Talk:Vlachs of Serbia

Older ethnic Serbs in Romania call the Romanians "Vlahs"

I'm Serb from Romania. My grandparents and other old people in the village where I lived used to call the native Romanians "Vlasi"(serb word for Vlahs) and not "Rumuni" (Romanians). I would like to have this statement added to the article. We live our daily lives separated from today's Serbia for more than a century - a direct contact was almost non-existent after the 1st world war when new eastern european countries were formed. Moreover, my grandparents were almost illiterate, attending only a bit of primary school, like most of their generation of that time and nobody forced them to call the Romanians that way. I think it was a common thing among elderly Serbs , most of them living in other romanian villages near the serbian-romanian border, to call the Romanians "Vlachs". Younger Serbs' generations call them "Rumuni"(serb word for "Romanian"). As I didn't have time to do study the matter thoroughly, I just came across some videos with TV programmes in this "language" after a quick search on the internet. Speaking both serbian and romanian language, i noticed the following differences (compared to the standard Romanian language):

-the letter "t" is replaced by "ć" in words, similar to "-ce" in the romanian Banat dialect, for ex. "uice" instead of "uite"(engl. "look! ") . The same applies for "d", being replaced by "đ" - rather serbian influence - somewhat similar to ekavic and ijekavic dialects of the serbian language -the grammar is simpler -there are no modern words(or serbian words are used instead), wrong or less plural and genitive forms, same words that have a different meaning in the standard/modern romanian language or were used in the past, etc. It might seem a big difference at first glance, but it's not. With a bit of "cleaning" it would reduce significantly the "linguistic distance" to the standard romanian, and sound more like serbian and croatian(or British/American English). Even "uncleaned"(like now) it doesn't look like another language. The difference would remain bigger than the one between serbian and croatian, but much smaller than that between serbian and macedonian. 217.80.214.152 (talk) 10:53, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

For this to be added, you'd need to bring a reliable source. Newspapers, books or academic articles. Super Ψ Dro 14:08, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

There is a plenty of sources of this. Let me start with Dositej Obradović, the most significant Serbian writer, politician, etc.which in one of the most significant literatury piece of Serbian literature use term Vlach for Romanians throught his work Život i priključenie

https://sr.m.wikisource.org/sr-el/%D0%9E%D0%B1%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%9A%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B5

Otac moj zvao se Đurađ Obradović, rodom Srbin, po zanatu ćurčija i trgovac; mati moja, Kruna imenom, bila je rodom iz sela Semartona nedaleko od Čakova, kći Ranka Paunkića. Toliko sam malen ostao po ocu sirota, da jedva ga pamtim, no rasteći, koga sam god čuo o njemu govoriti, nije ga niko bez uzdisanja spominjao, koliko Srblji toliko i Vlasi, dobrim bratom Đukom nazivljući ga, žaleći što je mlad umro, i želeći da njegova deca njemu podobna budu.

My father's name was Đurađ Obradović, a Serb by birth, a curcija by trade and a merchant; my mother, named Kruna, was born in the village of Semartona, not far from Čakovo, the daughter of Ranko Paunkić. As a child my father left the family, and I became an orphan, that I hardly remember him, but growing up, whoever I heard talking about him, no one mentioned him without sighing, both Serbs and Vlachs, calling him Đuka our good brother, being in sorrow for he has died young, and wishing that his children be good as him

I will cite thousands of this examples if needed.

Fr TRIBALIA212 (talk) 13:04, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

This text is two centuries old. Ever since the Romanians have gotten their own nation state and with the rise of nationalism, "Romanian" has replaced "Vlach" as the name the European nations knew the Romanians by. Further, in those times, Banat, which is where Obradović lived, was Austrian, so he was not a "Serb in Romania". The article for those, Serbs of Romania, covers their history from 1919/1920 onwards. Super Ψ Dro 14:37, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I will collect day by day all sources.

