Language of the Ancient Macedonians

ANCIENT MACEDONIAN LANGAUGE

Language Name: Ancient Macedonian
Alternate Name(s): Macedonian or Dorian Dialect
Once Spoken in: Greece Macedonia
Language Code: ISO-DIS 639-3.5 XMK
Status: Extinct
Family: Indo-European
Subfamily: Hellenic or Greek
Subgroup: Macedonian
Subgrouping Code: IEGB
Brief Description: The ancient language of the Macedonian kingdom in N. Greece and modern Macedonia during the later 1st millennium BC. Survived until the early 1st millennium AD. Not to be confused with the modern Macedonian language, which is a close relative of the Slavic Bulgarian.

SOURCES:

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/a/an/ancient_m acedonian_language.htm

http://linguistlist.org/

http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws_families.html

First headline of this thread is the Language of the Ancient Macedonians and not the ethnicity origin. All the mentioned quotes regard the ethnicity.

All that you mentioned I have already read from the knowing sites and I don�t like the cutted quotes I prefer to read all the sentence..

http://faq.macedonia.org/history/ancient.macedonia/wilken.ht ml

http://www.macedon.org/anmacs/wilcken.htm

I will stay in this statement of Wilchen

"The strong emphasis on Philip as a Heraclid and therefore a true Hellene, was to make easier for Greeks the idea of subordination to foreign leadership." p.35-6

He believed that the Macedonians were Greeks (origin) and adding in this point the Isocrates letter (speech to the Philip) confirms this statement. The communication between them was the Hellenic language.

Kassander at your opinion what kind of language spoke Ancient Macedonians if this weren't Dorian?

Phallanx for your confrimation conserning the adoption and the others Hellenic dialects is the Ancient Macedonian Calendar

The Ancient Macedonian calendar year consisted of 12 synodic Lunar months (i.e. 354 days per year), which necessitated that 7 total embolimoi (intercalary) months be added into each 19-year Metonic cycle.

• Peritios, moon of January
• Dystros, moon of February
• Xandikos or Xanthikos, moon of March(Xandikos Embolimos, intercalated 6 times over a 19-year cycle)
• Artemisios or Artamitios, moon of April, also a Spartan, Rhodian and Epidaurian month - Artemisiōn was an Ionic month
•  Daisios, moon of May
•  Panēmos or Panamos, moon of June, also an Epidaurian, Miletian, Samian and Corinthian month
• Lōios, moon of July - ��������, Homolōios, was an Aetolian, Boeotian and Thessalian month
• Gorpiaios, moon of August
•  Hyperberetaios, moon of September - Hyperberetos was a Cretan mont (Hyperberetaios Embolimos, intercalated once over a 19-year cycle)
• Dios, moon of October
• Apellaios, moon of November, also a Spartan and Dorian month - Apellaiōn was a Tenian month
• Audnaios or Audēnaios, moon of December

The 4th and 11th months of the Macedonian calendar are the same as the Spartan.

And someone put the question.....Sparta lies at the head of the Peloponnese, far away from Macedonia, in Southern Greece. Ancient Macedonians and Spartans had no contacts but nevertheless they both shared two month's names. How come?

The explanation: Both Macedonians and Spartans are (as stated by Herodotus) of Dorian stock. Not only were Macedonia and Sparta both kingdoms and warlike people but they had the same Dorian origin.

The knowledge of the language is very limited because there are no surviving Macedonian texts, though a body of authentic Macedonian words has been assembled from ancient sources, mainly from coin inscriptions, and from the 5th century lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria, amounting to about 700 words and proper names. Most of these are confidently identifiable as Greek, but some of them are not easily reconciled with Greek phonology.chemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />>>

kassander you mentioned the German writer Wilcken. Of course you know what was the final conclusion of him  regarding the origin of the Ancient Macedonians:

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

Wilcken, U., "Alexander the Great", W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1967. U. Wilcken (1862-1944) was a University Professor at Berlin and member of the German Academy.

pikeshot1600.

