The Hellenicity of the “barbarian” Macedonians

Originally posted by UnicornBaby9 The Greeks were cultural revolutionaries that held minds that changed the world, philosphophies that were beyond their time. They were truly the greatest Civilization producing innovations that were created with a single brilliant thought. However, they were wrong on their view towards the Macedonians. Alexander the Great was from this very kingdom and he was no where close to the concept of a barbarian. The story of Alexander and his horse, who i believe was a Unicorn, is an incredibly heartwarming one. The bond between the two was strong beginning when he received the wild Bucephalus (ox faced or Horned one) for his 13th birthday from his father. The creature could not be tamed, well that was until Alexander examined him. He soon realized that the reasoning behind the horse's fear was because of the shadow that was cast when the laborers would climb upon his back. But the young prince repositioned the gentle beast and showed him respect that a great horse(Unicorn) deserved and upon his back he mounted, and off into the future they rode. The two fought as one in many battles, and their friendship only growing stronger over the years. But then many years later when Alexander was around 30, tragedy struck at a grave battle and the mighty Bucephalus fell. This caused Alexander great grief and he named the city after his dear friend and had a statue made in honor of the noble Unicorn. Tragically, Alexander and his horse were connected through a bond much greater than the material world, for but a few years later he passed away as well and together Alexander and Bucephalus galloped away into the afterlife. The term Barbarian sounds like inhumane. But if one heard this story of Alexander and his horse(Unicorn) they would know of Macedonia's inner and outer humanity. And this is the conclusion that history can be interpreted anyway your heart desires, that is the beauty of the past itself, it may be set in stone, but there is still some carving needed to be done.

Somewhat off-topic but a lot more interesting than the typical Greek-Macedonian flame wars we usually see in such threads

Edited by Nick1986 - 19-Oct-2011 at 19:19

Modern Macedonians are Slavs, actually the same stock as the modern Bulgarians, and Macedonian lingustically is a dialect of Bulgarian - I can read it without only me native Bulgarian.
As for the ancient Macedonians - I see then as marginal, frontier Greeks, hillbilly Greeks, but Greeks nevertheless.

Originally posted by medenaywe What does it means HeLeN/I?I suppose all words have(had had once) had their meaning of course.

Basically the Macedonians believe they're descended from the ancient Greeks. The modern Greeks disagree.

Chilbudios!
It's been a while since the last time i had time to write in this thread.

First of all, i don't know if you have noticed, but your arguments are far better than most books speaking about possible barbarian nature of Macedon. I really mean it, so respect for that.

Originally posted by Chilbudios I promised I will bring more evidence of "barbarians" hiding under Greek names and epigraphy. Here is some (I'm not using copy-paste because of the diacritics which may not render correctly, consequently I apologize for any mistakes in transcriptions):

That's very correct. There are many barbarians hidding behind Greek names. Even in Athens and Piraeus you will find loads of Thracians that had communities there and in smaller cities between the Isthmus and Athens. Foreigners using local names is a common fenomenon. For example, even today an Albanian named Gjerg living in Greece, would introduce himself as Georgios.

Ofcourse, that is a problem if you need to determine an individuals ethnicity. For example look at the following inscription

http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/oi?ikey=150696&bookid=126&region=4&subregion=11

All those names are Thracian except from Artemidora. However, from the inscription we know Artemidora is barbarian as well, because she's labeled as such. You've got an inscription from Macedonia where a Thracian woman, is labeled barbarian, which shows the view of the locals towards Thracians even though they are a part of the population. Generally, the term "barbarian" is used amongst the Macedonians, which means they differenciate themselves from foreigners just like the rest of the Greeks.

However, that's not the only problematic issue here. Take for example Herodotus. He was probably half-Carian from his father who was called Lyksu. Many Ionians were a mix of Attics, Minoans, Carians, Lydians and other anatolian populations. However, as we know, the Athenians being the pure Ionians were calling themselves Athenians while the Ionians of Asia Minor where those bearing proudly this name.

