Aromanian language - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Aromanian also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe. Its speakers are called Aromanians

Aromanians

Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians...

or Vlachs

Vlachs

Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...

(which is an exonym in widespread use to define the communities in the Balkans).

It shares many features with modern Romanian

Romanian language

Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

, having similar morphology and syntax, as well as a large common vocabulary inherited from Latin. An important source of dissimilarity between Romanian and Aromanian is the adstratum languages: while Romanian has been influenced to a greater extent by the Slavic languages

Slavic languages

The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

, Aromanian has been more influenced by the Greek language

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, with which it has been in close contact throughout its history.

Geographic distribution

The greatest number of Aromanian speakers are found in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, with substantial numbers of speakers also found in Albania

Albania

Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

, and in the Republic of Macedonia

Republic of Macedonia

Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...

(the latter is the only country where Aromanians are officially recognized as a minority).

Large Aromanian-speaking communities are also found in Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, where some Aromanians migrated from Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and Serbia, mainly after 1925. Aromanians may have settled in Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

due to the influence of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

in the Balkans. However, there are a small number of any Aromanians living in Turkey.

Official status

The Aromanian language has a degree of official status in the Republic of Macedonia

Republic of Macedonia

where Aromanian is taught as a subject in some primary schools (in Skopje

Skopje

Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...

, Bitola

Bitola

Bitola is a city in the southwestern part of the Republic of Macedonia. The city is an administrative, cultural, industrial, commercial, and educational centre. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba and Nidže mountains, 14 km north of the...

, Štip

Štip

Štip is the largest urban agglomeration in the eastern part of the Republic of Macedonia, serving as the economic, industrial, entertainment and educational focal point for the surrounding municipalities. As of the 2002 census, the Štip municipality alone had a population of about 47,796...

and Kruševo

Kruševo

Kruševo also spelled Krushevo, is a town in the Republic of Macedonia. It is the highest town in Macedonia, situated at an altitude of over 4,000 feet above sea level. The town of Kruševo is the seat of Kruševo Municipality.-History:...

). In the Republic of Macedonia Aromanian speakers also have the right to use the language in court proceedings. Since 2006 the Aromanian language became the second official language (after standard Macedonian

Macedonian language

Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...

) in the city of Kruševo

Kruševo

(Crushuva). The language has no official status in any other country.

History

The language is similar to Romanian and its greatest difference lies in the vocabulary. There are far fewer Slavic

Slavic languages

words in Aromanian than in Romanian, and many more Greek

Greek language

words, a reflection of the close contact of Aromanian with Greek through much of its history.

It is generally considered that sometime between 800 and 1,200 years ago, the Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...

spoken in the Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire split into four languages: Daco-Romanian

Daco-Romanian

Daco-Romanian is the term used to identify the Romanian language in contexts where distinction needs to be made between the various Eastern Romance languages...

(today's Romanian language

Romanian language

), Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian

Megleno-Romanian language

Megleno-Romanian is a Romance language, similar to Aromanian and Romanian, or a dialect of the Romanian language...

and Istro-Romanian

Istro-Romanian language

Istro-Romanian is an Eastern Romance language that is still spoken today in a few villages and hamlets in the peninsula of Istria, on the northern part of the Adriatic Sea, in what is now Croatia as well as in other countries around the world where the Istro-Romanian people settled after the two...

. One possibility for the origin of Aromanian is that in the same way standard Romanian is believed to be descended from the Latin spoken by the Getae; Dacians (Daco-Thracians) and Roman settlers in what is now Romania, Aromanian descended from the Latin spoken by Thracian and Illyrian peoples living in the southern Balkans (Northern Epirus

Northern Epirus

Northern Epirus is a term used to refer to those parts of the historical region of Epirus, in the western Balkans, that are part of the modern Albania. The term is used mostly by Greeks and is associated with the existence of a substantial ethnic Greek population in the region...

, Macedonia and Thrace).

Greek

Greek language

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 French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

.

Also, with the coming of the Turks

Turkic peoples

The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...

in the Balkans

Balkans

The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

, Aromanian received some Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

words as well. Still the lexical composition remains mainly Romance.

Dialects

The Aromanian language has several distinct dialects. There are dialects named after places that were home to significant populations of Aromanians (Vlachs); nowadays located in Albania

Albania

and Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

: the Moscopole dialect (from the Metropolis of Moscopole

Moscopole

Moscopole was a cultural and commercial center of the Aromanians, and now a small municipality in Korçë District, modern southeastern Albania. At its peak, in the mid 18th century, it hosted the first printing press in the Balkans outside Istanbul, educational institutions and numerous churches...