"But it is undoubted that the ancient one has nothing to do with the pseudo-macedonian language of FYROM." - Dorian

I know.  However, language is a very ambiguous tool when trying to reach concensus on ethnicity.  National languages are always changing.  Lingua Franca in Roman Macedonia Salutaris was latin.  Most archaeological finds during this era in R. Macedonia are in latin, this does not mean that the Upper Macedonians & Paeones are descendants of Rome though.

"Do you have to show us any other inscription that proof the opposite?" - Akritas

Akritas, you as well as I know very well that the ancient Macedonian language, whatever it was, did not reach written development.

"That the ancient macedonian language was greek is the strongest belief. Read the information carefully and there are a lot more." - Dorian

I have read it & have stated that I feel that Hellenic was used for writing & communication.  Much like we are doing here now in English.  But we are not Englishmen.  I personally have never seen London.

"As interaction and communication in the ancient world were somewhat problematical (except for cultures that were connected by the sea lanes and commerce) how do we know that the ancient Macedonians used Greek as their "lingua?" - Pikeshot1600

We don't really:

"I deliberately refrain from adopting any position on the linguistic status of ancient Macedonian. It has little significance outside the nationalistic propaganda of the contemporary Balkan states, in which prejudice and dogma do duty for rational thought. What matters for the present argument is the fact, explicit in Curtius, that Macedonian was largely unintelligible to non-Macedonians. Macedonians might understand Greek, and some Greek (like Eumenes) with experience of Macedon might speak Macedonian. However, even Eumenes took care that a vital message was conveyed to the phalangites of Neoptolemus by a man fluent in Macedonian (MAKEDONI/ZONTA TH]=FWNH]=SI 12. 1284,col. ii. 19-20).] "Alexander shouted out in Macedonian, and called the hypaspists in Macedonian." In my view there is nothing at all surprising in the use of Macedonian. Alexander was calling his hypaspists, who were Macedonians, and he addressed them in their native language/dialect." - Bosworth

"The evidence for this hypothesis is decidedly tenuous. Nearly two centuries before Alexander Hecataeus may have described the Orestians as a Molossian tribe, but, as far as I can ascertain, there is no evidence for the language of any or all of the Upper Macedonian people before the time of Alexander, and nothing to suggest that the hypaspists were anything other than linguistically homogeneous." "Alexander's invitation to speak (Curt. 6. 9. 34) presupposes that the entire army spoke Macedonian." "Alexander's challenge presupposes that all the army would understand an address in Macedonian." "He used Macedonian because the troops would instantly understand and (he expected) would react immediately. There is no need for more complicated explanation." - Bosworth

"The suggestion is surely that Macedonian was the language of the infantry and that the Greek was a difficult indeed a foreign tongue to them". - Badian

"Linguistic science has at its disposal a very limited quantity of Macedonian words, and the archeological exploration of Macedonia has hardly begun."  - Wilcken

Describing the all familiar episode with Cleitus: "He shouted in Macedonian for his hypaspists, and ordered the trumpeter to sound the alarm" - Wilcken

"A strong Illyrian and Thracian 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".  - Wilcken

""The main evidence for Macedonian existing as separate language comes from a handful of late sources describing events in the train of Alexander the Great, where the Macedonian tongue is mentioned specifically."  - Borza

"The evidence suggests that Macedonian was distinct from ordinary Attic Greek used as a language of the court and of diplomacy."  - Borza

"The handful of surviving genuine Macedonian words - not loan words from Greek - do not show the changes expected from Greek dialect."  - Borza

"How far and fast had the world moved since Marathon! Greeks were fraternizing now with Persians, both at their ease; only the Macedonians sat glowering and constrained, masterful, stiff-necked Northerners that they were. They might well feel uneasy! Their native speech had become so rare at the court of their King that a word of command, shouted in it, rang on unwonted ears like a tocsin."  - Hogarth

& on & on & on........

I also feel that there is limited proofs as to what the exact language of the ancient Macedonians.  I reach this assumption because of the many ancient quotes that contradict eachother.  Also, I don't think that linguists & historians are almost unanimous about the exact origin of the ancient Macedonian language.  If anything, they are split.  This happens when there is limited evidence to support both sides.

One thing is undebatable though, the lingua franca was most certainly a Hellenic one.