Origin of the Eastern Romance or Vlach Peoples

Are you sure the last video is Banat Romanians, becouse it sounds more like timok

This to me sounds more like Timok Romanian that Serbian Banat Romanian, even if they are similar, The Timok Romanians use about 30% Serbian words in There dialect, While we in Banat use far less, but we still dont talk the standard Romanian as the ones in Romania.
 
Idk about vlachs and cumans mixing because modern Romanians doesn't get any turkic only some north east Romanians do
We can only speculate what these 'Cumans' looked like.
Look at the modern Bulgarians, their name is derived from the Turkic Bulgars and yet, they don't have much Turkic dna too.

It could be that these 'Cumans' might have had Turkic elite but the common people might have been mostly of local(slavic) stock.
 
One other point that goes against the continuous presence of the Eastern Romance people on the territory of modern Romania is their Christian vocabulary.
According to their Christian related vocabulary, the Eastern Romance people were baptised quite early, long before the South Slavic people for example.

Some of the Christian terminology in Meglen-Vlach for example:

bisearică < basilica,-am
crătšun < calatio,-onem
sărbătoari
duminică < dominica(dies)
altar < altarium
bátiz < baptizo, -are
criştin < christianus, -a,-um
cruţi < crux,-ucem
cuminic < comminico,-are
domn < dominus
picat < peccatum
păresin < qua(d)ra(g)esíma
paşt < paschae
prift < prěbíter,-t(e)rum
rugătšuni < rogatio,-ónem
rog < rogo,-are
mi ąncl'in < (in)clino, -are

The word basilica is common word for church for all four Eastern Romance languages.
This is very striking from the other languages nearby that used the older word ecclēsia from the ancient Greek έκκλησία.
Like for example the Albanian word for church kishë, Gothic aikklēsjõ, Italo-Romance chiesa etc.

Only Dalmatian in this regard is similar to Eastern Romance having had basalca for church.

As I said, ecclesia is the older term having even been used by St.Paul.
Basilica as a term for church has been first used in the early 4th century after the rule of Constantine the Great.
That is decades after the Romans evacuated from Dacia. The Goths that ruled Dacia after the Romans got baptised in the 3rd century and used a word derived from ecclesia.
Totally another point is regarding the Germanic vocabulary and if the Eastern Romance people really were in Dacia continuously why don't they have Germanic related vocabulary inherited by the Goths and other Germanic people that were in Dacia for centuries, like the Slavs have, even after the arrival of Avars and Slavs?
 
We can only speculate what these 'Cumans' looked like.
Look at the modern Bulgarians, their name is derived from the Turkic Bulgars and yet, they don't have much Turkic dna too.

It could be that these 'Cumans' might have had Turkic elite but the common people might have been mostly of local(slavic) stock.
Maybe but Romania always had Asian types like the ploististi sample but I don't how big the group was
 
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One other point that goes against the continuous presence of the Eastern Romance people on the territory of modern Romania is their Christian vocabulary.
According to their Christian related vocabulary, the Eastern Romance people were baptised quite early, long before the South Slavic people for example.

Some of the Christian terminology in Meglen-Vlach for example:

bisearică < basilica,-am
crătšun < calatio,-onem
sărbătoari
duminică < dominica(dies)
altar < altarium
bátiz < baptizo, -are
criştin < christianus, -a,-um
cruţi < crux,-ucem
cuminic < comminico,-are
domn < dominus
picat < peccatum
păresin < qua(d)ra(g)esíma
paşt < paschae
prift < prěbíter,-t(e)rum
rugătšuni < rogatio,-ónem
rog < rogo,-are
mi ąncl'in < (in)clino, -are

The word basilica is common word for church for all four Eastern Romance languages.
This is very striking from the other languages nearby that used the older word ecclēsia from the ancient Greek έκκλησία.
Like for example the Albanian word for church kishë, Gothic aikklēsjõ, Italo-Romance chiesa etc.

Only Dalmatian in this regard is similar to Eastern Romance having had basalca for church.

As I said, ecclesia is the older term having even been used by St.Paul.
Basilica as a term for church has been first used in the early 4th century after the rule of Constantine the Great.
That is decades after the Romans evacuated from Dacia. The Goths that ruled Dacia after the Romans got baptised in the 3rd century and used a word derived from ecclesia.
Totally another point is regarding the Germanic vocabulary and if the Eastern Romance people really were in Dacia continuously why don't they have Germanic related vocabulary inherited by the Goths and other Germanic people that were in Dacia for centuries, like the Slavs have, even after the arrival of Avars and Slavs?
Maybe your right about the romanians coming from south of danube but In my opinion has to been before the 13 century because that when the first proto states where mentioned and like I said before curtea de arges ( Wallachia first capital)was built in 1200s ( some say early 1200s but we don't know)
 
A lot of these steppe people had varying degrees of Iranian (mainly Sarmatian) and Uralic (like Proto-Magyars) admixture. Therefore even before coming to what is now Romania, they were likely heavily mixed with West Eurasian. If extrapolating from such scenario, it would be mean that the average autosomal contribution would be more like 2-4 %. Only some Mongol-related groups came in nearly 100 East Asian. Avars were an exception with their high East Asian. Most other steppe groups were more mixed with West Eurasians.

If it would have been an elite, we should also assume a disproportional patrilinear contribution - or at least a proportional one. This should be visible in the Romanian yDNA if correct.

But its also possible the incoming Vlachs just picked up some remains from earlier steppe groups, then the sex ratio might be even in the Vlach/Proto-Romanian favour and the uniparental signal would be rather in the mtDNA.
 
A lot of these steppe people had varying degrees of Iranian (mainly Sarmatian) and Uralic (like Proto-Magyars) admixture. Therefore even before coming to what is now Romania, they were likely heavily mixed with West Eurasian. If extrapolating from such scenario, it would be mean that the average autosomal contribution would be more like 2-4 %. Only some Mongol-related groups came in nearly 100 East Asian. Avars were an exception with their high East Asian. Most other steppe groups were more mixed with West Eurasians.

If it would have been an elite, we should also assume a disproportional patrilinear contribution - or at least a proportional one. This should be visible in the Romanian yDNA if correct.

But its also possible the incoming Vlachs just picked up some remains from earlier steppe groups, then the sex ratio might be even in the Vlach/Proto-Romanian favour and the uniparental signal would be rather in the mtDNA.
Yeah 100 east asian are super rare but the ploesti sample was close to 50 percent asian and it brother that had low coverage apparently had more
 
If you actually look closely enough, it's so painfully and blatantly obvious that all East Romance (including Romanian and Aromanian) uniquely developed together as the same language way after Latin was a thing, and yes, probably south of the Danube. There's a direct correspondence or correlation between the vast majority of the inherited Latin lexicon if you compare them, and many are not found in other Romance or have unusual, unique senses that developed the same in them and apart from all others. Here are just a few examples of many hundreds (there is a lot more vocabulary shared between them, close to 2000 words, but I just wanted to share some of the ones with the unique/unusual developments not shared by the rest). For verbs, both the full infinitive with resulting nounal form, and the first person singular is listed, since Aromanian no longer has the standard infinitive, for better direct comparison:

Ro. bătrân - Ar. bitrãn / bitãrnu, meaning "old, aged (of a person)", from Latin 'veteranus' (all the other Romance languages either didn't inherit this term or use it to mean literally a veteran)

Ro. zbura(re) / zbor - Ar. azbuirari / azboair, meaning "to fly" from Vulgar Latin '*exvolare, exvolo' (another pretty unique construction and phonetic development in East Romance, with some equivalents found in some Italian dialects/languages)

Ro. dezmierda(re) / dezmierd - Ar. diznjirdari / diznjerdu, meaning "to caress, fondle", from Vulgar Latin *'dismerdare, dismerdo' (meaning "to remove feces", from 'merda', but with a very unique development from the idea of wiping an infant's bottom becoming "caring for", not found in other languages)

Ro. fecior - Ar. ficior, Megl. Rom. fitšor meaning "boy, youth, young man", from Vulgar Latin '*fetiolus' (only found in Balkan Romance), diminutive of 'fetus'
Ro. biserică - Ar. bãsearicã, Megl. Rom. bisearică, meaning “church”, from Lat. ‘basilica’ (most western Romance standard languages words for church developed rather from ‘ecclesia’ instead)

Ro. apă - Ar. apã, meaning "water", from Latin 'aqua' (the only Romance descendants with this -p-, although some Sardinian dialects have 'abba')

Ro. lume - Ar. lumi, meaning "the world, humanity, people collectively", from Latin 'lumen' (which actually meant "light", showcasing another unique development in East Romance, probably from the idea of "the light of life" figuratively)

Ro. pământ - Ar. pimintu, meaning "ground, earth, soil" from Latin 'pavimentum' (instead meaning a type of floor or pavement)
Ro. dimineață - Ar. dimineatsã, meaning “morning”, from a Vulg Lat. *’de-manitia’, from ‘de mane’ (“early in the morning”; this construction is not found outside Balkan Romance)

Ro. zi(uă) - Ar. dzuã, meaning “day”, from Latin ‘dies’

Ro. Dumnezeu - Ar. Dumnidzã, meaning "God", from Latin 'Domine Deus' (only these East Romance languages use this as the default/main word for God, versus just 'Deus' in others, although a similar construction is found in some other western languages in certain usages like Italian 'domineddio' and French 'damedieu', meaning "God Almighty")

