Origin of the Eastern Romance or Vlach Peoples

[Karabars]

(Your haplogroup seemingly indicates a Germanic origin from the Alpes.)

Great reading, glad to see some Romanians leaning towards the Migration or Admigration theory. It's not like Hungarians would gain anything from claiming or proving Romanians were not ethnically native there, as Romania is close to being an ethnostate and thus an undisputable modern claim to their lands anyway.

I'm also curious what genetics will prove. Like recent studies indicate Romanians are 50-60% Slavic genetic-wise. Transylvanian Romanians cluster near other Central Europeans (while remaining close and basically identical to other Romanians). Linguistically it seems that "Romanian" split in the 10th century to the "Vlach languages". And genetically almost every migration is low impact, meaning that language, culture and political shifts are the default, not a genetic one, so modern Romanians have Dacian genes, even if Dacians were not part of (or not the main one of) their ethnogenesis. Just like how English folks are mostly Celtic genetically, despite their Anglo-Saxon-Jutes-Norman (Germanic) origin.

A small sidenote on the Gesta: Gleu (Gyalu) was the ruler of Vlachs and Slavs, while Menumorot (Ménmarót) ruled over Khazars and Seklers. Not sure why he is portrayed as Vlach in Romanian historiography.

 

[Dahoi]

(Your haplogroup seemingly indicates a Germanic origin from the Alpes.)

Great reading, glad to see some Romanians leaning towards the Migration or Admigration theory. It's not like Hungarians would gain anything from claiming or proving Romanians were not ethnically native there, as Romania is close to being an ethnostate and thus an undisputable modern claim to their lands anyway.

I'm also curious what genetics will prove. Like recent studies indicate Romanians are 50-60% Slavic genetic-wise. Transylvanian Romanians cluster near other Central Europeans (while remaining close and basically identical to other Romanians). Linguistically it seems that "Romanian" split in the 10th century to the "Vlach languages". And genetically almost every migration is low impact, meaning that language, culture and political shifts are the default, not a genetic one, so modern Romanians have Dacian genes, even if Dacians were not part of (or not the main one of) their ethnogenesis. Just like how English folks are mostly Celtic genetically, despite their Anglo-Saxon-Jutes-Norman (Germanic) origin.

A small sidenote on the Gesta: Gleu (Gyalu) was the ruler of Vlachs and Slavs, while Menumorot (Ménmarót) ruled over Khazars and Seklers. Not sure why he is portrayed as Vlach in Romanian historiography.

In the past I used to belive in the autochtonus theory of Romanians and that Romanians are the descendents of only Romanized Dacians. Now, I am sure that we, Romanians, are the descendents of Vlachs that migrated north of the Danube but also in other places from the Balkans. Genetically, it seems (judging by the y-dna) that Romanians are around half Slavic but we also got a big frequency of J2a compared to our neighbours, which shows our strong Roman legacy.

 

[J Man]

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In the past I used to belive in the autochtonus theory of Romanians and that Romanians are the descendents of only Romanized Dacians. Now, I am sure that we, Romanians, are the descendents of Vlachs that migrated north of the Danube but also in other places from the Balkans. Genetically, it seems (judging by the y-dna) that Romanians are around half Slavic but we also got a big frequency of J2a compared to our neighbours, which shows our strong Roman legacy.

I am definitely interested in learning more about J2a among Romanians. Are you J2a yourself?

 

[Dahoi]

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I am definitely interested in learning more about J2a among Romanians. Are you J2a yourself?

I havent done any y-haplogroup test but I would like to take one, could you recommand me a company that does y-dna testing?

 

[Karabars]

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I havent done any y-haplogroup test but I would like to take one, could you recommand me a company that does y-dna testing?

FTDNA with BigY is really costy, but it is the most precise and deep dived Y-haplogroup-wise.

After that comes 23&me, which gives a fairly deep subclade.

After that you have the option to just get AncestryDNA and use cladefinder.yseq.net. It's often more vauge, but gives real data.

And then MyHeritage with Cladefinder, but this one is often inaccurate, only good for like the first letter.