Now the other Ionians, and among them the Athenians, avoided the name, not wishing to be called Ionians, nay even now I perceive that the greater number of them are ashamed of the name: but these twelve cities not only prided themselves on the name but established a temple of their own, to which they gave the name of Panionion, and they made resolution not to grant a share in it to any other Ionians (nor indeed did any ask to share it except those of Smyrna);

 

If we accept that Herodotus is by birth a half-barbarian and since we know he's a patriot, do you think he would like to be called Barbarian? I think, that for many half-breeds in Macedonia the same would apply. They wouldn't like to be classified as non-Greeks.


Third on the names are the strickly Macedonian names. To be called Dimitrios in Macedonia is nothing revealing, because it is a so called Panhellenic name. Contrary names like Perdikkas, Alketas, Ikkotas, Tirimmas are strickly Macedonian forms.

Perdikkas is the Macedonian version of Peridikaeos where i in ri is dropped, joined with di and the ending has the Dorian form.

Alketas is the Macedonian version of Alkeus, having a doric suffix in the end.

Ikkotas is the equivalent of Hippotas, keeping the Mycenaean-Greek i-qo form for horse.

Tirimmas is a strickly Macedonian invension, but still perfectly Greek meaning "Cheese lover".

Those are just few examples out of hundreds. Macedonians, invented their own names, in Macedonian style that have an obvious meaning in Greek.

Originally posted by Chilbudios One last contribution for today is about the Macedonian diallect/language and its features.   You're certainly right to doubt that "such an amount of words qualify to characterize a certain phonology" but there are some extra considerations:   a) We have a small number of certain Macedonian words (or Greek words in Macedonian pronounciation, whatever the case). As such, while in absolute terms the number is not that impressive, it is more so in relative terms

I agree, but we don't know how much from what we read in inscriptions can be rendered as Macedonian. Maybe, in many cases we cannot distinguish a different written language from Attic. I gave you the example of Cypriots, who write identically to other Greeks, but speak very differently. Unless a local dialect word is used, you can't distinguish Cypriot writtings from mainland Greek.

Originally posted by Flipper Chilbudios, i didn't say they didn't borrow the names. I said that when borrowing a name, they did not leave it in it's original form but changed it to fit Greek phonology. For example Marcus turned to Markos, Valerius turned to Oualerios, Dārayavahuš turned to Darios etc. Noone says those are not non-Greek names. Ofcourse, there are exceptions like Adam, Eva and Maria which were left intact as their Jewish form. In the majority of names however, changes are made.

You made this point that names change when adapted in a language and I agree, this is largely true. But what I actually attempted to show is that sometimes one cannot differentiate between a foreigner wearing that name transcribed in Greek and a Greek wearing a borrowed name. For sake of simplicity, I'll use the mother tongue as a sole criterion and I believe that unless there's some extra information, we can't say about someone named Ουαλεριος what his mother tongue was: Greek or Latin. Κλαυδιος Πτολεμαιος was perhaps born in a Greek speaking family, but many others named Κλαυδιος weren't. It's like today when we can't tell of a certain Lee living in the U.S. what his mother tongue is: Chinese, Korean, English or some other.

I promised I will bring more evidence of "barbarians" hiding under Greek names and epigraphy. Here is some (I'm not using copy-paste because of the diacritics which may not render correctly, consequently I apologize for any mistakes in transcriptions):

Besides typical "barbarian" names, in the manumissiones from Delphi (most from mid 2nd century BC), we find also several (freed) slaves with Greek names.
From the SGDI II collection ( http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/book?bookid=466 ) here are some examples of
Maioteans (Scythians?): 1992 - Αγαθων, 2163 - Ευταξια, Παρνασιος
Bastarnians: 1754 - Αριστω
Sarmatians: 2274 - Αφροδισια, 2142 - Ειρηνα, Φιλοκρατεια
Galatians (Celts): 1885 - Αγαθων
Thracians: 1902 - Διονυσιος, 1832 - Σωτηριχος
Phrygians: 1922 - Δημητριος