Ro. zână - Ar. dzãnã, meaning "fairy", from Latin 'Diana', the name of a pagan goddess (also found in Albanian as 'zanë' and a few minority western Romance languages, like Asturian 'xana')

Ro. drac - Ar. drac, meaning "devil", from Latin 'draco' (which actually meant "dragon", and was the sense taken by all the other Romance)

Ro. coacin - Ar. coatsin, both referring to “a reddish/brownish color on the head of sheep”, from Latin ‘coccinus’, from Greek (these clearly developed a very specific sense apart from other Romance due to the shepherding lifestyles of the Vlachs)

Ro. noaten - Ar. noatin, meaning “yearling (one-year old) lambs”, from Latin ‘annotinus’ (which meant “of last year”, showcasing again a narrowing of a general concept to a specific shepherd one)

Ro. puțin - Ar. putsãn, meaning “little, few”, uncertain but probably a VulgLat ‘*paucinus’ or ‘*putinus’, from alteration of ‘pittinus’ or ‘putilus’ (not found in any other Romance languages)

Ro. cântec - Ar. cãntic, meaning "song", from Latin 'canticum' (also found in Albanian as 'këngë', most western Romance rather use derivatives of Lat. 'cantio, cantione' for "song")

Ro. deștepta(re) / deștept - Ar. dishtiptari / dishteptu, meaning "wake up", of uncertain exact origin, possibly a Vulgar Latin *'de-excitare' or more likely 'despectare', meaning "discern, perceive" (this also led to the word for "smart/intelligent" in Romanian, deștept; but this formation isn't found in other Romance, and may have been influenced by 'aspectare', whence 'aștepta' - "to wait")

Ro. cufuri(re) /cufuresc - Ar. cufuriri / cufurescu, meaning "to have diarrhea", from Latin 'conforio' + '-esco' (not found in other Romance)

Ro. urdina(re) / urdin - Ar. urdinari / urdin, also meaning "have diarhhea" but also "to trot around in a circle or the same area over and over", from Latin 'ordinare, ordino' (clearly a unique sense development within Eastern Romance not shared with others, where the word kept closer to the original meaning)

Ro. codobatură - Ar. coadã-baturã / cudubaturã, meaning "wagtail", from Vulgar Latin *'codabattula' (some similar constructions with the elements reversed also found in a few western Romance languages or dialects)

Ro. codru - Ar. codru, meaning "woods, forest", from Vulgar Latin '*codrum/*quodrum', from 'quadrum' (both mean forest but come from the Latin word for square, with the meaning likely coming from a square patch of woods; also related to Albanian 'kodër' "hill")
Ro. pădure - Ar. pãdure, also meaning "woods, forest", from Vulgar Latin 'padule', from 'paludem', which actually meant swamp (this original sense is the one found in all other non Eastern Romance descendants)

Ro. albină - Ar. alghinã, meaning "bee", from a Vulgar Latin *'alvina' supposedly meaning "beehive"; this word is not found in other major Romance languages, possibly in some North Italian dialects with a slightly different meaning

Ro. răbda(re) / rabd - Ar. arãvdari / aravdu, meaning "to endure", possibly from a Vulgar Latin *'reemendare' or '*rigidare', but not found in any other Romance

Ro. spăla(re) / spăl - Ar. aspilari / aspel, meaning "to wash", from a Vulgar Latin *'experlavare, experlavo' (mostly unique to East Romance, possibly along with a few southern Italian dialects and Albanian 'shpëlaj')

Ro. învăța(re) / învăț - Ar. nvitsari / nvets, meaning "to learn", from Vulgar Latin '*invitiare, invitio' meaning “accustom, habituate, familiarize”, from 'vitium', meaning "vice" (this has a specific semantic development different from the other languages)

Ro. aprinde(re) / aprind - Ar. aprindiri / aprindu, meaning “to light, turn on”, from Lat. ‘apprehendere, apprehendo’ (in western Romance this took on the meaning of “to learn”)

Ro. pleca(re) / plec - Ar. plicari / plec, meaning “to leave”, from Latin ‘plicare, plico’ (meaning “to fold”, and with unique E. Romance semantic development, the opposite of Iberian, like Spanish ‘llegar’ “to arrive”, while Italian ‘piegare’ maintained the original sense of “to fold”)

Ro. apuca(re) / apuc - Ar. apucari / apuc, meaning “grab”, possibly from VL. ‘*aucupare’ or ‘occupare’

Ro. cutremura(re) / cutremur - Ar. cutrimburari / cutreambur, meaning "to shake, quake" from Vulgar Latin *'contremulare, contremulo' (again specifically an East Romance construction)

Ro. fi(re) / sunt, fiu, Ar. hiri / hiu, meaning "to be", from Latin 'fio', meaning "become". (related to this you have the formations in Ro. 'ființă' and Ar. 'hiintsã', both meaning "creature" or "being")

Ro. viață - Ar. yeatsã, meaning "life", probably derived from 'viu' / 'yiu' ("alive") or a Vulgar Latin *'vivitia'. Related, you have Ro. 'învia / înviere / înviez' and Ar. 'anyeari / anyedz', meaning "revive, resurrect, come to life" from a V. Lat. '*invivare' with the suffix *-idio' (-ez/-edz).

Ro. drept - Ar. dreptu / ndreptu, meaning "straight" or "right", from Latin 'directus', although a common Romance word, it displays the same shift of -ct to -pt not found in other Romance; compare also Ro. noapte and Ar. noapti (“night”), from Latin ‘noctis’

Ro. lemn - Ar. lemnu, meaning “wood”, from Latin ‘lignus’ (of course found in all Romance but shows the unique development of Latin -gn- to -mn- in East Romance)

Ro. adânc - Ar. adãncu, meaning “deep”, from Latin ‘aduncus’ (which meant “hooked” instead, and this was not inherited by western Romance, only borrowed later)

Ro. miel - Ar. njel, meaning "lamb" from Lat. agnellus (turned out differently than western Romance cognates). There is also the related Ro. mioară and Ar. njioarã, diminutives meaning little lamb.

Ro. mijloc - Ar. njilgioc, Megl. mejluc meaning "middle", from Lat. 'medius locus'

Ro. jumătate / jumate - Ar. giumãtati / giumati, meaning "half", from a VL. '*diemitatem', from metathesis of 'medietatem' ("meaning center, midpoint")

Ro. anțărț - Ar. antserts, meaning "two years ago", from Lat. 'anno tertio' (formation uniquely Balkan Romance)

Ro. rușine - Ar. arushini, meaning "shame", probably from some Vulgar Latin derivation of 'roseus', meaning "red" (whence Ro. roșu and Ar. aroshu)

Ro. arunca(re) / arunc - Ar. arucari / aruc, probably from a Vulgar Latin *'eruncare, erunco' from 'runcus' (not found in other Romance varieties)

Ro. ridica(re) / ridic - Megleno-Romanian ardicare / rădic, meaning "to raise", probably from Latin 'eradicare' (meaning "root out" or "eradicate", another unique semantic development in East Romance)

Ro. sufruncea(ua) - Ar. sufrãmtseauã, meaning "eyebrow" (although archaic in Romanian), from Vulg. Lat. '*subfronticella' (not found in other Romance)

Ro. sprânceană - Ar. sprindzeanã, also meaning "eyebrow", probably a Vulgar Latin '*supergenna' as a variation of 'supercilia' (this formation is unique to East Romance although similar to some others found in West Romance)

Ro. geană - Ar. dzeanã, meaning "eyelash", from Latin 'gena' (meaning "cheek" and not inherited in any other languages)

Ro. însura(re) / însor - Ar. nsurari / nsor, meaning "to marry/wed", from Vulgar Latin *'inuxorare, inuxoro' from 'uxor' "wife" (not found in other Romance except perhaps Neapolitan)

Ro. bărbat - Ar. bãrbat, Megl. Rom. bărbat, meaning "man", from Latin 'barbatus' (meaning "bearded"; only eastern Romance developed this into a noun meaning "man" rather than adjective meaning "bearded")

Ro. petrece(re) / petrec - Ar. pitreatsiri / pitrec, meaning "to spend or pass the time", from V. Latin '*pertraicere, pertraicio'

Ro. întuneca(re) / întunec - Ar. ntunicari / ntunic, meaning "to darken", from Vulgar Latin '*intunicare' (which meant "to cover with a tunic" a unique development only in East Romance).