I tested them all except BigY (but I uploaded my Raw Data to FTDNA). I really want to get BigY in the far future, but often it not worth the money. Overall I like 23&me the most in every way.

 

[J Man]

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I havent done any y-haplogroup test but I would like to take one, could you recommand me a company that does y-dna testing?

I agree with what Karabars says....My top two are FTDNA and then 23andme in that order.

It would be great to see a comprehensive Y-DNA survey of all regions of Romania at some point. I would like to see if J2a is concentrated more in certain areas or if it's distribution is fairly even throughout the country.

 

[Al'Nasi]

I have read everything but not perfectly it is a nice take honestly. I will add information that I know from my experience trying to understand where the Aromanians come from.

Aromanians all claim origins from Epirus all of them the ones outside of Epirus have usually a specific village or mountain in Epirus they come from for example I met Gramos Vlachs but their villages were in Macedonia. They migrated out of Epirus into Thessaly during the Byzantine era mostly from Metsovite Aromanians while the ones in Macedonia and Bulgaria are from the Ottoman period and non metsovites and all have a strong hellenisation of their dialect and Greek loan words although thessaly has the most. The resistance to Romanian as kin comes from the Roman Legion during WW2. Romania literally payed a small group of Aromanians that were pro Romania to take over land and all they did was terrorise the local Aromanians so a lot of them grew to hate a connection with Romania.

I think people are so busy trying to make an initial homeland for the vlachs that they ignore that a lingustic continuum is a realistical scenario. Kekaumenos who claims the vlachs were dacians and bessi also says they came to Epirus and Macedonia during the early second century which somehow is not discussed. John Lydus says in the balkans natives the majority of which were greek actually spoke latin as their first language and the public servants had to keep speaking latin with them despite the changes of Heraclius due to that. To begin with the Jirecek line is not good grounds for making an origins it is only based on inscriptions and place names and it feels like it ignores the discussion and actual spread of latin within the historical texts and how latin inscriptions are actually present throughout the region for a clear boarder that is simply not there. Also the Albanian unfluence I suspect is actually due to diffusion, if these people were in contact with each other before the slavic migration you'd expect loan words to spread and the largest contact group to have more words.

I have put my thesis that resists a bit yours but I think we both agree that Romania is not the homeland of the Romanians I agree with you that the homeland is probably Bulgaria although a dacia mix is possible with it. I also agree with you that they are barely different languages and I agree that the split is around 1000 years since the dialect continuum broke. I also will not claim that I actually know for a fact that Aromanians are just latinised greeks a mixed origins is probably the case I just have doubts about a singular northern homeland.


Genetics I feel like it is still easy right now, we have core vlach regions mostly in Epirus for the Aromanians and Macedonia (Greece and North macedonia) for the Meglenites but currently no one has actually tried to properly genetically test them I have thought of doing it myself honestly but I am too poor. What I will say having met many Aromanians they clearly look like Epirotes and thessalians they look similar to them even in greek macedonia. Most aromanians are not as mixed as you might think btw most mixing in Greece is actually really recent. Aromanians in Greece mixed a bit with the local greeks but tended to marry within the same village so we have a lot of people up to generation X who for atleast the past 200 years have not married a single non-aromanian "greek blooded" was something your family would be known for for marrying a single greek 5 generations ago.

 

[Riverman]

Two things to add: First, if talking about Romania, we need to talk about concrete regions, not Romania as whole. Both for the Dacians, Daco-Romans and even late Romance presence, Oltenia was e.g. more important than say Moldova.
E.g., the old Dacian city of Sucidava was up to 600 under Byzantine/East Roman rule:

Sucidava - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Interestingly, the city also had one if not the oldest Romanian basilica.

Second, I'm not fully into Vlach genetics, but what I gathered is that there is both uniparental and autosomal overlap between various Vlach groups to the point of an at least Early Medieval common source or at least network being extremely likely. You don't get that with various autochthonous Romance speaking groups surviving on their own, but rather if one group, or a limited number of groups expanded and interconnected with each other.

