UniLang

The Aromanian language is the closest language to Romanian,that some linguists even consider to be a dialect of Romanian. We are happy to have here a native speaker;
I am looking forward to learn it.Dimos we're waiting for your help .

I'm a Romanian native, but I was able to read an Aromanian book (written by Tiberiu Cunia, about the Aromanian sounds and spelling). At first it was not easy, becasue I had to guess many of the very usual words, so it was like a kind of puzzle, but finally I managed to read and understand the whole book. The fact that it contained many neologisms helped a lot. I'm afraid though that if the book had a different subject, it would have been much more difficult. I'm sure that if I met an Aromanian and talked face to face we would have a hard time trying to understand each other.

My personal conclusion is that Aromanian is indeed very close to Romanian, but is a distinct language, not just a dialect. In fact this is what most linguists say today, at least outside Romania. The grammar and phonetics are quite similar, showing a close "genetic" relation, but the vocabulary has a lot of Greek loanwords. On average I'd say that Aromanian is about as distant from Romanian as Italian is.

Unfortunately, many Aromanians are losing their mother tongue. There are very few measures taken for promoting the language, teaching it in schools, and protecting it. Partly, the Aromanians themselves are to blame, because they don't seem to be able to get to a consensus about a language standard (including a spelling standard), because they don't want to ask for minority rights in their countries, in particular in Greece and Albania, and also because there are misunderstandings between the various Aromanian branches. If this situation continues, in a few generations we could see the language very close to its death. This is already happening now with Istro-Romanian, and also the Megleno-Romanian is in a dangerous situation.

I wanted to post several useful links. There was the online version of Tiberiu Cunia's book, a Romanian-Aromanian dictionary, and the websites of a few Aromanian associations. Now I see that none of these pages is active any longer...

Many linguists consider Aromanian to be the closest language to Romanian; as for Italian or French,because both are as close to Romanian,I guess that,given the Grammar,declension, and the article+ many 'common' words which are not found in French or Italian(to be honest,mostly neologism resemlbe these two languages), Aromanian is the closest language to Romanian

AndreiB wrote:Many linguists consider Aromanian to be the closest language to Romanian

To be very precise, Megleno-Romanian is closer, because it is considered intermediate between Aromanian and Romanian. But indeed there is no doubt that Aromanian is very closely related to Romanian. There is a consensus that most probably Romanian and Aromanian split around year 1000 AD, give or take a couple hyndred years. No mainstream linguist ever considered Romanian and Aromanian to be unrelated or only distantly related. Only a handful of marginal linguists theorized that Aromanian must have derived from Greek under the influence of Latin, but they cannot explain the obvious Latin structure and the grammatical similarity with Romanian.

unfortunately the aromanian language has adopted many foreign words, especially greek. but like every language it can be cleared. what makes it more difficult is that there is not any serious organization interested in the survival of aromanian.
if an official alphabet is adopted things will be easier because those who want to learn the language can do it. this will help the native speakers to retain the language. now it is dying because the young ages don't speak aromanian.
i am lucky to be able to speak quite well but i don't know how to write it. it's so distressing...

dimos wrote:unfortunately the aromanian language has adopted many foreign words, especially greek. but like every language it can be cleared. what makes it more difficult is that there is not any serious organization interested in the survival of aromanian.
if an official alphabet is adopted things will be easier because those who want to learn the language can do it. this will help the native speakers to retain the language.

Borrowing words is natural. All languages do that, sooner or later. English borrowed tons of words from French (Normand), now French borrows from English. Romanian borrowed from Slavic, Turkish, Greek, French and now from English and so on. It's unavoidable.

There is an Aromanian alphabet and there are several Aromanian organizations. Here are a few useful links:

* http://www.farsarotul.org/nl23_3.htm
* http://www.geocities.com/armaneasca/
* http://www.geocities.com/armaneasca/Links.html

i didn't know that the aromanian issue is so organised! it's encouraging
now i want to get involved...

HOW IS THE NAME OF THE LANGUAGE? I THINK AROMYN, THIS Y LIKE TURKISH I.....
IS IT RIGHT???

dimos wrote:i didn't know that the aromanian issue is so organised! it's encouraging
now i want to get involved...

POLY SKOPIANI PROPAGANDA MOY MYRIZEI ,DIMO,.......PROSEXE, AYTOI OI VLAKES EKMETALEYONTAI KAI TO PARAMIKRO......

