| Megleno-Romanian | |
|---|---|
| Meglenitic, Meglinitic, Moglenitic | |
| vlăhește[citation needed] | |
| Native to | Greece,North Macedonia,Romania,Turkey,[1]Serbia |
| Ethnicity | Megleno-Romanians |
Native speakers | 5,000 (2002)[2] |
Indo-European
| |
Early forms | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ruq |
| Glottolog | megl1237 |
| ELP | Megleno-Romanian |
| Linguasphere | 51-AAD-bb |
| Eastern Romance languages |
|---|
| Vulgar Latin language Substratum Thraco-Roman culture |
| Romanian |
|
| Aromanian |
| Megleno-Romanian |
| Istro-Romanian |
Megleno-Romanian (known asvlăhește[citation needed] by its speakers, and Megleno-Romanian orMeglenitic and sometimesMoglenitic orMeglinitic by linguists) is anEastern Romance language, similar toAromanian.[5] It is spoken by theMegleno-Romanians in a few villages in theMoglena region that spans the border between theGreek region ofMacedonia andNorth Macedonia. It is also spoken by emigrants from these villages and their descendants inRomania, inTurkey by a smallMuslim group, and inSerbia. It is considered anendangered language.
Megleno-Romanian is a member of the family of Romance languages. More specifically, it is anEastern Romance language, a language formed after the retreat of theRoman Empire from the Balkans. Due to the fact that it is spoken by very few people and because of its similarities with theAromanian, modernRomanian andIstro-Romanian languages, some linguists consider it to be an intermediary betweenRomanian andAromanian, often being considered either a dialect of Romanian, a dialect of Aromanian, or an independent language. It is closer to standard Romanian than the Aromanian language, suggesting that it split fromCommon Romanian later than Aromanian. Megleno-Romanian has been strongly influenced by the neighbouringSouth Slavic varieties.
The termMegleno-Romanian has been used by linguists (mainly Romanians), who noticed the similarity to theRomanian language. The Megleno-Romanians identify themselves asvlaș ("Vlach") or by local endonyms such asliumnicean ("fromLiumnița") orumineț ("fromUmă").[6]
Megleno-Romanian is spoken in several villages in thePella andKilkis regional units ofMacedonia,Greece, as well as in a handful of villages across the border inNorth Macedonia. In the village ofHuma, the language was spoken by most inhabitants before they and other Megleno-Romanians from the region moved in the cities ofGevgelija andSkopje where some have preserved their native language.[7] AfterWorld War I, some Megleno-Romanians moved toRomania, inSouthern Dobruja, but were moved to the village ofCerna inTulcea County (Northern Dobruja) after thepopulation exchange between Bulgaria and Romania. In Cerna, about 1,200 people continue to speak Megleno-Romanian. In 1940, about 30 families moved from Cerna to theBanat region ofRomania in the villages of Variaș, Biled and Jimbolia. Some speakers who identified asMuslim, from the village ofNânti (Nótia), were moved to Turkey from Greece as part of thepopulation exchange between them of the 1920s.[8] Some also live inSerbia, specially in the village ofGudurica.[9]
Megleno-Romanian is not a standardised language and there are phonological differences across idioms.[10]
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | c | k | ||
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | |||
| Affricate | voiceless | t͡s | t͡ʃ | ||||
| voiced | d͡z | d͡ʒ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | ç | (h) | |
| voiced | v | z | ʒ | ||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Approximant | lateral | l | ʎ | ||||
| central | j | w | |||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | iiː | uuː | |
| Close-mid | eeː | ə | ooː |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔɔː | |
| Open | aaː |
Some particular phonetic characteristics of the Megleno-Romanian vowel system compared to otherEastern Romance languages are:[10]
Much of the vocabulary is ofLatin origin, and much of its phonetics and semantics are shared with Aromanian and Romanian: (n.b.: MR=Megleno-Romanian, DR=Daco-Romanian, i.e. Romanian)
Megleno-Romanian also contains some words that have cognates withAlbanian. These words are present inDaco-Romanian too:
There are also some words which are of Slavic origin and which can be found in all the Eastern Romance languages:
There are a number ofByzantine andModern Greek words, several dozens of which are also found inDaco-Romanian (Romanian language) and Aromanian and about 80 words that were borrowed viaMacedonian andBulgarian languages and other languages of theBalkans. Prior to the creation of the modern state of Greece, Megleno-Romanian borrowed very few words directly from Greek.
The most important influence on Megleno-Romanian was theEast South Slavic languages, this influence being more profound than that exerted by Greek on Aromanian. Most Slavic terms are ofMacedonian andBulgarian origins. The linguistTheodor Capidan argued that the words borrowed show some phonetic features of the Bulgarian language dialect spoken in theRhodope Mountains. There are many instances where basic words of Latin origin that can still be found in Daco-Romanian and Aromanian were replaced by Slavic words. In some cases, standard Romanian also independently borrowed the same word.
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