Aromanian (Vlachika) is a neo-Latin language that originates from the tradition of the oral languages of the Balkans and has no written form. It is spoken in Greece, where Vlach populations are mainly spotted in Epirus, Thessaly and Macedonia. The aim of this project was to digitally document verb forms in Vlachika, as spoken in Metsovo in 2011, preserve the language by the use of digital means and provide linguistic and mathematical analyses regarding language use.
To that end, data was collected by interviewing native speakers of various age groups. The collected material was organised into two databases: (i) a digital dictionary containing the data recordings (ii) a semantic network that categorises verbs into semantic groups.
The linguistic treatment was formulated within the theoretical framework of Distributed Morphology. Furthermore, mathematical models were developed to describe the dynamics and internal aspects of Vlachika. The application of these models in the current status of Vlachika, based on experimental evidence, provided the first findings regarding time evolution of the relative density of the Vlachika speakers.