Ro. întuneric - Ar. ntunearic meaning "dark", probably from Latin 'tenebricus'

Ro. îmbăta(re) / îmbăt - Ar. mbitari / mbet, Megleno-Rom. ămbet, meaning "get drunk" from Vulgar Latin '*imbibitare, imbibito' (not found in other Romance)

Ro. greață - Ar. greatsã, meaning “nausea” figuratively but in Ar. also literally “burden”, from a VL. ‘grevitia’ (“weight, heaviness”), from grevis < gravis “heavy” (unique local formation not found in other Romance); related, you have both Ro. and Ar. ‘greu’, meaning “heavy”

Ro. rezema(re) / reazem - Ar. arãdzãmari / aradzim, meaning “to support”, possibly from VL. ‘*rhizomare’, from Greek, or ‘remediare’ (not found in other Romance)

Ro. scutec - Ar. scutic, meaning "diaper", of uncertain origin, possibly Latin 'scutica' ("leather lash or whip") or alternatively of Slavic origin

Ro. mătură - Ar. meturã, meaning "broom", possibly an early South Slavic borrowing from 'metla' or a Vulgar Latin *'mattula', diminutive of 'matta' ("mat of rushes")

Ro. plimba(re) / plimb / preumbla - Ar. priimnari / priimnu, meaning "to walk, stroll", from Lat. 'perambulare, perambulo' (only preserved in East Romance)

Ro. pătrunde(re) / pătrund - Ar. pitrundiri / pitrundu, meaning "pierce, penetrate, perforate", from Latin 'pertundere, pertundo' (mostly East Romance, also found in Sardinian)

Ro. fereca(re) / ferec - Ar. fãricari / fãric, meaning in Ro. "to hoop, fetter, chain, or strengthen by adding metal" and Ar. "to shoe a horse", probably from Latin 'fabricare, fabrico' (a unique development of this word) or alternatively a Vulgar Latin '*ferricare' from 'ferrum', meaning "iron"

Ro. lepăda(re) / lepăd - Ar. alipidari / aleapid, meaning "to drop, throw away, cast, renounce", probably from Latin 'lapidare' (meaning "throw stones" surviving as inherited only in East Romance)

Ro. frământa(re) / frământ - Ar. frimintari / frimintu, meaning "to knead (dough)", probably from Latin 'fermentare, fermento' (only inherited in East Romance)

Ro. refeca(re) / refec - Ar. aruficare / arufec, meaning "to hem, hemstitch", uncertain but possibly from Latin 'refricare'

Ro. înfășa(re) / înfaș - Ar. nfãshari / nfash, meaning “to swaddle”, from Vulgar Latin *’infasciare, infascio’, from ‘fascia’ (“strip, ribbon or band”)

Ro. tânăr - Ar. tinir, meaning "young", from Vulgar Latin *'tenerus' from 'tener' (which meant "soft, delicate, tender or youthful", a meaning that developed differently in other Romance languages)

Ro. cal - Ar. cal, meaning “horse”, from Late Latin ‘caballus’ (the other Romance languages did not contract this word to the extent that East Romance did, like Italian ‘cavallo’; but see also Albanian ‘kalë’); related you have terms like Ro. călare - Ar. cãlar, meaning “astride, mounted”, and Ro. călăreț - Ar. cãlãrets “horseman”

Ro. munte - Ar. munti, meaning “mountain”, from Latin ‘mons, montis’ (most western Romance uses ‘montania’)

Ro. toamnă - Ar. toamnã, meaning "autumn", from Vulg Latin *'autumna' (rather than the standard masculine 'autumnus' that the other western Romance derived from, like Spanish ‘otoño’, Italian ‘autunno’)

Ro. iarnă - Ar. earnã, meaning "winter", from Vulgar Latin *'hiberna' (similarly feminine unlike the standard 'hibernus' that developed in the others, or taken from its plural instead, like Spanish ‘invierno’, Italian ‘inverno’, and French ‘hiver’)

Ro. mormânt - Ar. murmintu, meaning "tomb", from Latin 'monumentum' (most other languages developed it to mean "monument")

Ro. sarcină - Ar. sartsinã, meaning “pack, burden, obligation”, from Lat. ‘sarcina’ (mostly preserved in E. Romance), and derivatives Ro. însărcina - Ar. nsãrtsinedz “to burden”

Ro. moară - Ar. moarã, meaning “mill”, from Latin ‘mola’ (most western Romance uses descendants of ‘molinus’ for mill and ‘mola’ for the millstone or grindstone specifically)

Ro. fluier - Ar. fluiarã, meaning "flute", possibly from a Latin 'flaturalis' (uniquely East Romance and probably borrowed by Albanian as flojere)

Ro. veșted - Ar. veashtid, meaning "withered, faded”, from VLat ‘*vescidus’, from ‘vescus’ or ‘viscidus’ (only inherited in E. Romance)

Ro. înalt - Ar. naltu / ãnaltu, meaning "high/tall", from Latin 'altum' (but unlike other Romance, they prefix it with in-)

Ro. bucium - Ar. bucium, in Ro. meaning "horn or trumpet" but also "tree stump or trunk" as in Ar. (which lost the other sense), from Latin 'bucinum' (which meant "trumpet")

Ro. vrea / vrere / vreau - Ar. vreari / voi, meaning "to want", from Latin 'volere, vol(e)o' (Romanian has a variant conjugation with 'voi' as the first person singular like Aromanian, with different usage, but replaced the standard form with 'vreau' through analogy with the infinitive; both these verbs have the past partiple vrut or vrutã)

Ro. curcubeu - Ar. curcubeu, meaning "rainbow", from Latin 'circus bibit' (meaning "ring that drinks", mostly East Romance, similar formations in some minority West Romance dialects)

Ro. smulge(re) / smulg - Ar. zmuldziri / zmulgu, meaning "to snatch, pull away, tear away", from Lat. 'exmulgere/ exmulgo' from 'ex-' + 'mulgere' ("to milk")

Ro. sâmbătă - Ar. sãmbãtã, meaning "Saturday", from Latin '*sabbata' from 'sabbatum' (although possibly influenced by Slavic later; unlike most western Romance equivalents, they have the nasal infix -m-)

Ro. sărbătoare - Ar. sãrbãtoari, meaning "holiday", also in Ro. "celebration", from V Lat. '*servatoria', from 'servare'

Ro. surpa(re) / surp - Ar. surpari / surpu, meaning "to annihilate, destroy, crumble, vaniquish", from Vulg Lat '*subrupare' from 'rupes' (meaning "cliff")

Ro. scărpina(re) / scarpin - Ar. scãrchinari / scarchin, meaning “to scratch, scrape”, from Late Latin ‘scarpinare’

Ro. spânzura(re) / spânzur - Ar. aspindzurari / aspindzur, meaning "to hang (execute someone)", from Vuglar Latin '*expendiolare' (not found in most other Romance, possibly in Italian 'spenzolare' but this doesn't have the connotation of hanging to kill someone)

Ro. vătăma(re) / vatăm - Ar. vãtãmari / vatãm, Megl Rom. vatăm meaning “to kill”, from Latin ‘victimare’ (only preserved in Balkan Romance)

Ro. broască - Ar. broascã, meaning "frog" (but in Ar. also tortoise/turtle), from a Vulgar Latin *'brosca', probably from Greek (also found in Albanian breshkë; in Romanian the compound broască țestoasă means "turtle/tortoise", the later element being related to Latin testudo)

Ro. râie - Ar. arãnji, meaning "scabies, itch, mange", from Latin 'aranea' (which actually meant "spiderweb", again showing unique development in East Romance, due to the appearance of the skin diseases being compared to the look of a web; although it's possible that Galician raña also shares this sense)

Ro. beli(re) / belesc - Ar. biliri / bilescu, meaning "to skin", prob from Lat. 'vellere' with a change of conjugation

Ro. merge(re) / merg - Ar. neardziri / nergu, meaning "to go", from Latin 'mergere, mergo' (which meant instead "to immerse, dip, plunge, merge")

Ro. linge(re) / ling - Ar. alindziri / alingu, meaning “to lick” from Latin ‘lingere, lingo’ (mostly East Romance and some Italian languages like Friulian; most western Romance derives from a probable Germanic term, like Italian 'leccare')

Ro. femeie - Ar. fumelj / fumealji, in Ro. meaning "woman" and in Ar. meaning "child, or family", from Lat. familia (in archaic Romanian it used to also mean "family" but this sense is now obsolete; see also Albanian fëmijë, "child")

Ro. cireșar - Ar. cirishar, meaning "the month of June" (now a nonstandard regional folk term in Ro.), derived from cireașă / cireashã which means "cherry" or from a Vulgar Latin '*ceresiarius'

Ro. alunar - Ar. alunar, both being alternative folk terms for “July”, from the words ‘alună / alunã’ (which means “nut”, from Lat. ‘abellona’)

Ro. Sânmedru - Ar. Sãnmedru, meaning "October" (folk name for the month), from Latin 'Sanctus Demetrius', whose holiday is in October

Ro. brumar - Ar. brumar, alternative folk names for “November”, from brumă / brumã, meaning “frost”, from Latin ‘bruma’. Other folk names for November are Ro. iezmăciune and Ar. ayizmãciuni, with the first element of Greek origin.

