True descendants of the Thracians

**Byzantine Prince** · 08-12-2005, 17:25

Some time ago another org member told me that Vlachs are actually descendants of Thracians. Is this at all true?

Now I know Bulgarians claim the same but that's far from being true since they are mixed in turks and romanians and mostly bulgars. They even speak a slavic language. So they are not thracians. Vlachs on the other hand speak an ancient language only similar to Romanian, so they are definetly the real thing. But are they Thracian?

**Steppe Merc** · 08-12-2005, 19:10

No one in any part of the world is a truly pure decandant of any ancient culture.

**Byzantine Prince** · 08-12-2005, 20:38

Well then that ancient culture was not pure either, so what's your point?

*sigh* I could make the same types of pedantic comments for every thread in the org(and sometimes I do), but you know I didn't mean *pure* pure. I meant that have kept the traditions of laguage and have some of the same DNA as that ancient culture.

**edyzmedieval** · 08-12-2005, 20:44

Thracians = Bulgarians + Romanians

It's a mix of it. Thracia was the south of Romania + the north of Bulgaria.

**Byzantine Prince** · 08-12-2005, 20:57

Errr Thracians = ancient peoples whom Dacians(Romanians) were related to
Bulgarians = people's who came from the steppes to Thracia(now bulgaria) in the 13th century

I think you have it mixed Edyz. Bulgarians are Turk and Slav mixed together.

**Louis VI the Fat** · 08-12-2005, 21:16

Originally Posted by Byzantine Prince

Bulgarians = people's who came from the steppes to Thracia(now bulgaria) in the 13th century.

That's six centuries off. The Bulgarians consider 681 the birthyear of their state.

I think Edyz is right. The Thracians are to Bulgaria and Roumania what Celts are to Britain in France. Some pockets of their language survive, their genes have been assimilated into the main ethnic populations that now populate their lands.

**Byzantine Prince** · 08-12-2005, 21:37

How is he right? This is what he said:

Originally Posted by edyz

Thracia was the south of Romania + the north of Bulgaria.

Here are some map to refute that.

A quote from teh encyclopedia:

Originally Posted by Encarta_Microsoft Corporation

The region that is now Bulgaria was at one time included in the Roman Empire as part of the provinces of Thrace and Moesia. Slavic and Turkic tribes settled in the area between about the 4th and 6th centuries ad. One branch of people known as Bulgars, who had established a large state near the Volga River on the east side of the Black Sea, invaded the Balkan Peninsula in the 7th century. They set up a state between the Danube River and the Balkan Mountains, an area that was then claimed by the Byzantine Empire. Byzantine armies failed repeatedly to dislodge the invaders during the 8th and early 9th centuries. By the end of the 9th century the Bulgarians had annexed considerable additional territory and laid the foundations for a strong state under Khan Krum, who reigned from 803 to 814. The Krum armies inflicted a devastating defeat on an invading Byzantine force in 811 and, assuming the offensive, nearly succeeded in 813 in taking Constantinople (present-day İstanbul, Turkey), the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

So they came from Russia and invaded the area known as Thracia. They then got invaded by the Turks and mixed with them far more then any others. I don't think they are very Thracian, although I'm sure they have some thracian blood in them.

**caesar44** · 08-13-2005, 13:33

Originally Posted by Steppe Merc

No one in any part of the world is a truly pure decandant of any ancient culture.

Well , could not define it better !!! (but think about the Jews and some of the Chinese)

**Gemenii XIII** · 08-13-2005, 17:38

The Vlachs were the purest decendants of the Roman Legionnaires Gemina XIII and nearby Roman settler from Moesia (modern Bulgaria and Serbia). The name Vlach is a barbarian word for Roman, and the principality of Wallachia is literally Romania. This name was given by the Saxons when they invaded the Roman Empire and also was given to the southwestern region of Britain; Wales (because more Romans probably lived there when the saxons invaded Britain). Of course no one can say that he or she is a pure descendant of anything anymore for example: an Italian cannot say that he descends from Julius Caesar's family because a lot has changed in Italy over time, as in other countries. However, it is more likely that most of ones ancestry is Roman if he or she are from Italy, Spain, Romania, Portugal or France because these areas, for the most part, remained unchanged after the barbarian invasions. This is evident through the romance languages that are spoken in the areas and the last names of the inhabitants (particularly in Romania). As for the Thratians, they are not Romanian. Studies have shown that the closest people to Thratians are actually modern Albanians. They descend from an old Dacian tribe the "Carpe" which were defeated by Emperor Domitian and resettled in southern Illiria (modern albania). To this day the Albanian language is thought to be the closest spoken to that of the Dacians/Thratians. A good example of this is the word "carpe", in albananian, it means rocky or stony (I cant remember which because I am not Albanian and don't speak their language). Also, the name of the "carpathian" mountains (located roughly in modern Romania) has absolutely no significants in romanian. However in Albanian the carpathians would simply be rocky or stony mountains.
PS
Ill post the link to this statement when I find the article again if any one is interested
____________________
Patria Nostra Romania

