CHAT: Vlach (was: Roumania...)

At 10:59 pm -0700 17/4/99, Danny Wier wrote:
>Quoth Ray:
>
>>I mean the group which comprises the Aruminian or Vlach (also called
>>Macedo-Romanian) dialects spoken in parts of Albania, Bulgaria,
>
>Vlach is a form of Romanian?  I thought it was a dialect of Romany...
A Romance language related to Romanian would be a stricter description, I
think.  It is now spoken in 'linguistic islands' in Albania, Macedonia &
north west Greece.  The term is now dying out and 'Aruminian' or
'Arumanian' is now the more common term.  The Megleno-Romanian dialects of
the Salonika region and southern Mecadonia have also been called Vlach.

The word itself Slavic (taking that form Czech; the Polish is 'Wloch') and
there are cognate forms in Russian & other Slavlangs.  The word was used of
any Romance speaker whether of the Romanian or Italian dialects.  The name
turns up in one of the former Romanian principalities: Wal(l)achia.

But it is not in origin a Slav word but was borrowed from Germanic and is
cognate with modern German 'welsch' and English 'Welsh' both meaning
"Roman" whether Latin speaking, as in southern Europe, or Celtic-speaking
as in the case of Romano-Brits.

The word also BTW has fond its way into Hungarian as 'Olasz'.

Whether somewhere, somewhen any Slav speakers also applied the term to
Romanies, I don't know; but I guess it's not improbable.

Ray.