, also known as the "Aromanian Jerusalem") and the Gramustean dialect (from the Gramostea/Grammos region of Western Macedonia). There are also the Farsherotii dialects. Many linguists think that the language spoken by the Farsherots differs significantly from the other Vlachs and therefore it should be considered as a separate dialect. Also distinguished as distinct are dialects in the region of Bitola; Pilister, Malovište, Gopeš, Upper Beala; Gorna Belica near Struga, Krusevo

Kruševo

, and the dialects east of the Vardar River in Macedonia

Republic of Macedonia

.

An Aromanian dictionary currently under development can be found here.

Phonology

Aromanian differs relatively little from standard Romanian in its phonology, although it does have spirants /ð/ and /ɣ/ which do not exist in Romanian, probably due to influence from Greek, which has those sounds. It is written with the Latin

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

and Greek alphabets, with an orthography which resembles both that of Albanian

Albanian language

Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

(in the use of digraphs such as dh, sh, and th) and Romanian

Romanian language

(in its use of c and g, which it also shares with Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

), along with the letter ã, used for the sounds represented in Romanian by ă and â/î.

Some of the differences between Romanian and Aromanian:

Aromanian preserves a number of sounds from Proto-Romanian that have disappeared or changed in standard Romanian, including /dz/ (/z/ in Romanian); /ʎ/ (which became /j/ or disappeared in Romanian); and final /u/ (lost in Romanian).
Proto-Romanian and Romanian /tʃ/ becomes /ts/ in Aromanian.

Grammar

The grammar and morphology are very similar to those of the Romance languages:

It has two grammatical numbers: singular and plural (no dual
Dual (grammatical number)
Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun...

).
It is a null-subject language.
Verbs have many conjugations
Grammatical conjugation
In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...

, including:
- A present tense
  Present tense
  The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
  
  , a preterite
  Preterite
  The preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...
  
  , an imperfect, a pluperfect and a future tense
  Future tense
  In grammar, a future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,...
  
  in the indicative mood, for statements of fact.
- An imperative mood, for direct commands.
- Three non-finite forms
  Non-finite verb
  In linguistics, a non-finite verb is a verb form that is not limited by a subject and, more generally, is not fully inflected by categories that are marked inflectionally in language, such as tense, aspect, mood, number, gender, and person...
  
  : infinitive, gerund, and past participle.
- Distinct active and passive voices, as well as an impersonal passive voice
  Impersonal passive voice
  The impersonal passive voice is a verb voice that decreases the valency of an intransitive verb to zero.The impersonal passive deletes the subject of an intransitive verb. In place of the verb's subject, the construction instead may include a syntactic placeholder, also called a dummy. This...
  
  .

The Aromanian language has some exceptions from the Romance languages, some of them are shared in Romanian

Romanian language

: the definite article is a clitic

Clitic

In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...

particle appended at the end of the word, both the definite and indefinite articles can be inflected

Declension

In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...

, and nouns are classified in three gender

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

s, with neuter in addition to masculine and feminine.

Verbs

Aromanian grammar does have some features that distinguish it from Romanian, an important one being the complete disappearance of verb infinitives which clearly puts it in the lower part of the Balkans. As such, the tenses and moods that in Romanian use the infinitive (like the future simple tense

Future tense

In grammar, a future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,...

and the conditional mood

Conditional mood

In linguistics, the conditional mood is the inflectional form of the verb used in the independent clause of a conditional sentence to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event, that is contingent on another set of circumstances...

) 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, indicating also the conjugation of the corresponding verbs in Romanian.

Conjugation	Aromanian (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 şedu armãn	văd şed rămân	a vedea II a şedea II a rămâne III (or a rămânea II)	see sit stay
III	duc cunoscu ardu	duc cunosc ard	a duce III a cunoaşte III a arde III	carry, lead know burn
IV	mor fug îndulţescu	mor fug îndulcesc	a muri IV a fugi IV a îndulci IV	die run sweeten

Future tense

The future tense is formed in the same way as in archaic Romanian, using an auxiliary invariable particle "va" (derived from the verb "to go") and the subjunctive mood

Subjunctive mood

In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....

