When at the beginning of the 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century an Aromanian movement could be observed especially in the Aromanian diaspora in Buda and Vienna, large numbers of Aromanians were already assimilated into the societies of many regions or were in the state of being assimilated. Thus we have to distinguish between the "national Aromanian movement" as such on the one hand, and their participation in other national movements on the other hand. Most common streams of national orientation among Aromanians were and are pro-Greek and pro-Romanian.[SUP]
[7][/SUP] The Greek-Romanian conflict on the so called "Aromanian question" split the Aromanians into different factions, i.e. those who consider themselves as being Romanian, those who consider themselves as being Greek and those who consider themselves as being Aromanian. Since the Aromanians belonged to the Greek Patriarchate and their cultural and economic activities were bound to the Greek church,[SUP]
[8][/SUP] especially the wealthy urbanised Aromanians have been active promoters of the Greek language and Greek culture for a long time. Greek was already in the 17[SUP]th[/SUP] and 18[SUP]th[/SUP] century a
lingua franca[SUP]
[9][/SUP] in large parts of Southeastern Europe. The knowledge of Greek was the key to education and to a higher social status and in this process it did not play any role if Greek was spoken as a mother or as a foreign language.[SUP]
[10][/SUP] A Greek was above all a peddler or merchant,[SUP]
[11][/SUP] so that men of wealth (also of Albanian, Vlach, Macedo-Slav and Bulgarian origin) in the 18[SUP]th[/SUP] century normally identified themselves as such.[SUP]
[12][/SUP] The first written documents in Aromanian were written with the Greek alphabet and did not have the intention to teach Aromanian, but to spread the Greek language. The success of the Greek language among the Aromanians was not only caused by a few individuals promoting Greek culture, but mostly by increasing contacts with Greek neighbours and the Greek language as the most important commercial language. A lot of settlements in central Greece became hellenised without the influence of political or church activists.