Ancient Macedonian language

[akritas]

Also an regarding quote as about the ancient Macedonian language from Maria Nystazopoulou Pelekidou

Certain doubts have been expressed about the Greek character of the Ancient Macedonians' language, mainly because, up to now, no texts or even complete phrases written in the Macedonian dialect have been found. Today, however, after the comparative study of all known linguistic material, linguists, as well as historians, accept the Greek character of the Macedonian dialect.

The following elements prove that Macedonian is a dialect of the Greek Language:

The name of the Macedonians itself is Greek: the word μακεδνός [makednos] is already attested to in Homer (Odyssey, η 106: οία τε φύλλα μακεδνής αιγείροιο) [= like fluttering leaves of a tall poplar tree] and means "high, tall and slender". That is, this ethnic name is one of those which denoted the physical characteristics of a people. Also the proper names of the Ancient Macedonians, the names of gods, months, etc., as well as most place-names are Greek, in Macedonian dialect, and bear no resemblance to Thracean-Illyrian names.

If the Macedonians started being hellenized in the 5th c. B.C., as the historians of Skopje clain, how can it be explained that they retained proper names, as well as the names of the months and place-names in Macedonian dialect which are undisputedly Greek?

How did the Macedonians of the 5th and 4th c. B.C. acquire these Greek dialectal names, which do not belong to the Attic dialect, if they did not inherit them via a tradition which had always been Greek?


The same observations apply to lexical material. Relatively few words of the Macedonian dialect have been preserved: about 153 and they are recorded by Athenaeus and in the Lexicon of Hesychios, who drew them mainly from the work of the Macedonian lexicographer Amerias. It should be noted that ancient lexicographers did not record all the words of a language or dialect, but only those that presented a certain peculiarity or difficulty in comprehension. For this reason foreign words and idioms are recorded, and thus the proportion of foreign words is not representative of the total vocabulary of the Macedonian dialect. Many of the words which have been treasured as Macedonian occur in all Greek dialects, but in the Macedonian dialect they had a specific meaning and they were recorded by the ancient lexicographers, for example the word υπασπιστής (adjutant). These words that were handed down as Macedonian do not bear any resemblance to the Thracian-Illyrian language. The Macedonian linguistic material (proper names, place-names and common nouns) testifies to the Greek character of the Macedonian dialect: The etymology of the words is Greek; the features and vowel changes are common in Greek; so are the inflections and endings. As for the few words which are recorded as Macedonian in the Lexicon of Hesyxhios and which are not considered by some to be Greek, it is most likely that they are loan-words, a phenomenon that is observed in all languages, and one which does not put their origin in doubt.

The historians of Skopje use the quotation of Plutarch that Alexander ανεβόα μακεδονιστί καλών τούς υπασπιστάς [= called out in Macedonian speech a summons to his corps of guards] (Plutarch's Alexander, 51,4), as proof that the languagewhich the Macedonian soldiers spoke was not Greek. But here the word μακεδονιστί means the local dialect, as the respective terms δωριστί, αττικιστί ιωνιστί etc.attest, and not a separate non-Greek language. In fact, Alexander and the Macedonians disseminated the Greek language throughout the world they conquered; Alexander gave an order that the inscriptions which were in a foreign language were to be explained in Greek, so that they would be comprehensible to his troops (τήν επιγραφήν αναγνούς εκέλευσεν ελληνικοίς υποχαράξαι γράμμασιν [= After reading the inscription, he ordered it to be repeated below in Greek letters]: Plutarch's Alexander, 69,2) and he also ordered that the troop of Persians "should learn the Greek language and be trained to use Macedonian weapons" (εκέλευε γράμματά τε ελληνικά μανθάνειν καί μακεδονικοίς όπλοις εντρέφεσθαι Plutarch's Alexander, 47,6).

The fact that no written documents in Macedonian dialect have been preserved does not prove their non-Greek origin, as the historians of Skopje claim. Indeed, no dialectal inscriptions or even a phrase of a dialectal Macedonian text have been found. All the inscriptions found in Macedonia date after the 5th c. B.C., when the Macedonians used, at least in public life, the Attic dialect. However, in other regions of Greece, undisputedly Greek, no preserved written documents of the 7th or even 6th c. B.C. have been found either. The cultural phenomenon of Athens cannot be regarded as a means of comparison with other regions, especially in order to draw conclusions concerning the national origin of their inhabitants.