Ro. andrea / undrea / îndrea - Ar. andreu, meaning "December" (again a folk term in modern Ro., but also meaning "knitting needle" due to the custom of knitting socks on St. Andrew's day), from Latin 'Andreas' (the saint whose feast day is Nov 30)

Ro. cheag - Ar. cljag, meaning "clot", from Vulg Lat 'clagum', from 'coagulum' (the metathesis of the Latin word is only found in East Romance)

Ro. burete - Ar. bureati, meaning both "sponge" and "a type of mushroom" in Ro. but just "mushroom" in Ar., from Latin 'boletis' (a type of mushroom)

Ro. bocet - Ar. boatsit, meaning "wail, cry", from VLat. 'vocitum', from 'vox', or "voice" (unique to E. Romance). Related, from a VL. *'vocire', you have Ro. boci(re) / bocesc and Ar. butsiri / butsescu, meaning "to bemoan, lament". There is also archaic Ro. 'boace' and Ar. 'boatsi', meaning "voice" (in modren Romanian this was replaced by the neologism 'voce')

Ro. acolo - Ar. aclo, meaning "there, over there", from VLat. 'eccu(m) illoc' (this particular construction not found outside E. Rom)
 
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Ro. falcă - Ar. falcã, meaning “jaw”, but from Latin ‘falx, falcem’ (which meant “sickle”, with a unique development of East Romance, comparing the shape of the jaw bone to a sickle)

Ro. măsea(uă) - Ar. mãseauã, meaning “molar tooth”, from Latin ‘maxilla’ (which meant “jaw” in general, showing a specific development of Balkan Romance)

Ro. căpățână - Ar. cãpitsãnã, meaning "skull/head" (in Ro. especially of a dead animal), from VL. 'capitina', from 'caput' ("head"; this is somewhat related to Spanish 'cabeza' but with a different suffix)

Ro. vătui - Ar. vitulj, meaning “young goat kid”, from Lat. ‘vitulus’, meaning “bull calf”; see also Ro. and Megl. 'ied' and Ar. 'ed' ("goat kid") from Lat. 'haedus'

Ro. viță - Ar. yitsã, meaning “vine”, from Latin ‘vitea’ (just Balkan Romance)

Ro. meriză - Ar. amiridz, meaning "shady place where sheep or cattle rest during the day", from Latin 'meridies' ("midday")

Ro. rău - Ar. arãu, meaning "bad, wicked", from Latin 'reus' (which actually meant "guilty"; this change of meaning also found in Dalmatian 'ri' and obsolete Italian 'rio')

Ro. bucă - Ar. bucã, meaning "cheek (particularly buttcheek), from Latin 'bucca' (of which one of the senses was cheek, but also meant "mouth", "mouthful", "jaw", and most other Romance languages took it to mean "mouth", like Spanish 'boca', Italian 'bocca', French 'bouche', etc.)

Ro. buric - Ar. buric, meaning "bellybutton/umbilicus", from VLat '*umbulicus', from standard 'umbilicus'

Ro. creier - Ar. crier, meaning "brain", probably from Latin 'cerebrum' or 'cerebellum' (but evolved distinctly compared to other languages, probably through a VL. root 'crebrum')

Ro. inimă - Ar. inimã, meaning "heart", but from Latin 'anima', meaning instead "soul" (unlike other Romance)

Ro. mortăciune - Ar. murtãciuni, meaning "cadaver", from Lat. 'morticina'

Ro. scutura(re) / scutur - Ar. ascuturari / ascutur, from Vlat. '*excotulare'

Ro. scoate(re) / scot - Ar. scoatiri / scot, meaning "take out, remove" from VL. '*excutio'

Ro. ruga(re) / rog - Ar. and Megl. rugari / rog, meaning "to pray", from Latin 'rogare' (western Romance uses this word for "to beg" instead"); there is also the related Ro. rugăciune and Ar. rugãciuni, meaning "prayer"

Ro. mește(re) / mesc (archaic) / Ar. meashtiri / mescu, meaning "to pour out, give a drink to", coming from Latin 'miscere, misceo', which means instead "to mix" (all western Romance kept this original meaning)

Ro. toapsec - Ar. toapsec, meaning "poisonous", from Lat. 'toxicus'

Ro. străpunge(re) / străpung - Ar. strãpundziri / strãpungu, meaning to “puncture, *****”, from VL. ‘*extrapungere’ (mostly Balkan Romance and Friulian)

Ro. zbiera(re) / zbier - Ar. azghirari / azgher, meaning "to bray, moo, low", from Vulg Lat '*exbelare', from 'belare'

Ro. zgâria / zgârii - Megl Rom. zgăirari / zgair, meaning "to scratch, scrape" from VL. '*scaberare', from 'scaber'

Ro. flămând - Megl. flămund, meaning “starving”, possibly from VL. ’famelicus’ or ‘flammabundus’

Ro. demica(re) (dumica) / demic - Ar. dinjicari / dinjic, meaning "to crumble, shatter", from VL. *'demicare', from 'mica' (only in Balkan Romance)

Ro. colastră / corastră - Ar. curastrã, meaning "colostrum, beestings", from Lat. 'colostra'

Ro. mărgea - Ar. mãrdzeauã, meaning "bead", from Latin 'margella' (not found in other languages)

Ro. păresimi - Ar. pãreasinj, meaning "Lent", from Latin 'quadragesima' (phonetic evolution differs from most other Romance languages, in which it begins with c or q, like Italian 'quaresima' or Spanish 'cuaresma')

Ro. cârneleagă - Ar. cãrleagã, referring to a type of fasting for religious occasions, from Vulgar Latin 'carnem ligat' ("tie down meat", as in not allowing it; this is uniquely East Romance but the word "carnival" comes from a similar construction with 'carnem levare'). Related to this you have Ro. 'câșlegi' and Ar. 'cãshleagã' from 'caseum ligat' "tie the cheese", also referring to certain fasting in the Orthodox church.

Ro. întâi - Ar. ntãnj, meaning "first", from VL. '*antaneus', from 'anteanus'

Ro. păstaie - Ar. pãstalji, meaning "pod (of peas)", possibly from a VL. *'pistalia' (also found in Albanian 'bishtajë', but not any other languages)

Ro. potârniche / păturniche - Ar. piturniclji, meaning "partridge', from VLat '*coturnicula', from 'coturnix', meaning "quail" (other western cognates begin with 'c' like Italian 'coturnice' or Spanish 'codorniz')

Ro. speria(re) - Ar. aspãreari, meaning “to scare”, from a VL. *’expavorere’

Ro. picior - Ar. chicior, Megl. Rom pitšor, meaning "foot", from Latin 'petiolus', meaning "little foot, stalk or stem" (western cognates all take different senses and don't use the term to mean "foot")

Ro. niște - Ar. nishti, meaning "some, an unspecified amount", from Latin 'nescio quid' ("I don't know what", this expression only left remnants in East Romance)

Ro. alb - Ar. albu, meaning "white", from Lat. 'albus' (most western Romance use a Germanic borrowing like 'blanco' or 'bianco')

Ro. suge(re) - Ar. sug, "to suck" from Latin 'sugo, sugere' both have past participle 'supt' or 'suptu', from 'suctus' (western Romance mostly developed from different forms)

An interesting development is Ro. câștiga(re) and Ar. cãshtigari, from Latin 'castigare' ("to punish"). The Romanian word means "to win/gain", while the Aromanian means "to worry, or care for". They both obviously deviated away from the Latin original meaning, but seem to have branched off to different meanings, perhaps Romanian showing further evolution from the original proto-Romanian meaning.

Ro. cătușă and Ar. cãtushã are basically the same word in origin, but developed different meanings after these languages split - Aromanian preserved the original sense of “cat” (as a diminutive of a hypothetical form *’cat’ which was lost in both languages, from Lat. ‘cattus’), while in Romanian it now means “handcuffs or manacles”, an unusual development probably due to how cats feet have a different color pattern and make it look like handcuffs. It uses pisică to mean cat instead.

Ar. 'mushat' ("beautiful") derives from a clipping of a now lost hypothetical *'frumushat' ("made beautiful/handsome"), from 'frumos' ("beautfiul") (which itself was lost in Ar. but preserved in Ro., which also has the archaic 'mușat' in some dialects, as well as frumușel and frumusețe. The Mușatini were an early dynasty in Moldova (founded by Vlachs))

The languages have the Latin derived suffixes in common like -ciune / -ciuni (from -tionem), - ur (from -ulus), -or (from -olus), -tor (from -torius), -ar (from -arius), -uț / uts (from -ucius), -ea / -eauã (from -ella), -el (from -ellus), -tate / -tati (from -tatem), -eață / -eatsã (from -itia), -oare / -oare (from -oria), -esc / -escu (from -iscus), -ime / -imi (from -imen), -oi / -onj (from -oneus), etc.

They each have intervocalic Latin -l- becoming -r- (like Ro. păr and Ar. per from Lat. pilus "hair"), plurals that are formed with a semi-silent vowel (-i), and show diphthongs -oa- and -ea- from long Latin -o- and -e- respectively... for example poartă and poartã ("gate") from 'porta'.

Though not of Latin origin, Romanian uses 'copil' for "child", although the equivalent Aromanian term is 'cochil', meaning "bastard", like Albanian 'kopil'. Megleno-Romanian has ‘cupilaș’ to mean “kid” though, like Romanian diminutive ‘copilaș. Bucuros is used in both Ro. and Megl. to mean happy. ‘Frică’ (“fear”) is another word shared between these languages, coming from Greek. ‘Fricos’ in both Ar. and Ro. means cowardly. Ro. ‘cărămida’, Megl. ‘chirămidă’, and Ar. ‘chirãmidã’, all meaning “brick”, are from Greek. Aromanian, Romanian, and Megleno-Romanian all use the word ‘brad’ for “fir tree”, possibly related to Albanian or some pre-Roman origin.