Basically Vlachs in Greece have to main directions of overlap on the yDNA: One with Romanians-Moldovans-Bulgarians and adjacent areas with Vlach presence (like Ukraine and Hungary) or Albanians, sometimes its both too.

 

[Riverman]

It is possible that the anatolian component in Albanians could have also entered to a degree through the vlachs.

I think it came in due a common Romance population element I wouldn't consider Vlach, likely not even Pre-Vlach. If the Proto-Albanians lived in the borders of the Roman Empire, and they likely did, it is highly unlikely they had no gene flow from the generic Romance urban-settlement populations at all, regardless how low it might have been.

 

[Riverman]

True, do you think this admixture entered way early on or at later periods? Vlachs have J2a haplos thats why I thought of that.

Not all J2a was Greco-Roman, some J2a existed in the Carpathian basin even before the Iron Age (Neolithic samples, Bronze Age samples prove it). But that was, quite obviously, not the main source in modern Romanians.

I think there wasn't just one big migration, but multiple ones. Like a recent leak about the Bulgarian research was about a massive inflow of Anatolians in the Early Medieval period in Byzantine controlled Bulgaria. That considered, and also considering how close Bulgarians and (Southern-Vlach) Romanian people are, basically the same kind of local + Vlach + Slavic ancestry with a bit of steppe, this could have spread some branches fairly late.

The earlier ones surely came in after Dacians were defeated and the province of Dacia founded, since a lot of Roman settlers from various regions entered the area, even if it was concentrated in the cities and Roman colonial settlements.

There were reports, abstracts and presentations about ancient DNA results from the Roman era Dacian province, and they showed a rather diverse population. We will know more when these papers get published:
- Roman era Dacia
- Early Medieval Bulgaria

But I had not expected the inflow from Anatolia that late being so significant, yet for what its worth, the leak said so. And surely the Vlachs in Bulgaria would have picked it up and keep in mind that whatever entered the Vlach gene pool, be it Albanian, Anatolian, Slavic, German, Pecheneg or whatever, could spread through the whole network, because of the large scale mobility especially of the early Vlachs:

Transhumance, mobile pastoralism is the signature of the Vlachs. Looking simply at their migration routes, you can easily imagine how a specific lineage could spread from South Greece to Slovakia and vice versa. Especially Northern Bulgaria and Southern Romania were closely connected, obviously, because they met at the Danube. Just like the North Thracians/Dacians did centuries, even millenia, potentially, earlier.

 

[Moses 26]

In my opinion vlachs had to come before the 13 century north of Danube because in 1234 the were mentioned to have their own bishops and 1247 their leaders (voviodes and knez ). So it would have have been hard to set all this up if only came in the 1200sURL unfurl="true"]https://tiparituriromanesti.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/document-papal-din-1234-cu-privire-la-romanii-din-episcopia-cumaniei/[/URL]

777 de ani de la prima atestare documentară a Ordinului de Malta - Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta to Romania

777 de ani de la prima atestare documentară a Ordinului de Malta

romaniaembassy.orderofmalta.int

Document papal din 1234 cu privire la românii din episcopia Cumaniei

1234 Noiembrie 14, Perugia Gregorius episcopus etc. carissimo in Christo filio. B. regi, primogenito regis Ungarie, salutem etc. In Cumanorum episcopatu, sicut accepimus, quidam populi, qui Walati …

tiparituriromanesti.wordpress.com

 

[Al'Nasi]

Second, I'm not fully into Vlach genetics, but what I gathered is that there is both uniparental and autosomal overlap between various Vlach groups to the point of an at least Early Medieval common source or at least network being extremely likely. You don't get that with various autochthonous Romance speaking groups surviving on their own, but rather if one group, or a limited number of groups expanded and interconnected with each other.

Basically Vlachs in Greece have to main directions of overlap on the yDNA: One with Romanians-Moldovans-Bulgarians and adjacent areas with Vlach presence (like Ukraine and Hungary) or Albanians, sometimes its both too.