Aromanian	Romanian (archaic)	Romanian (modern)	English
va s-cãntu	va să cânt	voi cânta	I will sing
va s-cãntsã	va să cânţi	vei cânta	you (sg.) will sing
va s-cãntã	va să cânte	va cânta	he/she will sing
va s-cãntãm	va să cântăm	vom cânta	we will sing
va s-cãntats	va să cântaţi	veţi cânta	you (pl.) will sing
va s-cãntã	va să cânte	vor cânta	they will sing

Pluperfect

Whereas in Romanian the pluperfect (past perfect) is formed synthetically (as for instance in Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

), Aromanian uses a periphrastic construction with the auxiliary verb am (have) as the imperfect (aveam) and the past participle, as in French

French language

, except that French replaces avoir (have) with être (be) for intransitive verbs. Aromanian shares this feature with Megleno-Romanian

Megleno-Romanian language

Megleno-Romanian is a Romance language, similar to Aromanian and Romanian, or a dialect of the Romanian language...

as well as other languages in the Balkan linguistic union

Balkan linguistic union

The Balkan sprachbund or linguistic area is the ensemble of areal features—similarity in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and phonology—among the languages of the Balkans. Several features are found across these languages though not all need apply to every single language...

.

Only the auxiliary verb inflects according to number and person: aveam, aveai, avea, aveamu, aveatã, avea, whereas the past participle doesn't change.

Aromanian	Megleno-Romanian	Romanian	English
avea mãcatã	vea mancat	mâncase	(he/she) had eaten
avea durnjitã	vea durmit	dormise	(he/she) had slept

Gerund

The gerund

Gerund

In linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....

which exists in Aromanian is only applied to some verbs, not all. These verbs are:

1st conjugation: acatsã (acãtsãnda(lui)), portu, lucreashce, adiljeashce.
2nd conjugation: armãnã, cade, poate, tatse, veade.
3rd conjugation: arupã, dipune, dutse, dzãse, featse, tradze, scrie.
4th conjugation: apire, doarme, hivrie, aure, pate, avde.

Situation in Greece

Even before the incorporation of various Aromanian-speaking territories into the Greek state (1832, 1912), the language was subordinated to Greek

Greek language

, traditionally the language of education and religion in Constantinople and other prosperous urban cities. The historical studies cited below (mostly Capidan) show that especially after the fall of Moscopole (1788) the process of Hellenisation via education and religion gained a strong impetus mostly among people doing business in the cities.

The Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n state began opening schools for the Romanian influenced Vlachs in the 1860s, but this initiative was regarded with suspicion by the Greeks , who thought Romania was trying to assimilate them. 19th century travellers in the Balkans such as W M Leake and Henry Fanshawe Tozer noted that Vlachs in the Pindus and Macedonia were bi-lingual, reserving the Latin dialect for inside the home. A notable and perhaps not so well known (outside Greece) fact regarding the Greek Aromanian speakers is the contributions made by the community to the evolution and institutions of the Greek state during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Athens Polytechnic- known as "Metsovion" (of Metsovo) - the Greek Vlach village in the Pindus from where its two main benefactors originated (Nikolaos Stournaras and Michail Tositsas), The Zappeion

Zappeion

The Zappeion is a building in the National Gardens of Athens in the heart of Athens, Greece. It is generally used for meetings and ceremonies, both official and private.-Constructing the Zappeion:...

megaron, and the foundation of the Bank of Greece

Bank of Greece

The Bank of Greece is the nationalcentral bank of Greece, located in Athens on Panepistimiou Street, with several branches across the country. Founded in 1927...

to name but a few were realised by the donations of notable Greek-Vlach benefactors. The fact that this occurred at a time when the majority of Vlachs resided outside the then Kingdom of Greece served to seriously undermine any Romanian claims that they constituted a persecuted minority group. The Balkans are a well known test bed for theories that assert language is a poor determinant of national consciousness. (see Bosnia

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

, Albania

Albania

, Macedonia

Republic of Macedonia

and so on.)

Romanian interference in the first half of the 20th century eventually led to antagonism between Aromanians with a Hellenic national consciousness (pejoratively known in Romania as grecomans

Grecomans

The term Grecomans is a pejorative used in Bulgaria, Republic of Macedonia, Romania and Albania to characterize Arvanitic, Aromanian, and Slavic-speaking Greeks. The term generally means "pretending to be a Greek" and implies a non-Greek origin...

