1. Intermarriage and the intergenerational transmission of Aromanian
in the Central Balkans
Andrei Călin Dumitrescu

2. The Aromanian language
Second-largest Balkan Romance language
Number of speakers (Ethnologue):
Macedonia: 6,890
Albania: 3,850
Greece: 50,000
Level of endangerment (Ethnologue):
Macedonia: 4 (Educational)
Albania: 6b (Threatened)
Greece: 6b (Threatened)

3. source: Wikipedia

4. Assessing the vitality of Aromanian
Main focus of this presentation:
Is the language still being transmitted to children?
Are Aromanians being assimilated to the majority through intermarriage?
Other topics:
Domains of use of the language
Viability of Aromanian speaker communities
Attitudes of the majority

5. Sociolinguistic questionnaire
1. Background information
2. Family history
father's and mother's mother tongue
spouse's mother tongue
3. Language use in your childhood
What language(s) did your parents speak with each other?
4. Language use at school
5. What language(s) do you speak with
your spouse?
your siblings?
your children?
your grandchildren?
etc.

6. Data 17 informants 15 male, 2 female
average age 65 (youngest 37, oldest 85)
interviewed in 7 different localities
interviews conducted mostly in Aromanian, a couple in English, with help of questionnaire in official language
by no means a representative sample, but rather a variety sample

7. Problems Is the question asked in an understandable way?
Does the informant understand the concept of ”mother tongue” in the same way as linguists?
Can the informant reliably assess language skills and frequency of use?
Most data focuses on the individual informant
e.g. year of birth
languages spoken by other members of the family between themselves not surveyed, except for language spoken by parents to each other
Not all data was obtained from all informants

8. Intermarriage by generation
Assuming a ”baseline generation” born in appox :

9. Present transmission to children
Nowadays, all children and youth appear to be bilingual at best
Most appear to live in an area outside the traditional Aromanian-speaking regions
There is no teaching of Aromanian in the schools of the surveyed region

10. Further research Larger samples with more thorough data
Observation of actual language use
Interviews with second-language learners of Aromanian