Origins
It is hypothesized that the Vlachs originated from the Roman colonisation of the Balkans and are the descendants of Latinised native peoples and Roman legionaries who had settled in the Balkans. The fact that the Roman colonisation of Epirus and Macedonia began earlier and lasted longer than that of Dacia would suggest that the Aromanian Vlachs may have preceded the Romanians in Balkan history.
There are many theories regarding the origins of the Aromanians. In Greece, they are believed to be descended from a local Greek population that was Latinised immediately following the Roman conquest of Greece, or later, during the first centuries of the Byzantine Empire when Latin continued to be the official language. On the contrary, in other neighboring countries they are considered to be the descendants of Thracian peoples who moved into the mountains of the southern Balkans after the Avar and Slavic invasions. Some Byzantine chroniclers have described them as descending from Thracian tribes; one of them being the Bessi.
In total, the main theories regarding the origins of Aromanians describe them as:
- descendants of the Romanized Thracians
- or Roman colonists and soldiers, who would receive agricultural lands as payments for their services,
- or Latin Greeks (Greco-Romans).
It is clear, however, that until the 7th, 8th or 9th centuries CE, Romanians and Aromanians spoke the same eastern variant of the Balkan Vulgar Latin, also known as Eastern Romance language. Linguists who support the Romanian theory declare that the Aromanian, Meglenian and Istro languages are dialects of Proto-Romanian. This term was not accepted by Greek linguists, because it only denoted a form of the Romanian language, and thus supports only the Romanian theory. This in fact puts the other two languages which developed from this form of Vulgar Latin - the Meglenian and Istro languages - in the same position as Aromanian. Modern linguists believe that the Istro-Romanians migrated to their present region of Istria about 1,000 (or 600) years ago from Transylvania.
In reality, in none of the three theories regarding the origin of Aromanians, can the term "Proto Romanian" be taken to encompass either the Aromanian nor the Meglenian language, because this term only applies to the language spoken by the ancestors of the modern Romanians (Dacians and Gets). However even here, the term "Proto Romanian" would be misleading, because Dacians and Gets represented only a part of the Thracian people in the Balkans, (Aromanians and Meglens being descendants of Epirots and Macedonians). So, the correct term to include all Latin languages spoken in Balkans at that time is the term, Balkan Vulgar Latin or Eastern Romance Language .
Read more about this topic: Aromanian People
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