) who rejected what they perceived as Romanian propaganda, and those who espoused a Latin identity as promoted in the Romanian schools. According to the Romanian nationalist point of view the "grecomans" and the Greek militia (known as "andarti") "terrorized" the Pindus region between 1903–1912 leading to a diplomatic crisis with Romania in 1911 (see Adina Berciu, Maria Petre: 2004). The Greek nationalist point of view maintains that the newly incorporated Romanian state was seeking to divert attention from more serious territorial disputes with Russia and Bulgaria by using Greek Vlachs as leverage. It is noteworthy that Romanian nationalists touring the Greek Vlach villages were invariably struck by the locals' lack of interest in the Romanian cause.

By 1948, the new Soviet-imposed communist regime of Romania

Communist Romania

Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...

had closed all Romanian-run schools outside Romania and since the closure, there has been no formal education in Aromanian and speakers have been encouraged to learn and use the Greek language. This has been a process encouraged by the community itself and is not an explicit State policy. The decline and isolation of the Romanian orientated groups was not helped by the fact that they openly collaborated with the Axis powers of Italy and Germany during the occupation of Greece in WWII. Notably the vast majority of Vlachs fought in the Greek resistance and a number of their villages were destroyed by the Germans.

The issue of Aromanian-language education is a sensitive one, partly because of the resurgence in Romanian interest on the subject. Romanian nationalism maintains that Greek propaganda is still very strong in the area, inferring that Greeks define Aromanians as a sort of "Latinized Greeks". The fact remains that it is the majority of Greek Vlachs themselves that oppose the Romanian propaganda (those that supported it having emigrated in the early 20thC to other countries), as they have done for the past 200 years. Most Greek Vlachs oppose the introduction of the language into the education system as EU

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

and leading Greek political figures have suggested, viewing it as an artificial distinction between them and other Greeks. For example, the former education minister, George Papandreou

George Andreas Papandreou

Georgios A. Papandreou , commonly anglicised to George and shortened to Γιώργος in Greek, is a Greek politician who served as Prime Minister of Greece following his party's victory in the 2009 legislative election...

, received a negative response from Greek-Aromanian mayors and associations to his proposal for a trial Aromanian language education programme. The Panhellenic Federation of Cultural Associations of Vlachs (Πανελλήνια Ομοσπονδία Πολιτιστικών Συλλόγων Βλάχων) expressed strong opposition to EU's recommendation in
1997 that the tuition of Aromanian be supported so as to avoid its extinction.http://vlahos.xan.duth.gr/nea/180304.htm. On a visit to Metsovo

Metsovo

Metsovo is a town in Epirus on the mountains of Pindus in northern Greece, between Ioannina to the north and Meteora to the south. The largest centre of Vlach life in Greece, Metsovo is bypassed by GR-6 and also by Egnatia Odos Motorway....

, Epirus

Epirus (periphery)

Epirus , formally the Epirus Region , is a geographical and administrative region in northwestern Greece. It borders the regions of West Macedonia and Thessaly to the east, West Greece to the south, the Ionian Sea and the Ionian Islands to the west and the country of Albania to the north. The...

in 1998, Greek President Konstantinos Stephanopoulos called on Vlachs to speak and teach their language, but its decline continues.

A recent example of the sensitivity of the issue was the 2001 conviction (later overturned in the Appeals Court) to 15 months in jail of Sotiris Bletsas

Sotiris Bletsas

Sotiris Bletsas is an architect and Aromanian language activist from Greece.In 1995, at an Aromanian festival in Greece, he distributed some EBLUL material about minority languages in Greece...

http://www.vlachophiles.net/index_on_censorship.htm http://www.europarl.europa.eu/omk/sipade3?PROG=WQ&L=EN&PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+E-2001-1325+0+DOC+SGML+V0//EN&LEVEL=2, a Greek Aromanian who was found guilty of "dissemination of false information" after he distributed informative material on minority languages in Europe (which included information on minority languages of Greece), produced by the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages and financed by the European Commission

European Commission

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

. His conviction met with broad condemnation in Greece http://www.iospress.gr/mikro2001/mikro20010210.htm and it emerged that his case was zealously pursued by Aromanian leaders who viewed themselves as patriotic Greeks and felt affronted by the suggestion that they belonged to a "minority". Bletsas was eventually acquitted http://www.florina.org/html/2001/2001_bletsas_acquitted.html.

Language sample

Tatã a nostru

cai eshci pi tser,

s-ayisascã numa a Ta,

s-yinã Amirãrilja a Ta,

s-facã vreare-a Ta,

cum pi tserlu,

ashi sh-pisti loc.

Pãne-a nostrã atsea di cathi dzuã dã-nã-u sh-azã

shi ljartã-nã amãrtiile-a noastre

ashi cum lji-ljirtãm sh-a amãrtoshlor a noshci.

