Vlach language (Serbia)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Vlach | ||
|---|---|---|
| vlaški / rumîńešće | ||
| Spoken in |  Serbia |
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| Total speakers | 54,818 (2002) | |
| Language family | Indo-European
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| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1 | none | |
| ISO 639-2 | none (B) | none (T) |
| ISO 639-3 | None | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Vlach (rumîńešće/rumânešće, влашки/vlaški) is a language spoken by the Vlachs of Еastern Serbia.
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[edit] Status
Serbian statistics list Vlach as a minority language in Serbia, recognized by Serbian Law. In the 2002 census, 40,054 people in Serbia declared themselves ethnic Vlachs and 54,818 people declared themselves native speakers of the Vlach language.
The Vlach language does not have any official status and it is not standardized.
Serbian Vlachs, as well as Aromanians are old Balkan nationalities that basically speak a Latin language or dialect. It varies from region to region because of geographical distance. They are the remnants of the interchange between the Greek and Latin worlds. They are Vlachs, Armani, Sarkatsani not Dacians who are Romanian.
[edit] Features
Its two main variants, Ungurjan and Caran, are close to some Romanian dialects with strong influence from Serbian. But to a well trained Vlach, even Vlahika in Greece is easily understood. They write out the spoken language in Greek, so if one knows the Greek alphabet one can easily decipher what is being said.
Their language was isolated from Romanian (actually, the base of the Romanian language is Vlach. Romanians only further Latinized it, Vlachs kept the language pure and simple. Romanian came years and centuries after the "Balkan" Vlach language. Luckily, it did not keep up with the neologisms (for some abstract notions, as well as technological, political and scientific concepts) borrowed from French and Italian, which Romanians have done.
[edit] Name
The English term "Vlach" (pronounced /ˈvlɑːk/ or /ˈvlæk/), corresponding here to the Serbian term vlaški, is also used to refer to the Eastern Romance languages in general, which include Romanian – but as spoken outside Romania itself. There are few differences between these Vlach languages (Greek, Macedonian, and Albanian Vlach, versus the Vlach of Istria and the Vlach of Eastern Serbia) and native speakers of these variants can understand each other easily.
[edit] Use in the media
Radio Zaječar [1] and Radio Pomoravlje [2] broadcasting programme in the Vlach language.
[edit] References
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