Because of the juxtaposition of regions of different altitudes in a confined area and also the changing seasonal climatic conditions and the associated vegetation cycles, the mobile herdsmen of Southeast Europe drove their herds over long distances between the high altitudes in summer and the lowlands in winter. During the transitional seasons they would cover up to 400 km in a few weeks. For pastoral peoples it has always been important to find and use the best summer and winter grazing land. Relief, soil, climate and vegetation dictate the various forms of grazing management. The economic and political uncertainty in the past and today have also contributed to the development of nomadic pastoral family communities.
Based on field research a distinction can be made between those communities that move between the same grazing areas every year and those that repeatedly seek new grazing grounds. The attempt to characterise the different economic forms practised by these nomadic herdsmen necessarily involves consideration of the terms mountain grazing, transhumance and nomadism. The variety of hunsbandry forms can be best understood by studying ownership. With nomadism the cattle belong to the head of the family and are inherited by the eldest son. With transhumancy the nomadic herdsmen do not own any cattle; they are paid by stationary herd owners who pursue other activities. With mountain grazing the herdsmen own their cattle in the proximity of inhabited settlements and move in summer with their families or seasonal workers into the mountains. With stationary husbandry,
paddocking and single animal husbandry the herdsmen own their animals and keep them either permanently in grazing areas (continuous grazing) or alternate between grazing and mowing (rotational grazing).
The formation of national states during the 19th and early 20th centuries brought an incisive change to the life of the nomadic herdsmen. In the Byzantine and Ottoman empires they had been able to drive their herds unhindered over great distances. Now, however, they were forced to pay high customs tariffs at the borders, until they were finally closed with the erection of the Iron Curtain. This obliged them to settle down. As a result of their nomadic life, they were able to escape administrative control and as such became a thorn in the eye for many politicians.
The settlements also underwent considerable changes. The pure pastoral villages consisting in the case of nomadic groups of temporary huts or tents gave way to two-storey houses or cabins. The modest housing, which because of the materials used (straw, wood), merged very well with their natural surroundings, was replaced by a type of dwelling without any touristic or aesthetic value. They were generally made of concrete slabs or bricks with a corrugated iron roof and plastic sheeting to protect them from the snow and rain. Even today, however, although widespread nomadic herding has been extensively abandoned, grazing management remains important for the preservation and design of the cultural landscape of south-eastern Europe.
The processes of becoming stationary settled influenced the languages of the different ethnic groups. Due to the described processes one can assume, that connection among monolingual rural population, multilingual urban population and seasonal incomplete multilingualism of illiterate shepherd communities increased the formation of linguistic interferences.