Ahem... your keyboard seems to be broken, fix that caps lock, would you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_posting#Double_posting

DANAY I have already told you to stop use capital letters everywhere.Otherwise you force me to delelte all your messages

I'd love to learn Aromanian, but unfortunately it's not easy to find written sources at all :S
there is a significant Aromanian-speaking minority in Eastern Serbia, but they have neither newspapers in their language, nor schools...just a single church for some 30 000 people, that's sad :S

Dinko1704986 wrote:I'd love to learn Aromanian, but unfortunately it's not easy to find written sources at all :S
there is a significant Aromanian-speaking minority in Eastern Serbia, but they have neither newspapers in their language, nor schools...just a single church for some 30 000 people, that's sad :S

I guess you're speaking about Vlahs? Vlahs are not Aromanians,and their language is Romanian(more precisely the Romanian spoken like 120 years ago,untouched by neologisms).

AndreiB wrote:

Dinko1704986 wrote:I'd love to learn Aromanian, but unfortunately it's not easy to find written sources at all :S
there is a significant Aromanian-speaking minority in Eastern Serbia, but they have neither newspapers in their language, nor schools...just a single church for some 30 000 people, that's sad :S

I guess you're speaking about Vlahs? Vlahs are not Aromanians,and their language is Romanian(more precisely the Romanian spoken like 120 years ago,untouched by neologisms).

I am indeed talking about Vlahs. There are Aromanian speakers in Serbia, but according to Ethnologue, not in the valley of Timoc (http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=rup) My bad but are you sure the Vlach language is closer to archaic Romanian ? I know it doesn't have, for example, the more recent borrowings from French and Italian, but I thought it had completly lost the infinitive, and such, isn't that true ?

Dinko1704986 wrote:
I am indeed talking about Vlahs. There are Aromanian speakers in Serbia, but according to Ethnologue, not in the valley of Timoc (http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=rup) My bad but are you sure the Vlach language is closer to archaic Romanian ? I know it doesn't have, for example, the more recent borrowings from French and Italian, but I thought it had completly lost the infinitive, and such, isn't that true ?

More recent borrowings mostly from English(in the last years) , but also from French and Italian up until 1995 and so.

A Romanian can understand a Vlach 100% because the Romanian knows all the words the Vlah uses. But a Vlah cannot fully understand a Romanian if the Romanian speaks with neologisms. This is how it goes.


This is a video for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjN76fboF18

I could slightly disagree here. I had the chance to meet a Vlach from Timoc valley, I could understand him perfectly, whereas my other Romanian friends struggled. The difference? I grew up in Romania some 50 km from the Timoc valley and got accustomed to the local dialects, and - more important - I can understand Serbian. The Vlachs might not have borrowed from French and English but they surely did borrow from Serbian. Which is actually quite understandable.

Risking to go totally off topic here, but my Slovak dialect uses "sekera" for axe. Can't tell what the standard variety uses. Is this a borrowing from Romanian then?

About the Najlepša Vlajna 2009 contest, if I only didn't live 1000km away from there... Mind you I'm still quite near to my favorite river: Danube.

Quick, someone say something about Aromanian and steer the topic back where it should be

duko wrote:Risking to go totally off topic here, but my Slovak dialect uses "sekera" for axe. Can't tell what the standard variety uses. Is this a borrowing from Romanian then?

About the Najlepša Vlajna 2009 contest, if I only didn't live 1000km away from there... Mind you I'm still quite near to my favorite river: Danube.

Quick, someone say something about Aromanian and steer the topic back where it should be

we use s(j)ekira as well, I think it's a direct descendent of the Latin "securis", not a recent borrowing. Hungarian has szekerce as well, it has to be that same root.

1000 km can be sailed, especially on a beautiful river

and yes...Aromanian ? anybody ?

Gata,am mutat mesajele privitoare la Istroromână aici.
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=8034&p=490545#p490545

Vorbind de aromână,am un prieten aromân,din localitatea Babadag,Judeţul Tulcea. În Dobrogea,dupa cum ştiţi,trăiesc mulţi aromâni. Acest prieten mi-a spus că un aromân poate vorbi limba respectivă în două feluri ,unul fiind uşor de înţeles pentru un român,altul fiind greu de înţeles. Din păcate,nu l-am întrebat ce vrea să spună. Probabil este ceva legat atît de cuvinte,cît şi de pronunţie. Mai mult,tot acest prieten mi-a spus că unii aromâni se consideră mai degrabă greci decît români,ceea ce mi se pare ciudat.

AndreiB wrote: [...] Vlahs are not Aromanians, [...]

this is not correct... or perhaps depicts the situation in northern Balkans.
in Greece (and Albania) country with large aromanian communities, Vlah=Aromanian.
We call ourselves ("Armãni" or "Rãmãni") while the others call us "Vlahi"
We call our language "Armãneshti" or "Rãmãneshti" while others call it "Vlahika"

ã: pronounced like "u" in "burn"