Another situation is when we have a "barbarian" father but a "Greek" son. The case of Thucydides is quite famous, but we can find this phenomenon in epigraphy, e.g. in the Thracian space, in IGB III.2 corpus ( http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/book?bookid=188 ), here are some persons whose father was named Auluzenis (a Thracian name):
1690 - Καστωρ Αυλουζενεος
1703 - Ερμογενης Αυλουζενεος
1832 - Απολ[λω]νιδης Αυλ[ου]ζενεος
What's even more interesting that there are situations in reverse, like in IGB V 5652 where we find a certain Αυλουζενις Ερμοδ[ω]ρου or like in the Pontic inscription CIRB 266 where we have someone named Παιρισαλος Ερακλειδου. I take Pairisalos to be an Iranian name(for Pairi- check Pairisades, the name of several Bosporan kings).

Some other good examples I found in the Egyptian papyri and ostraca, as in Egypt there were some Greeks, Macedonians, Thracians, etc. deployed as mercenaries or soldiers. For instance in the papyrus NYU 122 / 2.16 ( http://epiduke.cch.kcl.ac.uk/2008-07-21/html/p.nyu/p.nyu.2/p.nyu.2.16.html http://wwwapp.cc.columbia.edu/ldpd/app/apis/item?mode=item&key=nyu.apis.4852&dbg=1 ) we find a Macedonian and a Thracian. The Macedonian's name is Serapion! Both fathers had the same name: Dionysios. How can one tell their ethnic identities only by considering their names? In another papyrus, NYU 71 / 2.14 ( http://epiduke.cch.kcl.ac.uk/2008-07-21/html/p.nyu/p.nyu.2/p.nyu.2.14.html http://wwwapp.cc.columbia.edu/ldpd/app/apis/item?mode=item&key=nyu.apis.4795&dbg=1 ) we find more Thracians: Θεω[ν Ηρα]κλειδου, Ζωιλος Εκαταιου, Προξενος Προξενου. Theon, Herakleides, Zoilos, Hekataios, Proxenos - aren't these names Greek enough? And yet there were some Thracians in Egypt named that way.

With such examples at hand, I think it's hard to maintain that having a Greek name meant necessarily to have a Greek ethnic identity or even Greek mother tongue. We can at best assume that at some point those individuals became familiar with or fluent in Greek. Perhaps many were Greeks for many generations but we need positive evidence to argue for that. A large density of Greek names suggests a strong Greek culture and possibly also identity, but we may have the surprise to find other identities and languages obscured by such naming fashions. Whether the name was Greek or non-Greek but adapted to Greek, we can't really say what identity a particular person had or what was his mother tongue unless we have some more evidence to correlate and support such conclusions.

Edited by Chilbudios - 22-Apr-2009 at 13:55

"A language is a dialect with an army and navy", they say.

Hello and sorry for my late response again. Got some health issues lately that kept me away from computers.

I don't know what exactly you meant by "opposite direction", however if a linguistic phenomenon (sound change) happens in one direction, studying the opposite may indicate nothing.

I ment that originally in certain cases the b-sound was used instead of ph-. That the change of b- to ph- occured later in other Greek dialects, while in Macedonian it was preserved.

Your first example is about W, not about B. In the second case, the Greek form has the B sound (whereas the particularity of Macedonian we were discussing is about having B-s instead of some Greek P+H-s/F-s)

That's a good remark Chilbudios. However, the specific example was not random. We know that non-attic speakers were the first to transform the b-sound to v/w-sound. We can't know exactly when this could have happened in Macedonia. However, when it comes to φέτος and βέτος (β as a v-sound) you have the Macedonian month Υπερβετταίος which was the last moth of the year. Besides, i believe that the Macedonian -b in Bilippos etc is a W/V sound. If you think about it both Greek β and φ are produced in the same way with the lips by blowing the air to different directions.

Now take a look at your second map.



Look closely at the area over Thessaly. The region of Kozani behind Olympus, until Grevena and Pindus is marked as Doric speaking. That is a large part of Upper (Mountainous) Macedonia incorporating Boion and Elimeia. I have been refering to these areas earlier in my posts.