It must be noted that the recent excavations at Vergina, in addition to other very important finds regarding the history of Macedonia, have brought to light, a series of inscribed grave stelai which can be dated with certainty to the second half of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd c. B.C. These inscriptions as we know from the description of Prof. M. Andronikos present a very significant collection of common Macedonian names, male and female, numbering 75. All these names are Greek, such as Αλκέτας, Άλκιμος,
Δρύκαλος, Ξενοκράτης, Πευκόλαος, Πιερίων - except for one (Αμάδοκος) which is Thracian - and many of them are characteristically Macedonian and unknown to Attica, attesting to their Macedonian origin. These names refute the theory that only the ruling class had become hellenized, because they do not belong to the royal family, or to the nobility, or to the ruling class: they are the names of ordinary citizens and many of them date back to the beginning of the 4th and the end of the 5th c. B.C. Therefore, as Prof. M. Andronikos points out, we have "epigraphic evidence... that at the end of the 5th c. B.C., the Macedonians who lived in the first capital of the Macedonian kingdom [in Aeges]... had Greek names".

Consequently, both the evidence of the sources and the study of the linguistic material, lead to the conclusion that the Ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribe. The theory that it was a non-Greek population, whose ruling class became hellinized, has no basis in fact. The people of Macedonia spoke Greek, a local Greek dialect and thus it was easy for them to adopt the Attic dialect. Even after the Roman conquest, the Greek language was still spoken in the region, despite foreign domination and the strong presence of Latin-speaking soldiers and other representatives of Rome. It is of primary importance that the inscriptions of Roman and early Byzantine times, which were found in Macedonia, are in Greek - except, of course, for the regions where there were Roman colonies, for example at Philippi-, while the inscriptions which were found in the more northern regions are in Latin. The Greek language was deeply rooted since it was the language of the Macedonian people, not only of the ruling class and the authorities.

[Istor]

A good summary of Macedonian epigraphs is here: http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscrip...4&subregion=11

There, you may find many other Greek inscriptions.

[akritas]

Some quotes from several sources......

Thomas Martin, ‘Ancient Greece – From Prehistoric to Hellenic Times’ Yale University Press, 1996, pgs 188-189:

"Macedonians had their own language related to Greek, but members of the elite that dominated Macedonian society routinely learned to speak Greek because they thought of themselves and indeed all Macedonians as Greek by blood. At the same time, Macedonians looked down on the Greeks to the south as a soft lot unequal to the adversities of life in Macedonia. The Greeks reciprocated this scorn

."

Ulrich Wilcken, ‘Alexander the Great’ W.W. Norton & Company, Reissue Edition March 1997:

"It seems more and more certain that the Macedonians were a Greek tribe related to the Dorians. However, as they stayed high up in the distant north, they could not participate in the progress of civilization of the Greek people that migrated southward.

A strong Illyrian and Thracian influence can thus be recognized in Macedonian speech and manners. These however are only trifles compared with the Greek character of the Macedonian nationality; for example the names of the true full blooded Macedonians, especially of the princes and nobles, are purely Greek in their formation and sounds.

And yet when we take into account the political conditions, religion and morals of the Macedonians, our conviction is strengthened that they were a Greek race akin to the Dorians."

J.R. Hamilton, ‘Alexander the Great’ Hutchinson, London, 1973:

"That the Macedonians were of Greek stock seems certain. The claim made by the Argead dynasty to be of Argive descent may be no more than a generally accepted myth, but Macedonian proper names, such as Ptolemaios or Philippos, are good Greek names, and the names of the Macedonian months, although differed from those of Athens or Sparta, were also Greek. The language spoken by the Macedonians, which
Greeks of the classical period found intelligible, appears to have been a primitive north-west Greek dialect, much influenced by the languages of the neighboring barbarians."

Nicholas G. L. Hammond, ‘Philip of Macedon’ Duckworth Publishing, February 1998:

"Philip was born a Greek of the most aristocratic, indeed of divine, descent... Philip was both a Greek and a Macedonian, even as Demosthenes was a Greek and an Athenian...The Macedonians over whom Philip was to rule were an outlying family member of the Greek-speaking peoples."

"As subjects of the king the Upper Macedonians were henceforth on the same footing as the original Macedonians, in that they could qualify for service in the King's Forces and thereby obtain the elite citizenship. At one bound the territory, the population and wealth of the kingdom were doubled. Moreover since the great majority of the new subjects were speakers of the West Greek dialect, the enlarged army was Greek-speaking throughout."

Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998,Ancient Histories

The evidence for the language of the Macedonians has been reviewed and discussed by Kalleris and Hammond, Griffith, and many others, all contending that it was a dialect of Greek. The increasing volume of surviving public and private inscriptions makes it quite clear that there was no written language but Greek. There may be room for argument over spoken forms, or at least over local survivals of earlier occupancy, but it is hard to imagine what kind of authority might sustain that. There is no evidence for a different "Macedonian" language that cannot be as easily explained in terms of dialect or accent.