Some Slavic terms are used by all of these: Ro. and Megl. use trăiesc / trăies for “to live”, of old Slavic origin, but with a Romanian suffix and inflection/conjugation. Ro. has nevastă, Megl.has niveastă, and Ar. has ãnveastã all meaning “wife”, of Slavic origin, and Ro. / Megl. ‘coajă’, Ar. ‘coaji’ meaning “peel or skin” of fruit, from Slavic, among several others, so they started borrowing Slavic words before they even split up. Some other examples include Ro. veveriță and Ar. viviritsã (“squirrel”), Ro. plătesc and Ar. plãtescu (“to pay”), Ro. clește and Ar. cleashti (“tongs, pincers”), Ro. cârpă and Ar. cãrpã (“rag”), Ro. lopată and Ar. lupatã (“shovel”), Ro. rană and Ar. aranã (“wound”), Ro. împletesc Ar. mplitescu (“to plait, braid”), Ro. topor Ar. tãpor (“axe”), Ro. baltă and Ar. baltã (“pond, puddle”), and both languages have ‘gol’ for (“empty/naked/bare”). Ro. ‘vreme’ and Megl. ‘vreami’ for “weather”, also from Slavic. In many cases, these East Romance early Slavic borrowings are more like each other than they are to the actual Slavic words because they've been adapted to proto-Romanian inflections.

Furthermore, Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian have a lot of terms in common that deal with domesticated animals, like sheep and cows, at different stages of development (like some terms specifically applying for only one or two year old animals), as this was an important part of their lifestyles historically. So it basically paints the picture of a rustic, countryside people, not descended from city-dwellers for the most part.

Italians and Spaniards would be hard pressed to understand many of these words listed above just by looking at them, even though they are from Latin. It goes to show you how close these East Romance languages are to each other and how different they are from other Romance varieties, something that can only be the case if they were one language for much longer than some assume. I hope by now this is pretty convincing and beyond any reasonable refutation at this point.


That's why I find it annoying when people who know nothing about this say something like "oh yeah Aromanians must be pure Roman Italians from Central Italy that settled down in Greece as legionaries, or are Latinized Greeks occupying the cities, and Romanians on the other hand are partially Latinized Dacian-Slav hicks from hundreds of miles to the north and they have nothing in common aside from both speaking Romance". Even Maciamo seems to have implied this at one point. And the assumption that languages and ethnic groups were always exactly where they are today is common. Why would these two languages be so idiosyncratically similar if they were that far apart from the start? It's also clear based on the inherited lexicon that these people were not urbanites and were both rather rustic country peoples from the start.

I'm guessing the assumption about Aromanians being actual Roman descendants is often because they happen to generally look somewhat more Mediterranean (but this is actually partly because they maintained more local Thraco-Illyrian ancestry and likely moreso because modern Aromanians have mixed a lot with Greeks over the ages, despite their ultimate origin further north), and then people come up with other reasonings to support the idea. Or that they have more R1b than other peoples, which is interesting and possibly a valid point actually. But Romanians also have slightly higher R1b than many of their neighbors (some regions more than others, like in the west). It does depend on the subclades though, which are usually different from the western ones. But the idea is that this likely came before the Romans arrived and was part of older Central European Indo European migrations (that produced Celts and Italics and some Germanics as well). But we don't really know for sure I guess. Anyway these things aren’t at odds with the idea that they were once a people in the central Balkans that moved apart and blended with others.

Most of the people who make these claims have never closely examined the language or the deeper aspects of the folk culture, history, and other things, but rather just hear that they speak Romance, and then make up their own theories. Any serious linguists and experts that specialize in this stuff know what's actually up.
 
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Ro. căpățână - Ar. cãpitsãnã, meaning "skull/head" (in Ro. especially of a dead animal), from VL. 'capitina', from 'caput' ("head"; this is somewhat related to Spanish 'cabeza' but with a different suffix)

Ro. vătui - Ar. vitulj, meaning “young goat kid”, from Lat. ‘vitulus’, meaning “bull calf”; see also Ro. and Megl. 'ied' and Ar. 'ed' ("goat kid") from Lat. 'haedus'

Ro. viță - Ar. yitsã, meaning “vine”, from Latin ‘vitea’ (just Balkan Romance)

Ro. buric - Ar. buric, meaning "bellybutton/umbilicus", from VLat '*umbulicus', from standard 'umbilicus'

Ro. creier - Ar. crier, meaning "brain", probably from Latin 'cerebrum' or 'cerebellum' (but evolved distinctly compared to other languages, probably through a VL. root 'crebrum')

Ro. mortăciune - Ar. murtãciuni, meaning "cadaver", from Lat. 'morticina'

Ro. scutura(re) / scutur - Ar. ascuturari / ascutur, from Vlat. '*excotulare'

Ro. scoate(re) / scot - Ar. scoatiri / scot, meaning "take out, remove" from VL. '*excutio'

Ro. toapsec - Ar. toapsec, meaning "poisonous", from Lat. 'toxicus'

Ro. străpunge(re) / străpung - Ar. strãpundziri / strãpungu, meaning to “puncture, *****”, from VL. ‘*extrapungere’ (mostly Balkan Romance and Friulian)

Ro. zbiera(re) / zbier - Ar. azghirari / azgher, meaning "to bray, moo, low", from Vulg Lat '*exbelare', from 'belare'

Ro. zgâria / zgârii - Megl Rom. zgăirari / zgair, meaning "to scratch, scrape" from VL. '*scaberare', from 'scaber'

Ro. flămând - Megl. flămund, meaning “starving”, possibly from VL. ’famelicus’ or ‘flammabundus’

Ro. demica(re) (dumica) / demic - Ar. dinjicari / dinjic, meaning "to crumble, shatter", from VL. *'demicare', from 'mica' (only in Balkan Romance)

Ro. colastră / corastră - Ar. curastrã, meaning "colostrum, beestings", from Lat. 'colostra'

Ro. mărgea - Ar. mãrdzeauã, meaning "bead", from Latin 'margella' (not found in other languages)

Ro. păresimi - Ar. pãreasinj, meaning "Lent", from Latin 'quadragesima' (phonetic evolution differs from most other Romance languages, in which it begins with c or q, like Italian 'quaresima' or Spanish 'cuaresma')

Ro. cârneleagă - Ar. cãrleagã, referring to a type of fasting for religious occasions, from Vulgar Latin 'carnem ligat' ("tie down meat", as in not allowing it; this is uniquely East Romance but the word "carnival" comes from a similar construction with 'carnem levare'). Related to this you have Ro. 'câșlegi' and Ar. 'cãshleagã' from 'caseum ligat' "tie the cheese", also referring to certain fasting in the Orthodox church.

Ro. întâi - Ar. ntãnj, meaning "first", from VL. '*antaneus', from 'anteanus'

Ro. păstaie - Ar. pãstalji, meaning "pod (of peas)", possibly from a VL. *'pistalia' (also found in Albanian 'bishtajë', but not any other languages)

Ro. potârniche / păturniche - Ar. piturniclji, meaning "partridge', from VLat '*coturnicula', from 'coturnix', meaning "quail" (other western cognates begin with 'c' like Italian 'coturnice' or Spanish 'codorniz')

Ro. speria(re) - Ar. aspãreari, meaning “to scare”, from a VL. *’expavorere’

Ro. picior - Ar. chicior, Megl. Rom pitšor, meaning "foot", from Latin 'petiolus', meaning "little foot, stalk or stem" (western cognates all take different senses and don't use the term to mean "foot")

Ro. alb - Ar. albu, meaning "white", from Lat. 'albus' (most western Romance use a Germanic borrowing like 'blanco' or 'bianco')

Ro. suge(re) - Ar. sug, "to suck" from Latin 'sugo, sugere' both have past participle 'supt' or 'suptu', from 'suctus' (western Romance mostly developed from different forms)

Ro. cătușă and Ar. cãtushã are basically the same word in origin, but developed different meanings after these languages split - Aromanian preserved the original sense of “cat” (as a diminutive of a hypothetical form *’cat’ which was lost in both languages, from Lat. ‘cattus’), while in Romanian it now means “handcuffs or manacles”, an unusual development probably due to how cats feet have a different color pattern and make it look like handcuffs. It uses pisică to mean cat instead.

Ar. 'mushat' ("beautiful") derives from a clipping of a now lost hypothetical *'frumushat' ("made beautiful/handsome"), from 'frumos' ("beautfiul") (which itself was lost in Ar. but preserved in Ro., which also has the archaic 'mușat' in some dialects, as well as frumușel and frumusețe. The Mușatini were an early dynasty in Wallachia (founded by Vlachs))

Ro. cătușă and Ar. cãtushã are basically the same word in origin, but developed different meanings after these languages split - Aromanian preserved the original sense of “cat” (as a diminutive of a hypothetical form *’cat’ which was lost in both languages, from Lat. ‘cattus’), while in Romanian it now means “handcuffs or manacles”, an unusual development probably due to how cats feet have a different color pattern and make it look like handcuffs. It uses pisică to mean cat instead.

