05/09/2024
"Vlach, also Wallachian (and many other variants), is a term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate speakers of Eastern Romance languages living in Southeast Europe—south of the Danube (the Balkan peninsula) and north of the Danube.
Although it has also been used to name present-day Romanians, the term "Vlach" today refers primarily to speakers of the Eastern Romance languages who live south of the Danube, in Albania, Bulgaria, northern Greece, North Macedonia and eastern Serbia. These people include the ethnic groups of the Aromanians, the Megleno-Romanians and, in Serbia, the Timok Romanians. The term also became a synonym in the Balkans for the social category of shepherds, and was also used for non-Romance-speaking peoples, in recent times in the western Balkans derogatively. The term is also used to refer to the ethnographic group of Moravian Vlachs who speak a Slavic language but originate from Romanians, as well as for Morlachs and Istro-Romanians.
The term 'Vlach' first appeared in medieval sources and was generally used as an exonym for speakers of the Eastern Romance languages. But testimonies from the 13th and the 14th centuries show that, although in Europe and beyond, they were called Vlachs or Wallachians (oláh in Hungarian, Vláchoi (Βλάχοι) in Greek, Volóxi (Воло́хи) in Russian, Walachen in German, Valacchi in Italian, Valaques in French, Valacos in Spanish), the Romanians used the endonym rumân or român, from the Latin romānus, meaning 'Roman'. Also Aromanians use the endonym armãn (pl.: armãni) or rãmãn (pl.: rãmãni), from romānus. From Latin romānus are also the Albanian forms rëmen and rëmër, 'vlach'. Megleno-Romanians designate themselves with the Macedonian form Vla (pl.: Vlaš) in their own language."
Vlach, also Wallachian (and many other variants), is a term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate speakers of Eastern Romance languages living in Southeast Europe—south of the Danube (the Balkan peninsula) and north of the Danube.
Although it has also been used to name present-day Romanians, the term "Vlach" today refers primarily to speakers of the Eastern Romance languages who live south of the Danube, in Albania, Bulgaria, northern Greece, North Macedonia and eastern Serbia. These people include the ethnic groups of the Aromanians, the Megleno-Romanians and, in Serbia, the Timok Romanians. The term also became a synonym in the Balkans for the social category of shepherds, and was also used for non-Romance-speaking peoples, in recent times in the western Balkans derogatively. The term is also used to refer to the ethnographic group of Moravian Vlachs who speak a Slavic language but originate from Romanians, as well as for Morlachs and Istro-Romanians.
The term 'Vlach' first appeared in medieval sources and was generally used as an exonym for speakers of the Eastern Romance languages. But testimonies from the 13th and the 14th centuries show that, although in Europe and beyond, they were called Vlachs or Wallachians (oláh in Hungarian, Vláchoi (Βλάχοι) in Greek, Volóxi (Воло́хи) in Russian, Walachen in German, Valacchi in Italian, Valaques in French, Valacos in Spanish), the Romanians used the endonym rumân or român, from the Latin romānus, meaning 'Roman'. Also Aromanians use the endonym armãn (pl.: armãni) or rãmãn (pl.: rãmãni), from romānus. From Latin romānus are also the Albanian forms rëmen and rëmër, 'vlach'. Megleno-Romanians designate themselves with the Macedonian form Vla (pl.: Vlaš) in their own language.
In historical sources the term "Vlach" could also refer to different peoples: "Slovak, Hungarian, Balkan, Transylvanian, Romanian, or even Albanian". In late Byzantine documents, the Vlachs are sometimes mentioned as Bulgaro-Albano-Vlachs (Bulgaralbanitoblahos), or Serbo-Albano-Bulgaro-Vlachs. According to the Serbian historian Sima Ćirković, the name "Vlach" in medieval sources had the same rank as the name "Greek", "Serb" or "Latin".
In the Western Balkans, during the High Middle Ages, the word also acquired a socio-economic component, being used as an internal name for the pastoral population in the medieval Kingdom of Serbia, one that was also often engaged in the transport of goods, colonisation of empty lands, and military service. It will then expand to local interpretations with religious, ethnic, and social status particularities across the wider region, being employed as a name for Eastern Romance speaking people, Eastern Orthodox population in opposition to Catholic population, for the rural population of the hinterlands, the Christian population in general as opposed to Muslim population, or a combination of these aspects. During the early history of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, there was a military class of Vlachs in Serbia and Ottoman Macedonia, made up of Christians who served as auxiliary forces and were exempted of certain taxes until the beginning of the 17th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlachs
Théodore Valerio [fr], 1852: Pâtre valaque de Zabalcz ("Wallachian Shepherd from Zăbalț")
