Ancient Macedonian language

[BigBlackBeast]

Originally Posted by Andrew

Guys ..I just love the word "ΠΑΡΚΑΤΤΙΘΕΜΑΙ" instead of attic "ΠΑΡΑΚΑΤΙΘΕΜΑΙ" ... d oyou know why ???

1) contraction of "ΠΑΡΑ-" in "ΠΑΡ-"
2) doubling of dental "T"

Now ...take the OBVIUSLY greek word "ΠΕΡΙΔΙΚΑΙΟΣ" meaning "famusly just"
and apply :
1) contraction of ΠΕΡΙ- to ΠΕΡ-
2) doubling of dental "k" to "kk"
3) add North Western greek ending in "-as"
.................................................. ........
= ΠΕΡΔΙΚΚΑΣ !!!! The name of the first Macedonian King , and common Macedonian name later !!!

Bravo Andriko ... you're fast becoming one of my favourites in these forums.

I'm not so sure, however, that 'k' is a dental. If I'm not mistaken I think it is a (plosive) velar. The doubling of the 'character' consonant, though, does appear to have some significance - at least on the basis of these two words ..!?

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by BigBlackBeast

Bravo Andriko ... you're fast becoming one of my favourites in these forums.

I'm not so sure, however, that 'k' is a dental. If I'm not mistaken I think it is a (plosive) velar. The doubling of the 'character' consonant, though, does appear to have some significance - at least on the basis of these two words ..!?

Well BBB you're wright ... I'm not even sure about "k" being a dental ...if anyone can help us on that ....

Yet that it is no problem ..since in other classes of consonants we have doublings ...take for example the "liquid" consonants "ρ" and "λ" ...In some dialects we have καλός and in other καλλός , Ύλλος instead of Ύλος , Αχιλλεύς and Αχιλεύς etc ...

[Andrew]

Here I would like to express an idea on the Macedonian language/dialect of Greek.

First of all some "brain-storming" for who is new to the subject. The attempt of classification of the Macedonian language has two basic sides. Those who retain it a dialect of greek and those who don't. About this issue it is fair to say that the vast majority of modern scholars consideres it a Dialect of Greek.
Among the pro-Greek scholars historicaly there were two basic opinions : Macedonian belonging tothe Aeolic branch of Greek and Macedonian belonging to the North Western branch of Greek.

Modern pro-Aeolists : Hoffman , Fick , Hammond in his first opinion (70s) etc.
Ancient pro-Aeolists : Hellanikus (410 BC) and Hesiod (750 BC)

Modern pro-Northwesternists : Hammond after 1985 , Mason , Bengtson etc.
Ancient pro-Northwesternists : Herodotus in (I,56).

Althought after the discovery of the Pella curse tablet most scholars see the Macedonian as North Western greek dialect , one can't overlook it's Aeolisms who "tricked" some ancient and modern scholars to see it as an Aeolic dialect of greek.

Why did the Macedonian dialect tricked them ??

To answer this question one must first clarify some terms : undifferanciated dialect , differenciated daughter dialects and hybrid dialects.


[url=http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=180&i=divmixaq1.png][IMG]

The Undifferenciated dialect is the common precursor of two different dialects.The last are seeing as "daughters" of this common precursor who diverged due to isolation and different interactions. If in a second moment the daughter languages remix then we have a "hybrid" dialect. Now as you can see by the scheme the hybrid dialect looks similar to the undifferanciate parent , but their great differance is obvius :
In relation to the differenciated dialects the precursor comes earlier and the hybrid comes after.

After these definitions we can turn in our point.We've been talking about the ambiguus nature of the Macedonian dialect that maintaines both "dorisms" and "Aeolisms". The same thing can be told about the Boetian dialect.

At that point the latest linguistic news on the greek dialects consider the Aeolic and North Western greek dialects as differantiatd daughters of a common "continental" greek dialect. It is speculated that the two diverged around 1300-1200 BC.

As we explained above this "continental" precursor of the Aeolic and North Western dialects of greek must have the characteristics of both ... that is Aeolisms and Dorisms combined . Strangely that is the condition of the Macedonian and Boetian dialects.

Having that as a background I would like to propose my theory on the Macedonian dialect.