Ar. 'mushat' ("beautiful") derives from a clipping of a now lost hypothetical *'frumushat' ("made beautiful/handsome"), from 'frumos' ("beautfiul") (which itself was lost in Ar. but preserved in Ro., which also has the archaic 'mușat' in some dialects, as well as frumușel and frumusețe. The Mușatini were an early dynasty in Wallachia (founded by Vlachs))

The languages have the Latin derived suffixes in common like -ciune / -ciuni (from -tionem), - ur (from -ulus), -or (from -olus), -tor (from -torius), -ar (from -arius), -uț / uts (from -ucius), -ea / -eauã (from -ella), -el (from -ellus), -tate / -tati (from -tatem), -eață / -eatsã (from -itia), -oare / -oare (from -oria), -esc / -escu (from -iscus), -ime / -imi (from -imen), -oi / -onj (from -oneus), etc.

Though not of Latin origin, Romanian uses 'copil' for "child", although the equivalent Aromanian term is 'cochil', meaning "bastard", like Albanian 'kopil'. Megleno-Romanian has ‘cupilaș’ to mean “kid” though, like Romanian diminutive ‘copilaș. Bucuros is used in both Ro. and Megl. to mean happy. ‘Frică’ (“fear”) is another word shared between these languages, coming from Greek. ‘Fricos’ in both Ar. and Ro. means cowardly. Ro. ‘cărămida’, Megl. ‘chirămidă’, and Ar. ‘chirãmidã’, all meaning “brick”, are from Greek. Aromanian, Romanian, and Megleno-Romanian all use the word ‘brad’ for “fir tree”, possibly related to Albanian or some pre-Roman origin.

Some Slavic terms are used by all of these: Ro. and Megl. use trăiesc / trăies for “to live”, of old Slavic origin, but with a Romanian suffix and inflection/conjugation. Ro. has nevastă, Megl.has niveastă, and Ar. has ãnveastã all meaning “wife”, of Slavic origin, and Ro. / Megl. ‘coajă’, Ar. ‘coaji’ meaning “peel or skin” of fruit, from Slavic, among several others, so they started borrowing Slavic words before they even split up. Some other examples include Ro. veveriță and Ar. viviritsã (“squirrel”), Ro. plătesc and Ar. plãtescu (“to pay”), Ro. clește and Ar. cleashti (“tongs, pincers”), Ro. cârpă and Ar. cãrpã (“rag”), Ro. lopată and Ar. lupatã (“shovel”), Ro. rană and Ar. aranã (“wound”), Ro. împletesc Ar. mplitescu (“to plait, braid”), Ro. topor Ar. tãpor (“axe”), Ro. baltă and Ar. baltã (“pond, puddle”), and both languages have ‘gol’ for (“empty/naked/bare”). Ro. ‘vreme’ and Megl. ‘vreami’ for “weather”, also from Slavic.

Furthermore, Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian have a lot of terms in common that deal with domesticated animals, like sheep and cows, at different stages of development (like some terms specifically applying for only one or two year old animals), as this was an important part of their lifestyles historically. So it basically paints the picture of a rustic, countryside people, not descended from city-dwellers for the most part.

Italians and Spaniards would be hard pressed to understand many of these words listed above just by looking at them, even though they are from Latin. It goes to show you how close these East Romance languages are to each other and how different they are from other Romance varieties, something that can only be the case if they were one language for much longer than some assume. I hope by now this is pretty convincing and beyond any reasonable refutation at this point.


That's why I find it annoying when people who know nothing about this say something like "oh yeah Aromanians must be pure Roman Italians from Central Italy that settled down in Greece as legionaries, or are Latinized Greeks occupying the cities, and Romanians on the other hand are partially Latinized Dacian-Slav hicks from hundreds of miles to the north and they have nothing in common aside from both speaking Romance". Even Maciamo seems to have implied this at one point. And the assumption that languages and ethnic groups were always exactly where they are today is common. Why would these two languages be so idiosyncratically similar if they were that far apart from the start? It's also clear based on the inherited lexicon that these people were not urbanites and were both rather rustic country peoples from the start.

I'm guessing the assumption about Aromanians being actual Roman descendants is often because they happen to generally look somewhat more Mediterranean (but this is actually partly because they maintained more local Thraco-Illyrian ancestry and likely moreso because modern Aromanians have mixed a lot with Greeks over the ages, despite their ultimate origin further north), and then people come up with other reasonings to support the idea. Or that they have more R1b than other peoples, which is interesting and possibly a valid point actually. But Romanians also have slightly higher R1b than many of their neighbors (some regions more than others, like in the west). It does depend on the subclades though, which are usually different from the western ones. But the idea is that this likely came before the Romans arrived and was part of older Central European Indo European migrations (that produced Celts and Italics and some Germanics as well). But we don't really know for sure I guess. Anyway these things aren’t at odds with the idea that they were once a people in the central Balkans that moved apart and blended with others.

Most of the people who make these claims have never closely examined the language or the deeper aspects of the folk culture, history, and other things, but rather just hear that they speak Romance, and then make up their own theories. Any serious linguists and experts that specialize in this stuff know what's actually up.
Weren't the Mușatini the royal family of moldova not Wallachia?
 
Are you sure the last video is Banat Romanians, becouse it sounds more like timok
Yes, they are from Timok in Serbia, I meant that they have a dialectal relationship to nearby Banat and Oltenia regions of Romania.

By the way, here is some Megleno-Romanian spoken (also in northern Greece), but it feels closer to regular Romanian than Aromanian does.

 
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Weren't the Mușatini the royal family of moldova not Wallachia?
Whoops yeah that was a typo on my part, writing too much too quickly here lol.
 
Kinda related but to think basarab the founder and early vlachs leaders related in your opinion ? Why I ask is because I hear before that he was the son of litovoi or seneslau
 
Probably. Basarab itself as a name seems to be of Turkic (Cuman or Pecheneg) origin, although sources unanimously described him as a Vlach. His father seems to have been named Thocomerius, another name of that type. Based on his appearance in the earliest depictions, he doesn't look very Central Asian Turkic at all, but rather local.

1702092661422.png


So it seems there was some political union of the Vlachs that went north and some of the remaining Cumans (or rather the Vlach elite took on Cuman names and perhaps some aspects of the culture). As for Litovoi or Seneslau, I think they were earlier regional rulers in Oltenia in the previous century, the 1200s (where the Banate of Severin was), but they are too far apart in time to be the father of Basarab, who lived in the mid 1300s. Their names are Slavic in origin but they too were explicitly said to be Vlachs in chronicles of the time.

Then there is also the semi-legendary Radu Negru, who is said to be the true founder of Wallachia, but he, like many others of this early time period, are shrouded in mystery.

We can only speculate what these 'Cumans' looked like.
Look at the modern Bulgarians, their name is derived from the Turkic Bulgars and yet, they don't have much Turkic dna too.

It could be that these 'Cumans' might have had Turkic elite but the common people might have been mostly of local(slavic) stock.

True, I think so too. But again, Slavic in this case, despite language, doesn't mean pure Slavic, they probably assimilated a lot of the earlier layers of populations that were left in Dacia before they arrived (mix of leftover free Dacians/Carpi/Getae, maybe a few East Germanics, and these peoples themselves assimilated Central European Celts and others). Even with the Romanized population retreating in the late 3rd century, I don't think the area was empty when the Slavs arrived in the 6th. Archaeological evidence seems to indicate that some population remained and the material cultures and styles of artifacts gradually changed over time. But yes by the early Middle Ages, the Slavs had become an important cultural element for sure. But it was likely similar to the situation with what became South Slavs in that it was a blend of newer and older populations.
 
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Probably. Basarab itself as a name seems to be of Turkic (Cuman or Pecheneg) origin, although sources unanimously described him as a Vlach. His father seems to have been named Thocomerius, another name of that type. Based on his appearance in the earliest depictions, he doesn't look very Central Asian Turkic at all, but rather local.

View attachment 14622

So it seems there was some political union of the Vlachs that went north and some of the remaining Cumans (or rather the Vlach elite took on Cuman names and perhaps some aspects of the culture). As for Litovoi or Seneslau, I think they were earlier regional rulers in Oltenia in the previous century, the 1200s (where the Banate of Severin was), but they are too far apart in time to be the father of Basarab, who lived in the mid 1300s. Their names are Slavic in origin but they too were explicitly said to be Vlachs in chronicles of the time.

Then there is also the semi-legendary Radu Negru, who is said to be the true founder of Wallachia, but he, like many others of this early time period, are shrouded in mystery.
I think seneslau was east of olt river arges river . Whats weird is that litovoi had brother called barbat 😂 .which not slavic word
 
If you actually look closely enough, it's so painfully and blatantly obvious that all East Romance (including Romanian and Aromanian) uniquely developed together as the same language way after Latin was a thing, and yes, probably south of the Danube. There's a direct correspondence or correlation between the vast majority of the inherited Latin lexicon if you compare them, and many are not found in other Romance or have unusual, unique senses that developed the same in them and apart from all others. Here are just a few examples of many hundreds (there is a lot more vocabulary shared between them, close to 2000 words, but I just wanted to share some of the ones with the unique/unusual developments not shared by the rest). For verbs, both the full infinitive with resulting nounal form, and the first person singular is listed, since Aromanian no longer has the standard infinitive, for better direct comparison:
I belive the more i read about it and think, that Romanians and Aromanians have the same roots, i dont know if other Romanians here have done dna test, but I do get on myheritage some Aromanians from Greece as distans reletives, and i even have the same haplogroup as one Aromanian from Constanta, but could also be that I have Aromanian further back in my lineage, but if we look at the language and many times phenotype Romanians and Aromanians sound and look very similar
 
I think seneslau was east of olt river arges river . Whats weird is that litovoi had brother called barbat 😂 .which not slavic word
Yes that goes to show you that Vlach culture at this time had various cultural elements and influences. They took on names from whatever population they happened to be surrounded by or was dominant in an area (like Slavs/Bulgarians/Cumans), and sometimes also used names originating from their own language, like Barbat. But yeah that's why you had names like Vlad Tepes the Impaler, because of the cultural influence of Slavic on Romanian during the Middle Ages

The assimilating power of Vlachs is one of the main features of their history if you look at it.