I dunno which timeframe the map shall represent, but remember that Hammond, Hatzopoulos and others consider that the Macedonian anexation of the previously Phrygian parts occured entirely much later.

Also, note that the earliest attestations of Macedonians as a group places them at Pindus. Then you have the establishment of the Kindom by Karanos and a large band from Argos around 808BC.

I will return to that books comment shortly with Oneils points on the mater.

Now, I will make a list of attested words that are characterized by possible Macedonian phonology, that is supposed by some to be absent in Greek:

- Βίλιππος (Φίλιππος), Βάλαινα (Φάλαινα), Βίλα Βρατεάδου (Φίλα), Βερενίκα (attic Φερενίκη but Doric Φερενίκα), άβρουFες (όφρεις), βασκιοί (pl. φασκιοί), Βρύγες (Φρύγες).
- Δάνος (Θάνος), Αδραία (Αίθρια)

Now, I dunno if such an amount of words qualify to characterize a certain phonology. I will summarize what examples i have found previously in other Greek terretories outside Macedonia.

Φ -> Β

- Αλίβω instead of αλίφω.
- Βαλαρός (bad/evil man, an excile  in Cretan Doric), instead of Φαλαρός, verb Φαλαρίζω (being bad)
- Βέρακας (Thessalian) instead of Φερεκλής
- Βιλαράς instead of Φιλαράς. Currently a well spread Greek surname, geographically unrelated to Macedonia (try google or facebook).
- Βοίβη instead of Φοίβη (Thessaly)
- Βλησκούνι instead of φλησκούνι
- Κόρυβος (Elis, Megara) instead of Κόρυφος - See Gk. κορυφή
- Κύμβη (Greek word for bowl). The Κυμβ-/Κυβ- prefix is used for concave or bent objects like κύμβαλον (concave musical instrument), κυβαίον (cup), κύμβος (concave pot). However, you have exceptions where b- turns to ph- like κυφαλέος (bent), κύφελλα (the concave part of your ear), κύφος (humpbacked see κύφωσις).  So according to strict Greek phonology, the first examples should be with φ instead of β.
- Τύμβος, Τύμφη and the tribe of the Τυμφαίοι or Τυμβαίοι/Τυμπαίοι (http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb193/bboyflipper/MacedonianMegara.gif) - See also Τυμφηστός


Δ -> Θ

- αίδωσα instead of αίθουσα
- δα instead of θα (note modern idiom from Aeolia)
- άνθρωπός from ανδρός (gen for man) + οπός (faced) = άνδρο-οπός = ανθρ-ώ-πός
- σκυδνός or σκυθρός (surviving) from the verbs Σκυδάζω, σκυδμαίνω - also Σκυθρωπός similar case to άνθρωπός.


Possible use of F(w) -> β(v)

- ζαFετες/Fετος, εφέτος, φέτος, υπερβετταίος/υπερβερταίος
- Fικοία -> βικία (Elis)
- όρβος (mountain Attic όρος) earlier ορfος (Corfu)  - See Macedonian mountain όρβηλος
- Περραιβοί (att. Homer. means from the source of the Aias/Aous) which comes from Πέρρας + ΑίFα.


Those are some examples and i'm pretty sure there are more to find. Some of those above are widely used Greek words (anthropos, skythros, alifo etc) and even though it is not easy to think of them directly, it is a serious miss to omit them.

So, here is my previous points. Can few examples in Macedonian inscriptions be considered alien, when you have similar examples in other areas of Greece? It's not that you have a vast amount of such Macedonian-styled words. I personally believe that all the examples above including the Macedonian, are leftovers of PIE in Greek. It is very probable that those survived widely at an early stage of Greek that we cannot attest or haven't attested yet. Do you think that that hypothesis is less probable? James L. O'neil suggests that the PIE bh- could have been deaspirated to -b in Macedonia.

