they are 1.500.000. This might be an
onverstimation. Other sources affirm that they are 500.000.
The Aromanians are not recognised as national minority except in the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In 1991 the Constitution gave them for
example the right to use their language in the court or to write their names
with their alphabet (in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia the official
alphabet is the Cyrillic, while the Aromanians use the Latin letters). Optional
lessons in Aromanian were introduced into state schools.
Because, as it said before, they are fully integrated in the societies where they
live, they make no political demands, e.g. they never asked to have their own
state, they merely want assistance in preserving their language and culture.
They listed their demands in the resolution that they adopted during the
international conferences held in Mannheim University (1985) and Freiburg
University (1988-1993) . They ask for official regognition as a national minority
and support from the states in which they live in the following fields:
• Language teaching
• Services in Aromanian in their churches
• Newspapers, magazines, and radio and television programmes in
Aromanian
• Support for their cultural associations.

Research plan

The presentation is going to be structured in two main parts.

The first one is going to be focused on Aromanian’s origin, language, history
and diaspora. The present-day situation of the Aromanian communities needs
to be separately analysed for each country in which they live. What we would
like to have in the end is an informative text that will satisfy the curiosity of
the readers who show interest for this barely known minority and at the same
time easily understandable even for those who approach these kind of themes
for the first time.
The second part is going to be focused on audio-video material produced by
field work, interviews, participation to Aromanian folk festivals. The research is
going to analyse the traditions, the literature (expecially the poetry), the
music, the dances, the food, the costumes of the Aromanians today in
comparison to those of their ancestors.