-About 1900 BC we have the arrival of proto-Greek in Southern Albania and Northern Epeirus.
- The first branch to diverge and descent into greece was the proto-Mycenaean meanwhile the proto-greek bulk behind diverged in two basic forms: "Coastal proto-Ionian" in the Albanian coasts (Ioanian Sea & Ionian Gulf) and "proto-continental" in the continental parts of that zone.
-A second wave was the arrival of the proto-continental Greek to the Upper nad Middle valeys of Haliakmon river. That territory can be diveded in three parts : Makeda ("Heighland") in Orestis where the Macedonians dwelt , Boion (Tymfaea and south Elymia) where the Boetians dwelt and finaly East Elymia - West Pieria where the Magnetes dwelt. These 3 spoke an undifferenciated dialect of proto-continental Greek.
-In the next step ,from the proto-continental bulk that they left stemmed the proto-Aeolic leaving behind what will differanciate into proto-NorthWestern Greek. During their descent to Thessaly the proto-Aeolians separated the previus proto-continentals and send the Macedonians with the Magnetes to Pieria and the Boetians to Thessaly.
-In the same time the Phrygian press from the north causes the descent of the NW Greek and it's diffusion to West Macdonia , Epeirus and Southern Greece. In the meanwhile the Thracian invasion in Pieria "pushed" the Magnetes southward in straight contact with the Aeolians and the Arrival of the NW Thessalians to Thessaly drove the Boetians to Boetia and caused the Aeolian migration to Asia minor.
In the meanwhile the Ionians by sea reached western peloponnesus and by there Argolid ,Attica and Eubea and where already there when the NW Greeks "pushed" and so even them migrated to Asia minor.

In that model we have Macedonians, Boetians and Magnetes originaly speaking an undifferanciated proto-continental language. First splited the Boetians when the Aeolians pushed them , meanwhile Macedonians and Magnets finished in the Pierian mountains and continue to talk their proto-continental idiom. Then the Thracians drove away the Magnetes. Now the three finished isolated in different positions and surrounded by different people.

-The Magnetes finished on having straight relations with the Aeolians so sooner or later their dialect differentiated in Aeolian loosing it's "Dorisms".
- The Boetians finished surrounded by Aeolians in the North, NW Greeks in West and Ionians in the South ..so their dialect maintained it's undifferanciated nature since they communicated with all the dialects and couldn't "forget" neither the "Aeolisms" nor the "Dorisms".

- Finaly , the Macedonians ...left alone in the north ...were in straight contact only with the North Western Greeks of Elymia and that caused a differentiation of their dialect in the Northwestern sense , but always maintained some of the Aeolisms of it's previus undifferentiated proto-continental form. Also with the inevitable contact with Phrygians , Thracians and Illyrians they also obtained a few "non greek" elements in their speech.

The original undiferantiated and "archaic" form of the Macedonian and Boetian dialects is indicated by a quotation from the book that ChicagoGeorge showed me : "M.L. West , Indo-European myth & poerty" where he states in page 15:

"...the Boetian Pindar , who has the greatest amount of interest to offer. Calvert Watkins has called him "in many ways the most Indo-European of Greek poets".

Also another find from a book that chicagogeorge introduced is :




So at this point we must ask ourselves the co-presence of Dorisms and Aeolisms are indicators of "post-daughter" hybridism or pre-daughter undifferenciation ?? For me the fact that Pindar's Greek is both "hybrid" and "the most Indo-European" indicates that it's the second case , that is the "hybrid" Greek dialects ar not a mix of dialects , but earlier daughters of the common proto-continental Greek that stemmed out before the separation in Noth Western and Aeolic.

Interestingly , by putting the Macedonian dialect in an undifferanciated place between the North-Western and the Aeolic then we can understand why it seemed "barbarian" to the Athenians . Thoukydides names the North Western Greek dialect of the Aetolians as "unintelligible" and Plato in Protagoras calls the Aeolian dialect a "barbarian dialect". Hre are the quotations:

Thoukydides (III,94) :

«τὸ γὰρ ἔθνος μέγα μὲν εἶναι τὸ τῶν Αἰτωλῶν καὶ μάχιμον, οἰκοῦν δὲ κατὰ κώμας ἀτειχίστους, καὶ ταύτας διὰ πολλοῦ, καὶ σκευῇ ψιλῇ χρώμενον οὐ χαλεπὸν ἀπέφαινον, πρὶν ξυμβοηθῆσαι, καταστραφῆναι. ἐπιχειρεῖν δ᾿ ἐκέλευον πρῶτον μὲν Ἀποδωτοῖς, ἔπειτα δὲ Ὀφιονεῦσι καὶ μετὰ τούτους Εὐρυτᾶσιν, ὅπερ μέγιστον μέρος ἐστὶ τῶν Αἰτωλῶν, ἀγνωστότατοι δὲ γλῶσσαν καὶ ὠμοφάγοι εἰσίν, ὡς λέγονται» (ΘΟΥΚΥΔΙΔΗΣ Γ,94)

The Aetolian tribe ...dwelling unwalled villages ...with an unintelligible language and eaters of raw meat.

Plato , Protagoras (341c) :

Prodicus labelled the Aeolic dialect as barbarian, while referring to Pittacus of Mytilene :

“ He didn't know to distinguish the words correctly, being from Lesbos, and having been raised with a barbarian dialect ”

The Aeolic dialect might, in the time of Socrates and Plato, sound so strange to the Athenians, as to be termed, from an exclusive pride in the Attic literary style, barbaros.

So if a pure North Western dialect as the Aetolian is "unintelligible" and the Aeolian a "barbarian" one ..go figure what did the Macedonian sounded like when it had both "Aeolisms" and "Dorisms" in it's undifferanciated form.

[chicagogeorge]