Etymology of Vlach

Vlach is a Slavic term used to designate the Latin peoples of South-Eastern Europe: Romanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians and Istro-Romanians.

Related Topics:
Vlach - Slavic - Latin peoples - South-Eastern Europe - Romanians - Aromanians - Megleno-Romanians - Istro-Romanians

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The origin of the name is Germanic: it originates with *Walha by which the early Germanic tribes called their Celtic neighbours, possibly derived from the name of the tribe which was known to the Romans as Volcae (in the writings of Julius Caesar) and to the Greeks as "Ouólkai" (Strabo and Ptolemy), see also Welsh.

Related Topics:
Germanic - Walh - Germanic tribes - Volcae - Julius Caesar - Strabo - Ptolemy - Welsh

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As the Celts of Gaul were Romanized, the word changed its meaning to "Romanic people", as it is still kept in the name of the Walloons of Belgium.

Related Topics:
Romanic people - Walloons

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This word for Romanic people was borrowed from the Germanic Goths (as *walhs) by the Slavs. Later on, the meaning of this noun in Slavic languages got narrower or just different:

Related Topics:
Goths - Slavs - Slavic languages

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From the Slavs, it was passed on to other peoples, such as the Hungarians ("Oláh") and Greeks ("??????", "Vlachoi") and was used for all Latin people of the Balkans. It also acquired a second meaning: "shepherd", after the occupation of many Vlachs of Greece and Serbia. In Albania, the opposite occurred: çoban "shepherd" comes to mean "Vlach".

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The term was originally an , as the Vlachs used various words derived from romanus to refer to themselves (români, rumâni, rumâri, aromâni, arumâni, armâni etc).

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Historically, it was used to refer to all Latin people of the Balkans, but nowadays, this term is only rarely used to refer the Romanians, but rather to refer to the Aromanians, Istro-Romanians and Megleno-Romanians.

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However, in Serbia, the Romanian minority (living especially in Vojvodina, Timok valley), although they are speaking the Daco-Romanian (standard Romanian) dialect, they are still referred as "Vlachs". In the Yugoslavian census figures, the Aromanians of Macedonia and the Romanians of Serbia were both classified as "Vlachs".

Related Topics:
Vojvodina - Timok

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A name used for the Southern Vlachs of Greece is "Kutsovlach" (literally "limping Vlach"; possibly a reference to the way they spoke Greek), however the Aromanians consider it quite offensive. Another name used to refer to the Aromanians (mainly in the Slavic countries: Serbia and Bulgaria) is "tsintsar", which is derived from the way the Aromanians say the word 'five': "tsintsi".

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Another Balkanic ethnicity is the Morlachs or Mavrovalachi (Greek for "black Vlachs").

Related Topics:
Morlachs - Mavrovalachi

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