Malcolm Errington, "A History of Macedonia", Univ. of California Press, LA, 1990

"Ancient allegations that the Macedonians were non-Greeks all had their origin in Athens at the time of the struggle with Philip II. Then as now, political struggle created the prejudice. The orator Aischines once even found it necessary, in order to counteract the prejudice vigorously fomented by his opponents, to defend Philip on this issue and describe him at a meeting of the Athenian Popular Assembly as being 'Entirely Greek'. Demosthenes' allegations were lent on appearance of credibility by the fact, apparent to every observer, that the life-style of the Macedonians, being determined by specific geographical and historical conditions, was different from that of a Greek city-state. This alien way of life was, however, common to western Greeks of Epeiros, Akarnania and Aitolia, as well as to the Macedonians, and their fundamental Greek nationality was never doubted. Only as a consequence of the political disagreement with Macedonia was the issue raised at all.

[Amyntas]

About the dialect on the derveni-papyrus:

http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/m.../2006/0482.php

The dialect is not only a mixture of Attic and Ionic (11-14), but also contains a few Doric forms, which need explanation, as I noted in
'The Physicist as Hierophant: Aristophanes, Socrates and the Authorship
of the Derveni Papyrus', ZPE 118 (1997), 61-94, at 62-3.

[pankration]

Although there is no doubt in my mind about the Greek ethnicity of the Macedonians, as there is no doubt in the minds of almost all historians, the fight we have taken on is not a new one. As a lover of old books I have discovered a history series first written in the late 1800's (my edition is 1909) and a set of encyclopedias from 1925. The first states unequivocally that the Macedonians were Greek. But the latter states that the Macedonian "question" has always been around and that the language of the Macedonians was "incomprehensible" to Greeks. To the writers of this article that was enough to question the ethnicity of the Macedonians. So it's not a new fight my friends, we just have a different enemy.

[Ptolemy]

But some go so far as to call the whole of the country Macedonia, as far as Corcyra, at the same time stating as their reason that in tonsure, language, short cloak, and other things of the kind, the usages of the inhabitants are similar

Strabo 7.7.8

[Amyntas]

From Otto Hoffmann's Die Makedonen, ihre Sprache und ihr Volkstum

I translated a few things to english and i ll add more when I finish more chapters and have time to translate the information we can get

I.5. Macedonian Elements in the êïéÃ*Þ and modern Greek

[....]
The noun êïñÜóéïÃ* (translit. korásion) "Girl", which can be found many times in the delphic Inscriptions of the II. and I. century b.c. (Wendel Index 200), is used by the comedian Philippides as îåÃ*éêüÃ* (translit. xenikón) and the Scholar Ven. B agrees with his remark Y 404
>>åß äÃ� ôñÃ�ðïéôï ôü Þ ôïõ ðñùôïôýðïõ åßò Ãœ ðáñÜ Äùñéåýóé, äéÜ ôïý Ãœ ðñõìÃ*ÜóéïÃ*, êïñõöÜóéïÃ*. ïýôùò Ã�÷åé êáß ôï êïñÜóéïÃ*, ü ìÜëëüÃ* Ã�óôé ÌáêåäïÃ*éêüÃ*<<

In another work of Philippides we can find a word, that is very common in hellenistic prose, for the first time. ñýìç (translit. rymi) "alley" is declared as non-attic by Phrynichus who in (Phrynichus) 487 ed. Rutherford mentions its macedonian origin.

>>ñýìç êáé ôïýôï ïß ìÃ�Ã*` Ã�èçÃ*áßïé Ã�ðß ôÞò üñìÞò Ã�ðßèåóáÃ*, ïß äÃ� Ã*ýÃ* Üìáèåßò Ã�ðß ôïý óôåÃ*ùðïý. äïêåß äÃ� ìïé êáé ôïýôï ÌáêåäïÃ*éêüÃ* åßÃ*áé<<

It is also Phrynichus who mentions the word ðáñåìâïëÞ (translit. paremvoli), which Polybius translates as "Camp" (in Polybbius VI, 29,1), as Macedonian

>>äåéÃ*þò ÌáêåäïÃ*éêüÃ*, êáßôïé Ã�Ã*çÃ* ôù óôñáôïðåäù ÷ñÞóèáé, ðëåßóôù êáé äïêßìùÃ* üÃ*ôé.<<

[.....]

to be continued, i had finished the translation of alot more but my pc crushed down and all the data was lost. I m not in the mood right now to translate 2 pages for a 2nd time

(great book by the way)

[akritas]

great work Giourkas, keep going!!

[Flipper]

What a bombardement...
While spending less time on the net until my new connection arrives, i'm doing a report on the Tsakonian Doric language. All those characteristics appear there as well. When I'm finnished we should start comparing with the macedonian texts available

[Amyntas]

Great idea,

I m reading right now and i m stunned about the huge amount of linguistic research Hoffmann has done. He even did some research on the modern greek that is spoken in Macedonia in the end of the 19th century and found alot of phonetical similarities with ancient macedonian