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Vlachs or Aromanians is a south-balkan-romance speaking group of the southern Balkans. However, Vlachs are not Romanians neither Bulgarians, nor Albanians and not exactly Greeks even. Both linguistically and genetically they are slightly different from their neighbours from many markers. Notably, unlike other Balkan groups they don't exhibit any Germanic markers.
The total makeup of Vlachs roughly consists of 20% R1b, 20% R1a, 20% I2, 20% J2 and 20% E1b. The majority of I belongs to S20602 but it is broken in half Y18331 and half in the subclades Z17855 and PH908 found in central and northern Balkans.
I-Y18331 is a y-dna haplogroup chiefly found in Greek, Albanian and North Macedonian samples and in smaller number in Belarus, Lithuania and adjacent areas in Ukraine and Russia. The subclades found in Greece though are ancestral to those found in Belarus and Lithuania, so contrary to other I-L621 subclades it seems to have moved from south to north.
Romanian I does not include I-Y18331 so a Romanian origin can't be justified for the Vlachs at least from the perspective of the y-dna I marker. On the contrary, Vlachs usually migrated to the northern Balkans in countries like Romania and Hungary, mostly as merchants.
It takes up a little less than half of Greek I while the rest is divided among Y4460, Z17855 and PH908. I-Y18331, I-Z17855 and I-Y4460 do not belong to S17250, which includes PH908 but they are parallel to it. Appart from I-Y18331, Albanian and North Macedonian I mostly belongs to I-Z17855 and I-PH908 due to historical connections with Bulgarians and Serbians.
I2 subclades are distributed in mountain ranges at least in the Balkans, with I-PH908 mainly distributed in the Dinaric Alps, I-Z17855 in the Balkan mountains and I-Y18331 in the Pindus mountains. This may be concordant with a pastoral lifestyle.
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