The Aromanian language

Aromanian is a neolatin language,descendant of Balkan Romance that is spoken mainly in the Southern Balkans by aromanian populations.There is no standardized language and various forms of it exist.Generally,it can be divided into two major dialect groups called armineshti (southern) and rimineshti(northern).It is written either in the greek or the latin alphabet.In the aromanian symposium of 1997 in Bitola(ROM) a latin variant was standardized for the Aromanian language.

The Bitola aromanian alphabet
alfabetlu armãnescu

Unicode

a, ã, b, c, ch, d, dh, dz, e, f, 

g, gh, h, i, j, k, l, lj, m, n, nj, 

o, p, q, r, s, sh, t, th, ts, u, v,

w, x, y, z.

This alphabet does not distinguish between schwa(ə),the romanian ă, and â or î in Romanian which exists in southern dialects.It uses the ã symbol,a with a circumflex over it for both.It also does not make use of the û sound that is found at the end of the words and it is very common in Aromanian.

In this blog I will be using an extended version of the Bitola alphabet which includes the letters î and û.

the extended alphabet

Unicode

a, ã, b, c, ch, d, dh, dz, e, f, g, gh, h, i, î,j, k, l, lj, m, n, nj, 

o, p, q, r, s, sh, t, th, ts, u,û,v,w, x, y, z.

Aromanian speaking areas