The Vlach Connection

Well, this theory is not perfect, although its basic points are
correct. However, I disagree with the author where he says that the
Byzantine Empire used Greek just as it did with Latin. There is a
reason for which Heracleus changed the official language. He changed
it because the Eastern part of the Empire was either Hellenized
(familiar with koine: Syria, Egypt,Palestine, Far Anatolia) or pure
Greek-speaking (Greece,Macedonia,Western Anatolia, Cyprus). What I
know about the north Illyric-Dacian-Thracian peoples is that they
would easily learn the languages of the ruler, and use it together
with their own. So, they wrote ONLY in Greek during the classical
era and adopted Latin, after the Roman conquest. They kept Latin
afterwards because the Romans gave them military power, in order to
protect the empire from the barbarians in the north. When Slavs &
Bulgarians settled in that region, the Latin-speaking used to
immigrate to the south (Greece) in order to escape from Slavs, or
they came together with the Slavs in Greece {remember later slavic
enclaves=Sklavenies} and formed those romance-enclaves in Greece.

I would also like to translate the opinion of Mr. Georgios
Babiniotis, Professor of linguistics in the University of Athens,
about the origin of the Vlachi, stated in his Modern Greek
Dictionary:

"...The Greek, in origin and national consciousness, people of
Vlachi (also known as Koutsovlachoi and Aromounoi, and regionally
called Arvanitovlachoi, Karagounoi, Frasariotes etc.) are bilingual
Greek shepherds in south-central macedonia, Thessalia,
Aetoloakarnania, who speak Greek and in addition to that, a romance
language: "Vlachic", "Koutsovlachic", or "Aromounic". Their
linguistic (not ethnological!) resemblance to the Romanians is due
to the fact that Aromounic, as well as Romanian, have a common
linguistic ancestor: the eastern or Balcanic Latin language. Being
linguistically latinized Greeks, the Vlachi spoke Aromounic, with an
intense effect of ancient Greek in their tongue (in Vlachic, one can
find Greek words such as urma< clas.gr.odme/osme=smell, or
udare<clas.gr.outhar=breast etc. which were not preservrs in Common
Modern Greek, while the Romanian language has been affected by geto-
Dacian. The tribe-name Vlachi can be traced back to the gallic
tribe's name Volcae (a tribe latinized due to the fact that it
sacked romanized areas), that the Germans named Valah,
characterizing thus all latin-speaking subjects of the roman state.
From germ. Valah all national names such as **Welsh, Wallons-in
Belgium, **Gaulois (see de Gaule) in France,and Valah>Vlah>Vlah-oi
in Byzantium, are derived."

**However, in the same Dictionary, Mr. Babiniotis states that:
Welsh< old english wealh=stranger,
Gaulois,Gaule< lat. Gallia