By Nicolas Bard

Metsovo is a picturesque, mountainous town of Ioannina, built at an altitude of 1,120 meters in the imposing mountains of Pindos, which today measures about 2,500 permanent residents.

The overwhelming majority of the population is of Vlach descent, which makes it one of the most popular Vlach villages in Greece. Most residents are involved in tourism, livestock, cheese and textiles. It is worth mentioning at this point that because of its traditional identity, great natural beauty, ski resort and Aoos artificial lake, Metsovo was one of the first winter destinations in our country, and every winter is flooded with a multitude of people in the world.

The Vlachs who inhabit there today particularly love their language, traditions and their particular heritage, and struggle to preserve it for future generations. But, unfortunately, the younger ones do not show the same zeal to learn the language of their grandparents, so it is in danger of being lost. In some villages, they are not even spoken at all.

The Vlachs come from indigenous Greeks – linguistically laingm by the Romans – who were guardians of the borders of the empire and served as mercenaries in the ranks of the Roman legions. The possible cradle of the Vlachs is considered the region of the Roman Egnatia Road, where most of the Vlach -speaking populations are concentrated. The Romans first conquered Epirus and the rest of Greece, and 100 years later expanded north to present -day Romania. So it makes sense for the Latin -speaking in the Balkan Peninsula to began from the Greek area and then expanded to the north.

The Vlachs of the Southern Balkans identify themselves as armilon (armɨɲi) or remeni (Remeɲi), terms derived from the Latin word romani, that is, “Romans”. The same terms was formed the neologism “Aromoun”, which is used by scientific literature today. The majority of them live in Greece, Albania, Northern Macedonia and Romania. Their historical cradle is considered the Pindos Mountains and its mountainous extensions. The use of the Vlach language was mainly oral, and as a written language it was used by the Vlachs mainly by Greek.

The Vlach language, under the weight and shadow of the Greek language, has never been able to fully develop as a language of language, and therefore to literacy and obtain writing because of the ideological choices of the Vlachs of the bourgeoisie, who were not only in Greek but also to participate in Greek and Greek, Education. Greek was the language they always used in the church, in commerce and elsewhere, while the Vlachs were mainly used in the home and the social gatherings of the closed society of the village. Nevertheless, it has given several written monuments of its existence, which are efforts to systematize it on the part of some Vlachs, on the one hand, efforts of linguistic Hellenism of the Vlach -speaking.

The number of Vlachs of Greece is difficult to determine precisely, since there is no longer a blatant cultural or other separation between Vlach -speaking and non -Vlach -speaking, except for local oral use of Vlachs, but confined to older ages. There are some calculations, according to which Vlachs actively speak about 15,000 people. But there is also a much greater number of people who understand the language, without talking or talking it at a very basic level.

In Greece, there are about 120 cultural associations of Vlach descent. At the same time, Vlach Ramages are organized, many books on the Vlachs and their heritage are published, recordings with songs in Vlach and Greek, as it seems that the largest recorded part of the Vlach music tradition in Greece was influenced by the Greek. Finally, many groups of Vlach -speakers have been created on the internet as a lasting effort to express, for the remaining speakers of the Vlach language.

The camera of “where there is Greece in SKAI” traveled to the beautiful Metsovo and talked to people who speak Vlachs fluently, and fight on a daily basis, individually and at the collective level, so as not to erase this distinctive identity of their place. Their love for their cultural heritage and their homeland is moving.