Baby | Metsovo Folk Art Museum

Woman

Up to 1900s, the majority of women in Metsovo spoke only Vlach. Men learned to speak Greek because of their trading activities, and thus became bilingual.

Vlach or Aromanian is a Romance language spoken by (Koutzo)Vlachs or Aromanians. Latin-speaking populations were dispersed across the Balkan peninsula, but thanks to their perpetual migration and fragmentation, they developed into four separate languages throughout the years.

The language spoken in Metsovo is called Aromanian (Vlach) and is also spoken in many settlements in Epirus, Thessaly and Macedonia.

Woven rug (below)

A woman when working about her house usually goes barefoot, for stockings and shoes will be put on only for high days and holidays […] in fact on journeys when the families are moving in the spring the women will frequently take off their shoes and walk along barefoot, since they find this more comfortable.

(“The nomads of the Balkans: an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Epirus”, Alan J. B. Wace – Maurice S. Thompson, Methuen, London, 1914)