The Paradoxes of Vlachology
The students who enter the Metsovion Polytechnic Institute in Athens would not normally imagine that the benefactors of an engineering school would be Vlachs. This word brings to the mind of many Greeks the image of an uneducated shepherd with a glitsa and tsarouhia on some mountaintop, and of women with long embroidered skirts and kerchiefs carrying buckets of dairy products (e.g. the brand of condensed milk, ‘Gala Vlachas’ and the song ‘in your embroidered apron you Vlach woman’) In the 21st century most Greeks may not remember the Vlachs as anything distinct. By the 12th century the name already had a general meaning of a transhumant or shepherd.6 Many Greeks think that "Vlachika" is the ‘northern dialect’ of Greek, which pronounces e as i, o as u, and s as sh.7 One reason is that nothing sets the Vlachs apart as a race or a distinct minority. They have the same religion, appearance, the same pronunciation in Greek, and about the same names.
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