As for the chieftains Glad, Gelu, and Menumorut, often mentioned in Romanian history books as being early Romanian dukes when the Magyars arrived around 900 AD (as per the Gesta Hungarorum), their identity is even less certain. Glad, who is said to have come from Vidin in northwest Bulgaria, and particularly Gelu may have had some association or origin with the Vlachs, but there isn't a lot of info to go on. Some say that these figures may have been created by the Anonymous author of the Gesta to give the arriving Magyars an enemy to defeat, but it is still debated by historians. There are also the "shepherds of the Romans" mentioned, but some say that these are remnants of former Pannonian Romance populations further to the northwest, and at any rate it is murky.
 
I belive the more i read about it and think, that Romanians and Aromanians have the same roots, i dont know if other Romanians here have done dna test, but I do get on myheritage some Aromanians from Greece as distans reletives, and i even have the same haplogroup as one Aromanian from Constanta, but could also be that I have Aromanian further back in my lineage, but if we look at the language and many times phenotype Romanians and Aromanians sound and look very similar
I agree. I think specifically a subset of Romanians can certainly bear a resemblance to some Aromanians (who seem probably a little less diverse within their population, which is much smaller anyway), and accordingly I expect a subset of Romanians will have closer genetic ties to Aromanians/Megleno-Romanians and other Balkan Vlachs. The population of the totality of modern Romania as a whole comes from a broader set of backgrounds though, and it blended with others (Aromanians not having as much Slavic in the mix). This is consistent with the idea of Balkan Vlachs migrating northward into an area that was partly occupied by others already, although likely more sparsely if they were able to get them to start speaking their language.

It could be coincidence but from what I notice, the more Balkan or Vlach-like Romanians tend to have surnames that are from old Romanian words and simple occupational names. There are some people in Romania, on the other hand, who have strange names that are either noticeably foreign or something unusual where you can't tell what the heck it means or comes from.

I've noticed the same thing about Albanians as with Aromanians: I'd say a higher percentage of their population could pass within the broader Romanian population than vice-versa, because Romania also has some types that are not as common down there. But I've known several Albanians that had no problems blending in traveling in Romania, and were usually taken for natives until speaking.

And for example these two Romanian soccer players would likely fit in easily in parts of the Southern Balkans:
1702436524630.png

1702436389203.png
But there are others who probably would not so much:
1702439472878.png

1702439737786.png

But it's not all one way or the other, even among Aromanians you sometimes get more Slavic influenced types, for example the famous tennis player Simona Halep is from an Aromanian family:

1702475544166.png

That doesn't even begin to cover the range of types of people you can find.

As for the need for greater testing, I agree, but how would this be accomplished? Also, what services are used? When someone gets like 23andme or AncestryDNA, they report their ethnicity and it's recorded (if they want to)? Or do they have to submit their data to other databases like Gedmatch and stuff? How do they collect official data on nationalities and ethnicities?

Anyway, sorry that this is getting off topic, since this is meant to be primarily a linguistics thread.
 
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Ro. falcă - Ar. falcã, meaning “jaw”, but from Latin ‘falx, falcem’ (which meant “sickle”, with a unique development of East Romance, comparing the shape of the jaw bone to a sickle)

Ro. măsea(uă) - Ar. mãseauã, meaning “molar tooth”, from Latin ‘maxilla’ (which meant “jaw” in general, showing a specific development of Balkan Romance)

Ro. căpățână - Ar. cãpitsãnã, meaning "skull/head" (in Ro. especially of a dead animal), from VL. 'capitina', from 'caput' ("head"; this is somewhat related to Spanish 'cabeza' but with a different suffix)

Ro. vătui - Ar. vitulj, meaning “young goat kid”, from Lat. ‘vitulus’, meaning “bull calf”; see also Ro. and Megl. 'ied' and Ar. 'ed' ("goat kid") from Lat. 'haedus'

Ro. viță - Ar. yitsã, meaning “vine”, from Latin ‘vitea’ (just Balkan Romance)

Ro. meriză - Ar. amiridz, meaning "shady place where sheep or cattle rest during the day", from Latin 'meridies' ("midday")

Ro. rău - Ar. arãu, meaning "bad, wicked", from Latin 'reus' (which actually meant "guilty"; this change of meaning also found in Dalmatian 'ri' and obsolete Italian 'rio')

Ro. bucă - Ar. bucã, meaning "cheek (particularly buttcheek), from Latin 'bucca' (of which one of the senses was cheek, but also meant "mouth", "mouthful", "jaw", and most other Romance languages took it to mean "mouth", like Spanish 'boca', Italian 'bocca', French 'bouche', etc.)

Ro. buric - Ar. buric, meaning "bellybutton/umbilicus", from VLat '*umbulicus', from standard 'umbilicus'

Ro. creier - Ar. crier, meaning "brain", probably from Latin 'cerebrum' or 'cerebellum' (but evolved distinctly compared to other languages, probably through a VL. root 'crebrum')

Ro. inimă - Ar. inimã, meaning "heart", but from Latin 'anima', meaning instead "soul" (unlike other Romance)

Ro. mortăciune - Ar. murtãciuni, meaning "cadaver", from Lat. 'morticina'

Ro. scutura(re) / scutur - Ar. ascuturari / ascutur, from Vlat. '*excotulare'

Ro. scoate(re) / scot - Ar. scoatiri / scot, meaning "take out, remove" from VL. '*excutio'

Ro. ruga(re) / rog - Ar. and Megl. rugari / rog, meaning "to pray", from Latin 'rogare' (western Romance uses this word for "to beg" instead"); there is also the related Ro. rugăciune and Ar. rugãciuni, meaning "prayer"

Ro. mește(re) / mesc (archaic) / Ar. meashtiri / mescu, meaning "to pour out, give a drink to", coming from Latin 'miscere, misceo', which means instead "to mix" (all western Romance kept this original meaning)

Ro. toapsec - Ar. toapsec, meaning "poisonous", from Lat. 'toxicus'

Ro. străpunge(re) / străpung - Ar. strãpundziri / strãpungu, meaning to “puncture, *****”, from VL. ‘*extrapungere’ (mostly Balkan Romance and Friulian)

Ro. zbiera(re) / zbier - Ar. azghirari / azgher, meaning "to bray, moo, low", from Vulg Lat '*exbelare', from 'belare'

Ro. zgâria / zgârii - Megl Rom. zgăirari / zgair, meaning "to scratch, scrape" from VL. '*scaberare', from 'scaber'

Ro. flămând - Megl. flămund, meaning “starving”, possibly from VL. ’famelicus’ or ‘flammabundus’

Ro. demica(re) (dumica) / demic - Ar. dinjicari / dinjic, meaning "to crumble, shatter", from VL. *'demicare', from 'mica' (only in Balkan Romance)

Ro. colastră / corastră - Ar. curastrã, meaning "colostrum, beestings", from Lat. 'colostra'

Ro. mărgea - Ar. mãrdzeauã, meaning "bead", from Latin 'margella' (not found in other languages)

Ro. păresimi - Ar. pãreasinj, meaning "Lent", from Latin 'quadragesima' (phonetic evolution differs from most other Romance languages, in which it begins with c or q, like Italian 'quaresima' or Spanish 'cuaresma')

Ro. cârneleagă - Ar. cãrleagã, referring to a type of fasting for religious occasions, from Vulgar Latin 'carnem ligat' ("tie down meat", as in not allowing it; this is uniquely East Romance but the word "carnival" comes from a similar construction with 'carnem levare'). Related to this you have Ro. 'câșlegi' and Ar. 'cãshleagã' from 'caseum ligat' "tie the cheese", also referring to certain fasting in the Orthodox church.

Ro. întâi - Ar. ntãnj, meaning "first", from VL. '*antaneus', from 'anteanus'

Ro. păstaie - Ar. pãstalji, meaning "pod (of peas)", possibly from a VL. *'pistalia' (also found in Albanian 'bishtajë', but not any other languages)

Ro. potârniche / păturniche - Ar. piturniclji, meaning "partridge', from VLat '*coturnicula', from 'coturnix', meaning "quail" (other western cognates begin with 'c' like Italian 'coturnice' or Spanish 'codorniz')

Ro. speria(re) - Ar. aspãreari, meaning “to scare”, from a VL. *’expavorere’

Ro. picior - Ar. chicior, Megl. Rom pitšor, meaning "foot", from Latin 'petiolus', meaning "little foot, stalk or stem" (western cognates all take different senses and don't use the term to mean "foot")

Ro. niște - Ar. nishti, meaning "some, an unspecified amount", from Latin 'nescio quid' ("I don't know what", this expression only left remnants in East Romance)

Ro. alb - Ar. albu, meaning "white", from Lat. 'albus' (most western Romance use a Germanic borrowing like 'blanco' or 'bianco')

Ro. suge(re) - Ar. sug, "to suck" from Latin 'sugo, sugere' both have past participle 'supt' or 'suptu', from 'suctus' (western Romance mostly developed from different forms)

An interesting development is Ro. câștiga(re) and Ar. cãshtigari, from Latin 'castigare' ("to punish"). The Romanian word means "to win/gain", while the Aromanian means "to worry, or care for". They both obviously deviated away from the Latin original meaning, but seem to have branched off to different meanings, perhaps Romanian showing further evolution from the original proto-Romanian meaning.