I have found almost nothing, Bosch 2006 and Comas 2004 which are what people base claims on but they have really bad data for modern standards do not properly take into account the history of the regions they are looking at and their non aromanian samples are even worse than their aromanian samples in the locations they picked. We need modern research on them not two low quality papers that use the same old low quality data slightly differently.

 

[Riverman]

I have found almost nothing, Bosch 2006 and Comas 2004 which are what people base claims on but they have really bad data for modern standards do not properly take into account the history of the regions they are looking at and their non aromanian samples are even worse than their aromanian samples in the locations they picked. We need modern research on them not two low quality papers that use the same old low quality data slightly differently.

Or simply more testers in public data bases like those of FTDNA and YFull. There are some patterns, already. But Greeks don't just test less often, they also tend to do yDNA testing and especially BigY upgrades even less often than Germans (which means something). Like a regular number for basal test assignment vs. BigY/more downstream is usually 50 %, but for Greeks its much below that. They have one of the lowest "conversion rates" of all. So there are, even in my main branch, quite a number of Greeks, but most haven't done a BigY or other NGS test/upload to YFull.

 

[Al'Nasi]

Or simply more testers in public data bases like those of FTDNA and YFull. There are some patterns, already. But Greeks don't just test less often, they also tend to do yDNA testing and especially BigY upgrades even less often than Germans (which means something). Like a regular number for basal test assignment vs. BigY/more downstream is usually 50 %, but for Greeks its much below that. They have one of the lowest "conversion rates" of all. So there are, even in my main branch, quite a number of Greeks, but most haven't done a BigY or other NGS test/upload to YFull.

It is because Greeks are overwhelmingly confident in being Greek they do not care to try and find how Greek they are because they hold continuity and that is enough for them even if it a single drop. That said while public testing will help I think we need more actual academic work I have seen how a lot of hobbyists handle genetics and while some is interesting much of it is low quality so I would much rather we see proper researchers handle the data as despite the issues we often see in works the extent of their work creates a better starting off point.

 

[Dahoi]

It is because Greeks are overwhelmingly confident in being Greek they do not care to try and find how Greek they are because they hold continuity and that is enough for them even if it a single drop. That said while public testing will help I think we need more actual academic work I have seen how a lot of hobbyists handle genetics and while some is interesting much of it is low quality so I would much rather we see proper researchers handle the data as despite the issues we often see in works the extent of their work creates a better starting off point.

As an Aromanian, what is your opinion on the current situation of Aromanian comunities in Greece, Albania etc. Do ppl still speak Aromanian, especially the young generation? Do Romanian tourists help with the maintaining of the language?

 

[Al'Nasi]

As an Aromanian, what is your opinion on the current situation of Aromanian comunities in Greece, Albania etc. Do ppl still speak Aromanian, especially the young generation? Do Romanian tourists help with the maintaining of the language?

I cannot speak much outside of Greece but I will say that the ones in Albania and North Macedonia seem to more often speak it but they are also less than the ones in Greece in raw numbers as well as more influenced by Romania in the 19th and 20th century which is something to note. A lot of them had also moved to Greece in the early 20th century but those are more complicated often spreading out more and not keeping contact with their villages as much in comparison to the ones local to Greece.

As for the ones in Greece we have the language and dialects recorded by multiple cultural organisations, we have our cultures written down and filmed and we are rather proud of who we are however the mixed marriages as well as city migration has not helped us. I will also add that in all of greece there is a general cultural re invigoration in gen Z especially so the culture is doing better in recent years it feels.

Language it is rare to hear speakers below 50 and even then most 50 year olds do not speak it, however the resources are there to learn it and there are enough speakers even now I have a book for example that I am reading with my specific dialect.

Romania is irrelevant, every attempt has not been to help us but to make us Romanian, how would that help the language? actually the attempts of Romania to connect has caused more problems in my experience, for example the Dacian origins being pushed has caused government shills to push for badly formed Greek origins as a reaction which just makes it really hard for me to study our history, as well as the one I mentioned in my initial comment with WW2.