The Vlachs in Bosnia

[Methmatician]

Bosniaks certainly do not,i see many macedonians here they are too swarthy for us,in Bosnia bosniaks are the lightest ones

I think it's more of a regional thing than an ethnic thing. I reckon a Serb from Banja Luka is going to look more like a Bosniak from Bihać than a Serb from Višegrad.

[mysticism]

I think it's more of a regional thing than an ethnic thing. I reckon a Serb from Banja Luka is going to look more like a Bosniak from Bihać than a Serb from Višegrad.

Yeah, though that example doesn't apply today. BL is a refugee city.

[mysticism]

Bosniaks certainly do not,i see many macedonians here they are too swarthy for us,in Bosnia bosniaks are the lightest ones

The ppl in your avatar don't match what you're saying.

[Methmatician]

Yeah, though that example doesn't apply today. BL is a refugee city.

Ok, Drvar

[Mans not hot]

Ostensibly Croats and Slovenians cluster with west-east slavs while Serbs/Bosniaks cluster more with Fyromacs Romanians and Bulgarians....

Slovenes and Croats cluster closer with Hungarians and Czechs:

[Sultan Suleiman]

Slovenes and Croats cluster closer with Hungarians and Czechs:

And Bosniaks cluster closer to Croats rather than Serbs.

[safinator]

And Bosniaks cluster closer to Croats rather than Serbs.

I wouldn't rely much on a map that puts Slovaks close to Cypriots.

[Mans not hot]

I wouldn't rely much on a map that puts Slovaks close to Cypriots.

That Slovak sample is a bad example because he's/she's probably mixed.

[Scholarios]

Since this northern Albanian and southern Serbian region was the original heartland of the Vlachs, it is not surprising that they should have spread out into the nearby uplands of Hercegovina from an early period. From there they moved northwards through the mountainous Dalmatian hinterland, where they are found tending flocks (and bringing them down to the coastal lands in the winter) as early as the twelfth century. There are many references to them in the records of Ragusa and Zadar from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. Some of these pastoral Vlachs also penetrated as far as central Bosnia, where medieval place-names in the regions of Sarajevo and Travnik indicate their presence: Vlahinja, Vlaskovo, Vlasic. And many Vlach words connected with pastoral life were absorbed into Bosnian dialects of Serbo-Croat: trze, a late-born lamb, from the Vlach tirdziu, for example, or zarica, a type of cheese, from the Vlach zara. This last word is in fact a version of the Albanian word dhalle, "buttermilk" -- one of many details pointing to the pastoral symbiosis between Vlachs and Albanians, which continued to operate over a long period.
Most of these early Dalmatian and Bosnian Vlachs seem to have led quiet, secluded lives in the mountains. But in Hercegovina itself, where there was a large concentration of Vlachs, a more military and aggressive tradition developed. There are many complaints in Ragusan records of raids by these neighboring Vlachs during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Vlachs of Hercegovina were horse-breeders and caravan-leaders who, when they were not engaged in plunder, grew rich out of the trade between Ragusa and mines of Bosnia; some of them were probably responsible for commissioning the imposing Bosnian stone tombstones or stecci decorated with carvings of horsemen. Their trading links to the east must have brought them more into contact with the Vlach peoples of Serbia and Bulgaria, who had long traditions of military activity in the armies of the Byzantine emperors and Serbian kings.

Finally, it is necessary to point out that there is little sense today in saying that the Bosnian Serbs are "really" Vlachs. Over the centuries many ordinary members of the Serbian Orthodox Church would have crossed the Drina into Bosnia or moved north from Hercegovina; a Serb merchant class also became important in Bosnian towns in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Not all the people who were sent to populate northern Bosnia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were Vlach, and since then there have been so many influxes and exoduses in Bosnian history that we cannot possibly calculate precise percentages for the "Vlach" ancestry of the Bosnian Serbs. Nor did the Vlachs contribute only to the Serb population; some (mainly in Croatia) became Catholics, and quite a few were Islamicized in Bosnia. To call someone a Serb today is to use a concept constructed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries out of a combination of religion, language, history and the person's own sense of identification: modern Bosnian Serbs can properly describe themselves as such, regardless of Vlach ancestry. But it is still slightly piquant to think, when one hears so-called right-wing Russian politicians talking about the need to defend their ancient Slav brothers in Bosnia, that the one component of the Bosnian population which has a large and identifiable element of non-Slav ancestry is the Bosnian Serbs.

http://www.farsarotul.org/nl16_1.htm

[Kastrioti1443]

Since this northern Albanian and southern Serbian region was the original heartland of the Vlachs, it is not surprising that they should have spread out into the nearby uplands of Hercegovina from an early period. From there they moved northwards through the mountainous Dalmatian hinterland, where they are found tending flocks (and bringing them down to the coastal lands in the winter) as early as the twelfth century. There are many references to them in the records of Ragusa and Zadar from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. Some of these pastoral Vlachs also penetrated as far as central Bosnia, where medieval place-names in the regions of Sarajevo and Travnik indicate their presence: Vlahinja, Vlaskovo, Vlasic. And many Vlach words connected with pastoral life were absorbed into Bosnian dialects of Serbo-Croat: trze, a late-born lamb, from the Vlach tirdziu, for example, or zarica, a type of cheese, from the Vlach zara. This last word is in fact a version of the Albanian word dhalle, "buttermilk" -- one of many details pointing to the pastoral symbiosis between Vlachs and Albanians, which continued to operate over a long period.
Most of these early Dalmatian and Bosnian Vlachs seem to have led quiet, secluded lives in the mountains. But in Hercegovina itself, where there was a large concentration of Vlachs, a more military and aggressive tradition developed. There are many complaints in Ragusan records of raids by these neighboring Vlachs during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Vlachs of Hercegovina were horse-breeders and caravan-leaders who, when they were not engaged in plunder, grew rich out of the trade between Ragusa and mines of Bosnia; some of them were probably responsible for commissioning the imposing Bosnian stone tombstones or stecci decorated with carvings of horsemen. Their trading links to the east must have brought them more into contact with the Vlach peoples of Serbia and Bulgaria, who had long traditions of military activity in the armies of the Byzantine emperors and Serbian kings.

Finally, it is necessary to point out that there is little sense today in saying that the Bosnian Serbs are "really" Vlachs. Over the centuries many ordinary members of the Serbian Orthodox Church would have crossed the Drina into Bosnia or moved north from Hercegovina; a Serb merchant class also became important in Bosnian towns in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Not all the people who were sent to populate northern Bosnia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were Vlach, and since then there have been so many influxes and exoduses in Bosnian history that we cannot possibly calculate precise percentages for the "Vlach" ancestry of the Bosnian Serbs. Nor did the Vlachs contribute only to the Serb population; some (mainly in Croatia) became Catholics, and quite a few were Islamicized in Bosnia. To call someone a Serb today is to use a concept constructed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries out of a combination of religion, language, history and the person's own sense of identification: modern Bosnian Serbs can properly describe themselves as such, regardless of Vlach ancestry. But it is still slightly piquant to think, when one hears so-called right-wing Russian politicians talking about the need to defend their ancient Slav brothers in Bosnia, that the one component of the Bosnian population which has a large and identifiable element of non-Slav ancestry is the Bosnian Serbs.

http://www.farsarotul.org/nl16_1.htm

Northern Albania ( including southern montenengro, northwestern fyrom, western kosovo) has never been an original heartland of Vlachs. The centers of Vlachs in Balkans used to be Hercegovina ( northern montenengro too), southeastern serbia, parts of bulagaria and fyrom, thessalia and in the ottoman times vlachs expanded in southern albania too.