Ro. cătușă and Ar. cãtushã are basically the same word in origin, but developed different meanings after these languages split - Aromanian preserved the original sense of “cat” (as a diminutive of a hypothetical form *’cat’ which was lost in both languages, from Lat. ‘cattus’), while in Romanian it now means “handcuffs or manacles”, an unusual development probably due to how cats feet have a different color pattern and make it look like handcuffs. It uses pisică to mean cat instead.

Ar. 'mushat' ("beautiful") derives from a clipping of a now lost hypothetical *'frumushat' ("made beautiful/handsome"), from 'frumos' ("beautfiul") (which itself was lost in Ar. but preserved in Ro., which also has the archaic 'mușat' in some dialects, as well as frumușel and frumusețe. The Mușatini were an early dynasty in Moldova (founded by Vlachs))

The languages have the Latin derived suffixes in common like -ciune / -ciuni (from -tionem), - ur (from -ulus), -or (from -olus), -tor (from -torius), -ar (from -arius), -uț / uts (from -ucius), -ea / -eauã (from -ella), -el (from -ellus), -tate / -tati (from -tatem), -eață / -eatsã (from -itia), -oare / -oare (from -oria), -esc / -escu (from -iscus), -ime / -imi (from -imen), -oi / -onj (from -oneus), etc.

They each have intervocalic Latin -l- becoming -r- (like Ro. păr and Ar. per from Lat. pilus "hair"), plurals that are formed with a semi-silent vowel (-i), and show diphthongs -oa- and -ea- from long Latin -o- and -e- respectively... for example poartă and poartã ("gate") from 'porta'.

Though not of Latin origin, Romanian uses 'copil' for "child", although the equivalent Aromanian term is 'cochil', meaning "bastard", like Albanian 'kopil'. Megleno-Romanian has ‘cupilaș’ to mean “kid” though, like Romanian diminutive ‘copilaș. Bucuros is used in both Ro. and Megl. to mean happy. ‘Frică’ (“fear”) is another word shared between these languages, coming from Greek. ‘Fricos’ in both Ar. and Ro. means cowardly. Ro. ‘cărămida’, Megl. ‘chirămidă’, and Ar. ‘chirãmidã’, all meaning “brick”, are from Greek. Aromanian, Romanian, and Megleno-Romanian all use the word ‘brad’ for “fir tree”, possibly related to Albanian or some pre-Roman origin.

Some Slavic terms are used by all of these: Ro. and Megl. use trăiesc / trăies for “to live”, of old Slavic origin, but with a Romanian suffix and inflection/conjugation. Ro. has nevastă, Megl.has niveastă, and Ar. has ãnveastã all meaning “wife”, of Slavic origin, and Ro. / Megl. ‘coajă’, Ar. ‘coaji’ meaning “peel or skin” of fruit, from Slavic, among several others, so they started borrowing Slavic words before they even split up. Some other examples include Ro. veveriță and Ar. viviritsã (“squirrel”), Ro. plătesc and Ar. plãtescu (“to pay”), Ro. clește and Ar. cleashti (“tongs, pincers”), Ro. cârpă and Ar. cãrpã (“rag”), Ro. lopată and Ar. lupatã (“shovel”), Ro. rană and Ar. aranã (“wound”), Ro. împletesc Ar. mplitescu (“to plait, braid”), Ro. topor Ar. tãpor (“axe”), Ro. baltă and Ar. baltã (“pond, puddle”), and both languages have ‘gol’ for (“empty/naked/bare”). Ro. ‘vreme’ and Megl. ‘vreami’ for “weather”, also from Slavic. In many cases, these East Romance early Slavic borrowings are more like each other than they are to the actual Slavic words because they've been adapted to proto-Romanian inflections.

Furthermore, Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian have a lot of terms in common that deal with domesticated animals, like sheep and cows, at different stages of development (like some terms specifically applying for only one or two year old animals), as this was an important part of their lifestyles historically. So it basically paints the picture of a rustic, countryside people, not descended from city-dwellers for the most part.

Italians and Spaniards would be hard pressed to understand many of these words listed above just by looking at them, even though they are from Latin. It goes to show you how close these East Romance languages are to each other and how different they are from other Romance varieties, something that can only be the case if they were one language for much longer than some assume. I hope by now this is pretty convincing and beyond any reasonable refutation at this point.


That's why I find it annoying when people who know nothing about this say something like "oh yeah Aromanians must be pure Roman Italians from Central Italy that settled down in Greece as legionaries, or are Latinized Greeks occupying the cities, and Romanians on the other hand are partially Latinized Dacian-Slav hicks from hundreds of miles to the north and they have nothing in common aside from both speaking Romance". Even Maciamo seems to have implied this at one point. And the assumption that languages and ethnic groups were always exactly where they are today is common. Why would these two languages be so idiosyncratically similar if they were that far apart from the start? It's also clear based on the inherited lexicon that these people were not urbanites and were both rather rustic country peoples from the start.

I'm guessing the assumption about Aromanians being actual Roman descendants is often because they happen to generally look somewhat more Mediterranean (but this is actually partly because they maintained more local Thraco-Illyrian ancestry and likely moreso because modern Aromanians have mixed a lot with Greeks over the ages, despite their ultimate origin further north), and then people come up with other reasonings to support the idea. Or that they have more R1b than other peoples, which is interesting and possibly a valid point actually. But Romanians also have slightly higher R1b than many of their neighbors (some regions more than others, like in the west). It does depend on the subclades though, which are usually different from the western ones. But the idea is that this likely came before the Romans arrived and was part of older Central European Indo European migrations (that produced Celts and Italics and some Germanics as well). But we don't really know for sure I guess. Anyway these things aren’t at odds with the idea that they were once a people in the central Balkans that moved apart and blended with others.

Most of the people who make these claims have never closely examined the language or the deeper aspects of the folk culture, history, and other things, but rather just hear that they speak Romance, and then make up their own theories. Any serious linguists and experts that specialize in this stuff know what's actually up.
Ro. drac - Ar. drac, meaning "devil", from Latin 'draco' (which actually meant "dragon", and was the sense taken by all the other Romance)

Alb – dreq, for “devil”, and later on Albanian got even “djall”, so same word used from two different waves of Latin in Albanian.



Ro. cutremura(re) / cutremur - Ar. cutrimburari / cutreambur, meaning "to shake, quake" from Vulgar Latin *'contremulare, contremulo' (again specifically an East Romance construction)

Alb – tremb(ur), meaning “to frighten”.



Ro. viață - Ar. yeatsã, meaning "life", probably derived from 'viu' / 'yiu' ("alive") or a Vulgar Latin *'vivitia'. Related, you have Ro. 'învia / înviere / înviez' and Ar. 'anyeari / anyedz', meaning "revive, resurrect, come to life" from a V. Lat. '*invivare' with the suffix *-idio' (-ez/-edz).

Alb – jeta, meaning “life”,



Ro. drept - Ar. dreptu / ndreptu, meaning "straight" or "right", from Latin 'directus', although a common Romance word, it displays the same shift of -ct to -pt not found in other Romance; compare also Ro. noapte and Ar. noapti (“night”), from Latin ‘noctis’

Alb – drejt, meaning “straight”.



Ro. înalt - Ar. naltu / ãnaltu, meaning "high/tall", from Latin 'altum' (but unlike other Romance, they prefix it with in-)

Geg-Alb nalt, meaning “high”, while in Tosk-Alb is lart.



Ro. linge(re) / ling - Ar. alindziri / alingu, meaning “to lick” from Latin ‘lingere, lingo’ (mostly East Romance and some Italian languages like Friulian; most western Romance derives from a probable Germanic term, like Italian 'leccare')

Alb – leng, meaning liquid.



Ro. cireșar - Ar. cirishar, meaning "the month of June" (now a nonstandard regional folk term in Ro.), derived from cireașă / cireashã which means "cherry" or from a Vulgar Latin '*ceresiarius'

Alb – qershi, meaning “cherry”, and qershor meaning “June”. Wow!!



Ro. meriză - Ar. amiridz, meaning "shady place where sheep or cattle rest during the day", from Latin 'meridies' ("midday")

Alb – mriz, for the same place.

The most famous Albanian Restaurant is called Mrizi i Zanave, and its almost the same in Romanian.



Ro. creier - Ar. crier, meaning "brain", probably from Latin 'cerebrum' or 'cerebellum' (but evolved distinctly compared to other languages, probably through a VL. root 'crebrum')

Alb – krie/krye, meaning “head”.
 

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