**KingOfTheIsles** · 08-13-2005, 22:54

Wow, let's be very careful about equating ethnicity with language spoken. In the example given, the lands who speak Romance languages (France, Spain, Portugal, Italy) were subjected to considerable barbarian invasions and migrations, not to mention the fact that the Romans replaced the Gauls and Iberians in any case, and so there was considerable diversity. As several people have said, there is no way of successfully tracing the decendants of a people (who may already be very ethnically diverse in any case) from 2,000 years ago, especially in an areas subjected to so many invasions as the Balkans; so many turkic, germanic and slavic tribes have settled there in the past.

**Aenlic** · 08-14-2005, 06:12

My personal belief, not backed up by anything except conjecture, is that the proto-Indo-Europeans, the original source of the many branches of the Indo-European tribes and languages, came from the Black Sea valley prior to the great flood around 7500 BCE which created the current Black Sea.

This area would have been much more fertile than the so-called fertile crescent. With the forbidding mountains of Anatolia to the south, the most likely routes of exodus as the valley filled quickly would have been southeast, northeast, north, and northwest. These areas are precisely the areas from which the list of suspects for the origins of Indo-European arise a couple of millenia later. The Thracians to the northwest, the steppes people to the north, the Central Asian tribes to the northeast, and the tribes of the Caucasus to the southeast. To date, the Thracians on the eventual northwestern shore of the new Black Sea, in what is now Bulgaria, still have the record for the earliest known examples of massive gold and copper mining and working, as early as perhaps 4500 BCE. We'll probably never know much about what if any civilization flourished there prior to that massive flood; but Bob Ballard found tantalizing signs of settlements, including the characteristic mounding of continual settlements building up on top of each other, near the banks f what used to be rivers now under the Black Sea.

In the end, I suppose that would mean that almost all of the later invasions into what was once the domains of the Thracians were made by people who were distantly related to them anyway. So maybe it's a moot point.

**Gemenii XIII** · 08-14-2005, 20:13

Originally Posted by KingOfTheIsles

Wow, let's be very careful about equating ethnicity with language spoken. In the example given, the lands who speak Romance languages (France, Spain, Portugal, Italy) were subjected to considerable barbarian invasions and migrations, not to mention the fact that the Romans replaced the Gauls and Iberians in any case, and so there was considerable diversity. As several people have said, there is no way of successfully tracing the decendants of a people (who may already be very ethnically diverse in any case) from 2,000 years ago, especially in an areas subjected to so many invasions as the Balkans; so many turkic, germanic and slavic tribes have settled there in the past.

The truth is that there are few and far between historical documents implementing the ethnicity of the people in the Bulkan region during the barbarian invasions. Therefore, the language argument is the best option for determening the ehtinicity of people in the Bulkans. There are 6th century Saxon and Hunnic scriptures mentioning the Vlachs north of the danube in what was called Wallachia (corresponding to modern Romania). That is how we know that Romans lived there during that time. As for modern eastern Roman ethnicity, just look at Romanias geography. It is surrounded by slavic countries. If the Bulkan region was heavely invaded and assimilated by these people (as you said), than why is it that the Romanians managed to preserve their romance language (which is closest to Vulgar Latin grammatically) over the course of histoy? This we do not know. That is why my earlier post stands. And if you read carefully I too said that the ethnicity of the people whom speak these romance languages are not 100% known, however, it is more likely that their ethnicity are closer to that of the Romans as opposed to other countries such as Germany, Poland, Holand ect. Mind you I am speaking of national not individual ethnicity.

**Born on the Balcans** · 02-05-2017, 22:10

I am born in Pleven, Bulgaria. My mother is from the lands of the Thracian tribe mizi and my father's family were refugees from Macedonia, near the Ohrid lake. I am who I am.