Eastern Romance People - Culture

Culture

Many Vlachs in mediaeval times were shepherds who drove their sheep through the mountains of south-eastern Europe. The Vlach shepherds reached as far as southern Poland and Moravia in the north by following the Carpathian range, the Dinaric Alps in the west, the Pindus mountains in the south, and the Caucasus Mountains in the east.

In many of these areas, the descendants of the Vlachs have lost their language, but their legacy still exists in cultural influences, customs, folklore, the way of life of the mountain people and in the place names of Romanian or Aromanian origin that are spread throughout the region, though notably few places names in Transylvania are of Romanian origin. .

Another part of the Vlachs, especially those in the northern parts, in Romania and Moldova, were traditional farmers growing cereal crops. Linguists believe that the large vocabulary of Latin words related to agriculture shows that they have always been a farming Vlach population. Cultural links between the Northern Vlachs (Romanians) and Southern Vlachs (Aromanians) were broken by the 10th century, and since then there were different cultural influences:

• Romanian culture was slightly influenced by neighbouring people such as Slavs and Hungarians. The 19th century saw an important opening toward Western Europe and cultural ties with France.
• Aromanian culture developed initially as a pastoral culture, later to be greatly influenced by the Byzantine Greek culture.