Shi nu nã-du la pirazmo,

ala aveaglji-nã di atsel arãulu.

Cã a Ta easte Amirãrilja shi puteare

a Tatãlui shi Hiljlui shi a Ayului Spirit,

torã, totãna shi tu eta-a etilor.

Amen.

(the Lord's Prayer

Lord's Prayer

The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...

- source)

Tuti iatsãli umineshtsã s-fac liberi shi egali la nãmuzea shi-ndrepturli. Eali suntu hãrziti cu fichiri shi sinidisi shi lipseashti un cu alantu sh-si poartã tu duhlu-a frãtsãljiljei., translated by Dina Cuvata

Comparison with Romanian

The following text is given for comparison in Aromanian and in Romanian

Romanian language

, with an English translation. The spelling of Aromanian is that decided at the Bitola Symposium of August 1997. The word choice in the Romanian version was such that it matches the Aromanian text, although in modern Romanian other words might have been more appropriate. The English translation is only provided as a guide to the meaning, with an attempt to keep the word order as close to the original as possible.

Aromanian	Romanian	English
Vocala easti un son dit zburãrea-a omlui, faptu cu tritsearea sonorã, libirã sh-fãrã cheadicã, a vimtului prit canalu sonor (adrat di coardili vocali shi ntreaga gurã) icã un semnu grafic cari aspuni un ahtari son.	Vocala este un sunet din vorbirea omului, făcut cu trecerea sonoră, liberă şi fără piedică, a vântului prin canalul sonor (compus din coardele vocale şi întreaga gură) sau un semn grafic care reprezintă un atare sunet.	The vowel is a sound in human speech, made by the sonorous, free and unhindered passing of the air through the sound channel (composed of the vocal cords and the whole mouth) or a graphic symbol corresponding to that sound.
Ashi bunãoarã, avem shasili vocali tsi s-fac cu vimtul tsi treatsi prit gurã, iu limba poati si s-aflã tu un loc icã altu shi budzãli pot si sta dishcljisi unã soe icã altã.	Aşa bunăoară, avem şase vocale ce se fac cu vântul ce trece prin gură, unde limba poate să se afle într-un loc sau altul şi buzele pot să stea deschise un soi sau altul.	This way, we have six vowels that are produced by the air passing through the mouth, where the tongue can be in one place or another and the lips can be opened in one way or another.
Vocalili pot s-hibã pronuntsati singuri icã deadun cu semivocali i consoani.	Vocalele pot să fie pronunţate singure sau deodată cu semivocale sau consoane.	The vowels can be pronounced alone or together with semivowels or consonants.

Common words and phrases

English	Aromanian	Romanian
Aromanian (person)	(m.) armãn, (f.) armãnã	(m.) aromân, (f.) aromână
Aromanian (language)	limba armãneascã, srmãneashce	limba aromână, aromâneşte
Good day!	Buna dzuã!	Bună ziua!
What's your name?	Cum ti chljamã? (informal)	Cum te cheamă? (informal)
How are you?	Cum hits? (formal) Cum eshci? (informal)	Ce mai faci? / Cum eşti? (informal)
What are you doing?	Tsi fats? Tsi adari? (popular)	Ce faci? (informal)
Goodbye!	S-nã videm cu ghine!	La revedere! (Să ne vedem cu bine!)
Bye!	Ciao!	Ciao! (informal), Salut! (informal), La revedere! (formal)
Please.	Vã-plãcãrsescu. (formal) Ti-plãcãrsescu (informal)	Te rog. (informal)
Sorry.	Ãnj-easte jale.	Scuze. (jale = tristeţe, părere de rău; Îmi este jale. = I'm ashamed.)
Thank you.	Haristo.	Mulţumesc!
Yes.	IE	Da.
No.	Nu.	Nu.
I don't understand.	Nu achicãsescu.	Nu înţeleg.
Where's the bathroom?	Iu easte toaletlu?	Unde este toaleta?
Do you speak English?	Zburats anglicheashce?	Vorbiţi englezeşte? (formal)
I am a student.	Mine escu studentu.	Sunt student. (m.)
You are beautiful.	Hii mushatã. (Gramostean dialect, f.) Eshci mushatã. (official, f.)	Eşti frumoasă. (informal, f.)

External links

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Geographic distribution

Official status

History

Dialects

Phonology

Grammar

Verbs

Future tense

Pluperfect

Gerund

Situation in Greece

Language sample

Comparison with Romanian

Common words and phrases

See also

External links