Aromanians in the context of "Christianity in North Macedonia"

The Aromanian language (Aromanian: limba armãneascã, limba armãnã, armãneashti, armãneashte, armãneashci, armãneashce or limba rrãmãneascã, limba rrãmãnã, rrãmãneshti), also known as Vlach or Macedo-Romanian, is an Eastern Romance language, similar to Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian and Romanian, spoken in Southeastern Europe. Its speakers are called Aromanians or Vlachs (a broader term and an exonym in widespread use to define Romance communities in the Balkans).

Aromanian shares many features with modern Romanian, including similar morphology and syntax, as well as a large common vocabulary inherited from Latin. They are considered to have developed from Common Romanian, a common stage of all the Eastern Romance varieties. An important source of dissimilarity between Romanian and Aromanian is the adstratum languages (external influences); whereas Romanian has been influenced to a greater extent by the Slavic languages, Aromanian has been more influenced by Greek, with which it has been in close contact throughout its history.

Irakleia (Greek: Ηράκλεια, before 1926: Τζουμαγιά - Tzoumagia) is a municipality in the Serres regional unit, Central Macedonia, Greece. Population 21,145 (2011). The seat of the municipality is the town of Irakleia, which was formerly known as "Lower Jumaya" (in Turkish: Barakli Cuma or Cuma-i Zir ("Lower Juma" in Ottoman Turkish); in Bulgarian: Долна Джумая, Dolna Dzhumaya; and in Aromanian: Giumaia di-Nghios). "Upper Dzhumaya" is modern Blagoevgrad, located in Bulgaria. In the Serres area, Aromanians settled in modern Irakleia during Ottoman times. Some Aromanians still live in the city today, with Bulgarian researcher Vasil Kanchov even saying that, as of when he visited the town, the 1250 Aromanians in Irakleia "were the wealthiest of all inhabitants".

Vlach (/vlɑːk, vlæk/ VLA(H)K), also Wallachian and many other variants, is a term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate speakers of Eastern Romance languages living in Southeast Europe—south of the Danube (the Balkan peninsula) and north of the Danube.

Although it has also been used to name present-day Romanians, the term "Vlach" today refers primarily to speakers of the Eastern Romance languages who live south of the Danube, in Albania, Bulgaria, northern Greece, North Macedonia and eastern Serbia. These people include the ethnic groups of the Aromanians, the Megleno-Romanians and, in Serbia, the Timok Romanians. The term also became a synonym in the Balkans for the social category of shepherds, and was also used for non-Romance-speaking peoples, in recent times in the western Balkans derogatively. The term is also used to refer to the ethnographic group of Moravian Vlachs who speak a Slavic language but originate from Romanians, as well as for Morlachs and Istro-Romanians.

Krystallopigi (Greek: Κρυσταλλοπηγή) or Kroustallopigi (Κρουσταλλοπηγή), before 1926: Smardesi (Σμαρδέσι) is a former community in Florina regional unit, West Macedonia, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Prespes, of which it is a municipal unit. Krystallopigi is located close to the Greek–Albanian border and is 50 km (31 mi) from Florina.

The municipal unit has an area of 101.984 km. The population is 145 (2021). The main village is also called Krystallopigi. After the Greek Civil War, the village was resettled with Aromanians from Epirus. Today they still form the majority of the town's population. Nearby is located the depopulated village Vambel.

The Young Turks (Ottoman Turkish: ژون تركلر, romanized: Jön Türkler, also كنج تركلر Genç Türkler) formed as a constitutionalist broad opposition-movement in the late Ottoman Empire against the absolutist régime of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (r. 1876–1909). The most powerful organisation within the movement, and the most conflated, was the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, founded in 1889), though its ideology, strategies, and membership continuously changed. By the 1890s, the Young Turks were mainly a loose and contentious network of exiled intelligentsia who made a living by selling their newspapers to secret subscribers. Beyond opposition, exiled writers and sociologists debated Turkey's place in the East–West dichotomy.

Included in the opposition movement was a mosaic of ideologies, represented by democrats, liberals, decentralists, secularists, social Darwinists, technocrats, constitutional monarchists, and nationalists. Despite being called "the Young Turks", the group was of an ethnically diverse background; including Turks, Albanian, Aromanian, Arab, Armenian, Azeri, Circassian, Greek, Kurdish, and Jewish members. Besides membership in outlawed political committees, other avenues of opposition existed in the ulama, Sufi lodges, and masonic lodges. By and large, Young Turks favored taking power away from Yıldız Palace in favour of constitutional governance. The movement was popular especially among young, educated Ottomans and military officers that wanted reforms. They believed that a social contract in the form of a constitution would fix the empire's problems with nationalist movements and foreign intervention by instilling Ottomanism, or multi-cultural Ottoman nationalism.

Common Romanian (Romanian: română comună), also known as Ancient Romanian (străromână), or Proto-Romanian (protoromână), is a comparatively reconstructed Romance language which evolved from Vulgar Latin and was spoken by the ancestors of today's Romanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and related Balkan Latin peoples (Vlachs) during the 6th and 7th centuries CE and the 10th or 11th centuries AD. The Romanian language, the Aromanian language, the Megleno-Romanian language, and the Istro-Romanian language all share language innovations rooted in Vulgar Latin, and as a group they are all distinct from the other Romance languages.

The culture of Romania is an umbrella term used to encapsulate the ideas, customs and social behaviours of the people of Romania that developed due to the country's distinct geopolitical history and evolution. It is theorized that Romanians and related peoples (Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, and Istro-Romanians) were formed through the admixture of the descendants of Roman colonists and the indigenous Daco-Thracian people who were subsequently Romanized.

The Megleno-Romanians, also known as Meglenites (Megleno Romanian: Miglinits), Moglenite Vlachs or simply Vlachs (Megleno Romanian: Vlaș), are an Eastern Romance ethnic group, originally inhabiting seven villages in the Moglena region spanning the Pella and Kilkis regional units of Central Macedonia, Greece, and one village, Huma, across the border in North Macedonia. These people live in an area of approximately 300 km in size. Unlike the Aromanians, the other Romance-speaking population in the same historic region, the Megleno-Romanians are traditionally sedentary agriculturalists, and not traditionally transhumants. Sometimes, the Megleno-Romanians are referred as "Macedo-Romanians" together with the Aromanians.

They speak a Romance language most often called by linguists Megleno-Romanian or Meglenitic in English, and βλαχομογλενίτικα (vlakhomoglenítika) or simply μογλενίτικα (moglenítika) in Greek. The people themselves call their language vlahește, but the Megleno-Romanian diaspora in Romania also uses the term meglenoromână.