Romanian language in Serbia

Infobox Language
name=Vlach / Romanian
nativename="română" / "rumâneşte" / "rumâneşce"
familycolor=Indo-European
states=flag|Serbia
speakers=54,818 (2002)
fam2=Italic
fam3=Romance
fam4=East Romance
fam5=Romanian
iso1=none
iso2b=none|iso2t=none
iso3=none

Vlach / Roumanian Website of the [http://www.cnmnr.org/index.html Consiliul Naţional al Minorităţii Naţionale Rumâne din Uniunea Statală Serbia şi Muntenegru] ] ("limba română" in own designation, [Website of the [http://www.timoc.org/onamarom.htm Federaţia Rumânilor din Serbie] ] sometimes "rumâneşte / rumâneşce"; Fact|date=February 2007 Влашки / "Vlaški" in Serbian) are the terms used to designate the romanian varieties (dialects) spoken by the Vlachs (Romanians) of eastern Serbia and northern Bulgaria.

tatus

Serbian statistics list Vlach and Romanian languages separately depending of what people declared in census. This however, does not mean that Serbian government have official position whether Vlach and Romanian are separate languages. ISO hadn't assigned it a separate language code in the ISO 639 standard. In the 2002 census, 40,054 people in Serbia declared themselves ethnic Vlachs and 54,818 people declared themselves native speakers of the Vlach language. The language of the questionings was serbian.

The Vlach language does not have any official status and it is not standardized, "Danas" [http://www.danas.co.yu/20070319/hronika3.html "Svedeni smo na vlaško kolo"] , 19 March 2007] thus some members of Vlach community ask for official usage of standard Romanian in the areas inhabited by Vlachs until the standardization of the Vlach language.

For historical reasons connected with the multicultural region of Vojvodina, Romanian is listed as a separate language in latest Serbian census, the number of its speakers was 34,515, while 34,576 people declared themselves as ethnic Romanians. The declared Vlach speakers are mostly concentrated in eastern Serbia, mainly in the Timočka Krajina region and adjacent areas, while declared Romanian speakers are mostly concentrated in Vojvodina.

According to some sources in the media (among others BBC, ProTV and Gardianul), Serbia recognised Romanian as the native language of the Vlachs, through the act of confirmation of the "National Council of the Vlach (Roumanian) National Minority" in August 2007. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/romanian/news/story/2007/08/070817_vlahi_serbia_minoritate.shtml "Vlachs of Serbia recognised as a national minority"] ("Vlahii din Serbia recunoscuţi ca minoritate naţională"), published by BBC on 17-08-2007: "Vlachs were finally recognised as a national minority and the Romanian language was accepted as their native language"] [ [http://www.protv.ro/filme/limba-romana-recunoscuta-drept-limba-materna-in-serbia.html?id_file=27625#27625 Ştirile ProTV: "Romanian language recognised as native language in Serbia"] ("Limba română recunoscută drept limbă maternă în Serbia"] , news report made by Ştirile ProTV on August 19 2007] [ [http://www.gardianul.ro/2007/08/03/externe-c3/serbia_a_recunoscut_ca_vlahii_din_timoc_vorbesc_rom_neste-s98924.html "Serbia recognised that the Vlachs of Timoc speak Romanian"] ("Serbia a recunoscut că «vlahii» din Timoc vorbesc româneşte"), published in Gardianul, 03-08-2007]

The "National Council of Vlachs (Roumanians) in Serbia" listed Romanian in its statute as the language of the Vlach minority.

Features

Its two main variants, Ungurean and Ţăran, are very close to the Romanian language spoken in Banat and Oltenia, respectively.

Their language was isolated from Romanian and it did not keep up with the neologisms (for some abstract notions, as well as technological, political and scientific concepts) borrowed from French and Italian and as such, they're using Serbian counterparts instead, as Serbian has been the language of education for nearly two centuries.

Name

The term "Vlach" is the English transcription of the Serbian term used to describe this language ("vlaški"), while "Romanian" or "Roumanian" is the English transcription of its Vlach/Romanian counterpart ("român/rumân"). [ [http://www.ziua.net/display.php?id=147558&data=2004-05-17 Ziua.net] ] [ [http://2004.rgnpress.ro/index.php?option=com_ab_calendar&month=09&year=2004&day=02&Itemid=1 Interview with Predrag Balašević, president of the Romanian/Vlach Democratic Party of Serbia] : "We all know that we call ourselves in Romanian Romanians and in Serbian Vlachs."]

For example, the National Council representing Vlach minority is called:
*"Consiliul Naţional al Minorităţii Naţionale Rumâne" in Vlach/Romanian,
*Национални савет Влашке националне мањине, "Nacionalni Savet Vlaške Nacionalne Manjine" in Serbian,
* and "National Council of Vlach (Roumanian) National Minority" in English.

Further on, the Romanian/Vlach Democratic Party of Serbia is called in Romanian/Vlach "Partidul Democrat al Rumânilor din Sârbia" and "Vlaška Demokratska Stranka" (Влашка демократска странка) in Serbian. This happens also with the others institutions of the Vlach minority.

The term Vlach language(s) is also often used to refer to Eastern Romance languages in general, which includes Romanian. There are considerable differences between these Vlach languages (the Greek, Macedonian and Albanian Vlachs, versus the Vlachs of Istria, versus the Vlachs of Eastern Serbia who are closest to Romanians) and untutored native speakers have difficulties understanding each other.

Usage in Media and Church

Radio Zaječar [http://www.danas.co.yu/20070319/hronika3.html] and Radio Pomoravlje [http://radio.pomoravlje.net/] broadcasting programme in the Vlach language.

References