This is about situation from end of 19th century

https://vsov.academia.edu/MirceaMaran

The question of the identity of Romanians in the Banat is a particularly interesting problem, which has a lot of specificity in it, both in relation to compatriots who live in their home country, and in relation to fellow citizens who are members of the majority Serbian nation and other national communities, who live in that part of the Banat. which is part of the Republic of Serbia. The roots of that identity should be sought in the specific historical conditions in which the population found itself in the past. Until the emergence of national identity, at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, we can only talk about the ethnic identity of this population, which was called Vlachs (Vlasi) by the neighboring peoples and their fellow citizens, as well as by the representatives of the governments of the states that ruled the Banat. The term Romanian (rumân in the Banat dialect of the Romanian language, i.e. român in the literary language) was only used internally until the middle of the 18th century, that is, that is how the members of this nation called themselves. Serbs also used the name Vlachs (Vlasi) for Romanians, and only since the Revolution of 1848-49. began to call them Romans (Romanima), that is - later, Romanians (Rumunima), although the term Vlach was used sporadically for a certain time. 77.243.25.13 (talk) 20:30, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I didn't mention sources 77.243.25.13 (talk) 20:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Objective critetia

To define as minority, this cannot be free choice of an induvidiual to belong to any minority nor the state whose citizens these individuals are The CoE of OBLIGATORY clarification to the FCNM, clearly says that it is the right of an individual to FREELY choose whether to be treated as minority or not, not to freely choose to belong to any minority without OBJECTIVE CRITERIA https://rm.coe.int/16800c10cf Further more, UN opinion report to the CCPR on the defintion of minority clearly states following "The existence of an ethnic, religious or linguistic minority in a given State party does not depend upon a decision by that State party but requires to be established by objective criteria" https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/0e1a35/pdf/ This means that the state cannot decide on its existence or not. As such, I think that there are not a single author who before 2010, when issue was politized claimed that there is separate Vlach minority. Even self declaration in this case says that this the Romanian minority as members, before 2010 and forced promotion of vlahism, in Romanian declared as Romanian. The problem is it translation from Romanian to Serbian and than to English

Knowing that this population in all census before 1948 was considered Romania, as well as Serbian ethnologist, like T. Dordevic, a founder together with Cvijic of Serbian ethnography, as well in all official documents, this is the clear ethnic engineering

Also Cvijic mention Romanians in this are in 1923.

"It has remained unexplained until now why some families in Homolj and Mlava, both Serbian and Romanian, are called Jelins."

https://archive.org/details/KrozNaseRumune

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3ma9plMXxAEUjk1S2tNTTV2Qlk/edit?usp=drive_web

For following reason

1. There is no objective scientific criteria in Serbian ethnography before 2010, who considered this population nothhing else but Romanians 2. In census before 1948, Romanianans was used to designate 3. Archivial records like the annual Ministy of education report, used always Romanian 4. The right to self declaration doesnt mean to choose randomly any minority, but a right to be treated or not 5. The population in Romanian declare as Romanian 6. Vlach also refer to Aromanian population. Creation a new group with the same name is seen by Aromanians as the attack on their identity 7. There is not even single member of the community, which can be accepted as relevant, and not doing folk linguistics, as WIKIPEDIA is exactly doing now, has no position as such

I would like to cite less known source in French from 1990s: Dimitrijević-Rufu, Dejan (1998): Identités contextuelles. Le cas d’une communauté „roumaine” de Serbie, Cahiers Balkaniques 25 – „Les Oublié des Balkans”, 91–117.

On fold lingustic/anthropology practised on wikipedia here more

Manovich, Diane (2014): Folk Linguistics and Politicized Language: the Introduction of Minority Language Education for the Vlachs in Serbia (submitted to CEU Nationalism Studies Program in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts), Budapest (http://www.etd.ceu.hu/2014/manovich_diane.pdf).

Also one of best linguistic on Romance languges Weigand,in the begining if 20th considered these nothinhg but Romanians

Weigand, Gustav (1900): Die rumänischen Dialekte der kleinen Walachei, Serbiens und Bulgariens. Siebenter Jahresbericht des Instituts für Rumänische Sprache 7 (1900), 1-92.

There is also twenty moore other reasons why this article should be considered to have biased, one sided view

As for objective criteria this letter sent to Serbian Academy clearly point this:

https://acad.ro/mediaAR/pctVedereAR/2020/d0220-ScrisoareAcademiaSarba.pdf 109.93.173.29 (talk) 19:19, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I've already tried to argue this point before to no avail. I would recommend to you to rather add all this information to the article. If the article is already written in a certain, objective and truthful way, it will be hard to argue against something being a certain something. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 22:41, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Special Voters Registry

Due to proverbial erroneous Serbian ethnic censuses (enough for this is decline to 1360 persons in 1961) alternative data for ethnicity should be also used. The only one which is publicly available is the number of adult voters registered in special voters Registry from 2022, which show significant discrepancy (knowing that these data is only about adult population and the rate for other minorities of adults who are register in this registry is low). Namely according to this registry https://www.rik.parlament.gov.rs/extfile/sr/files/additionalDocuments/337/858/ODLUKA%20O%20KONA%C4%8CNOM%20BROJU%20BIRA%C4%8CA.pdf there are 23 AlexLucca (talk) 13:03, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

We cannot use that figure as proof of the amount of the Timok Vlachs that there are in Serbia without reliable sources specifically connecting the two. Otherwise this is WP:Original research. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 15:02, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

sorry but I don't understand what do you mean by "reliable sources connecting the two".

Information provided is from the RIK - Serbian Electoral Commission (state body) entrusted to organise regular elections for minority councils (it also organized elections at all other levels of government).

This role of the RIK is prescribed by the Law on the Election of National Councils of National Minorities.

What exact "reliable sources connecting the two" would you accept to Google it?

I mean this is NO original research done by mean. It is a well known fact, not even concerned to be questioned, belonging to the same group of questions as if one would ask "whether the sum will rise next morning".

So to clarify this absurdity let me know:

- what type of source you need? - article of the law, report by the Electoral Commission on the elections held, other governmental electoral reports, reports by the CoE, reports by the CSOs, scholarly articles, press articles

-how this connection should be established? - direct mentioning that such and such minority has such and such number of citizens register in the special voting registry.

I mean for me it stil hard to grasp meaning of "reliable sources connecting the two", as if you have asked me provide me with the "reliable sources connecting" that X number of voters in country Y means that these X voters also represent the population of country Y.

This in line with developments in gathering data on ethnicity proposed by the CoE for all its members, due to rising number of persons who don't declare ethnicity at census (it stands at around 7 % in Serbia in 2022, but rising to 10 % in Romania in 2022 or North Macedonia in 2021, and even 30  % in Czech Republic), persons avoiding to participate census (so the numbers are collected from administrative sources), persons living more than 1 year abroad but practicing circulat migration, change of census methodology where only part of population is sampled, but also the unreliability of the census data in the Balkans (every census in the Balkans is contested e.g. Roma, Albanians, Romanians/Vlachs, Bulgarians, Montenegrins or Bosniaks in Serbia, all minorities in Albania and Macedonia, Serbs in Croatia, Serbs and Montenegrins in Montenegro)

This is known as a "terror of the census" well oulined by Florian Bieber in his 2015 article "The construction of national identity and its challenges in post‐yugoslav censuses" in Social Quarterly Journal (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ssqu.12195)

ECMI articles summarizing this new position of the CoE in https://www.ecmi.de/fileadmin/redakteure/publications/JEMIE_Datens%C3%A4tze/Jemie_2020_2/01_Introduction_Djordjevic.pdf

And

https://www.ecmi.de/infochannel/detail/ecmi-minorities-blog-towards-evidence-based-minority-policy-processing-of-ethnic-data-and-monitoring-the-quality-of-national-minority-protection

Please note that this discrepancy appears with other minorities as well

in case of Bulgarians - number of those declared at census is 12918 and registered in DVR is 16573

2823

113849

16573

23341

2744

3727

116406

2329

317

65426

20784

3093

7247

27525

2527

2435

1491

456199 AlexLucca (talk) 06:22, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Proposal for redefinition

Knowing that before 1948, Vlachs didn't exist as such in Serbia, but in censuses, government documents,church records Romanian was used, even as such were included in accompanying documents to Versaille Treaties, known by the name Romanian in Serbia and foreign press, etc I proposed the definition as such The Vlachs (Romanian: rumâń; Serbian: власи / vlasi), considered officially as Romanians until 1948, are a Romanian-speaking population group living in eastern Serbia, mainly within the Timok Valley OR The Vlachs (Romanian: rumâń; Serbian: власи / vlasi), known as Romanians before 1948, are a Romanian-speaking population group living in eastern Serbia, mainly within the Timok Valley 188.120.99.194 (talk) 02:49, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

1859

The whole part that talks about 1859, as a year when name change happened is completely untrue. I don't how did you come to this data, but the year should be moved to 1948. Sources among thousands that exist are for example Serbian censuses from 1884 http://pod2.stat.gov.rs/ObjavljenePublikacije/G1889/Pdf/G188911002.pdf Page 42 to 48 and 306 to 318 1890 http://pod2.stat.gov.rs/ObjavljenePublikacije/G1893/pdf/G189311002.pdf 1900

1900 https://www.zajednicavlahasrbije.com/Statisticki%20godisnjak%20Kraljevine%20Srbije.pdf 1921 https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/G1921/Pdf/G19214001.pdf 1931 178.223.206.56 (talk) 03:21, 16 September 2023 (UTC)