Moreover, since Macedonian preserves the proto-Indoeuropean voiced aspirated, as against all other Greek dialects changing them to unvoiced aspirates. Macedonian must have started to differentiate itself earlier than any of the better known dialects. So that even though it had some developments in common with neighbouring Greek dialects, such as the infinite in -stai shared with Northwest Greek, more changes of vocabulary are likely to have occured in Macedonian even than was the case in Cretan and this is supported by the number of unusual words preserved as "Macedonian" in the glosses.

Then he says the following

Speakers of Doric dialects or even an Aeolic one like Thessalian may have found Macedonian less difficult to follow, since it shared many features with them as against Attic-Ionic.

Then he makes the following hypothesis:

We should allow for the possibility that spoken Macedonian was as far from standard Attic as Sicilian is from Venetian, and that it may have been difficult to determine whether there were two separate languages or just two dialects even if we had better evidence.

O'Neils analysis is labeled "Doric forms in Macedonian inscriptions" where he analyses the 3 larger inscriptions as well as smaller fragments, placenames and personal names. He seems to find similarities with mainly Doric and some Aeolic but gives ofcourse space to the other view as shown above.


From all these, i can summarize that if there are problematics in the classification of Macedonian as a known or unknown Greek dialect, there are much more problematics in other hypothesis. That is my point from the start of this thread and i think O'Neil is very good in showing this.

Just one example...Why are some Macedonian phonology labeled as alien, when e.g within Aeolian you have Πετθαλος (http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/oi?ikey=148432&bookid=10&region=3&subregion=9) and Φετταλός (http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/oi?ikey=145923&bookid=13&region=3&subregion=6) in Thessalian/Boettian respectively? Is the -τθ combination standard in Greek? Does that make Thessalian alien because of the usage of -τθ?

It is fair to keep distance and give space to possibilities, but the same weight of problems should be applied equally to all cases, which i have the belief is not done sometimes.


PS: Just out of curiosity. Has anyone ever mentioned the possibility that Eteocretan could have been spoken in some areas, considering that there's a large minority group of Cretans that colonized the area? Could the small amount of pre-Greek/Non Thracian names attested at Kalindoia be attributed to the Bottians?






Edited by Flipper - 23-Mar-2009 at 21:25

Originally posted by Vorian Originally posted by AksumVanguard IMO the Macedonians were trying to gain more ground both  Agean and the sEmi Greek territories such as Thrace,Thesally ,Ilyria. A small correction here. Thessaly was considered entirely greek and Illyria and Thrace were not Greek at all.

You are of course correct,the Ilyrians are Barbarians,and they aren't under the hellenistic empire until later on,by Lysimachus. And so was Thraces.


Edited by AksumVanguard - 13-Mar-2009 at 20:58

IMO the Macedonians were trying to gain more ground in both  the Agean and with the Semi Greek territories such as Thrace,Thesally ,Ilyria. Macedonians tried to incorporate and consul with the Athenians,but every state was bent on staying in control.The Athenians had went to Darius sometime before in order to stop the Macedonian growing threat.

The Pelopenssian League and the League of Thebes were not cohesive, as a result the  Macedonian Confederacy would've just have to suffice,after their defeat in attempted rebellion.It was why in the end Athenians and Thebian states become Hellinized as with other previous empires,Selucids,Ptolemiac,Sodgdiana,and the Indo-Greek Kingdom.


Edited by AksumVanguard - 30-Mar-2009 at 01:19

Hello!
Sorry for my long absence but i was lacking time to write anything lately.

Originally posted by Chilbudios Everyone adapts names (Andrew is not in a Greek form, is it?), everyone adopts names for some reason (Christianity is a reason like any other). I can't believe the Greeks were some special people, having their own special ways (and names) and borrowing nothing but instead giving everything to the others. These are romantic myths if anything. A matrimonial alliance (which happened often between Greeks and barbarians) could trigger such an anthroponomastic practice: e.g. the name Roxane which was worn by few Greek women, probably echoing the age of Alexander the Great. A significant cultural influence could have also such consequences. Let's take Latin, a very important source of names for ancient Greek speakers during the times of the Roman Empire. We find Greeks having Latin names (e.g. Flavios, Claudios), we find Greeks having names derived from Latin ones (e.g. Marcion from Marcus).

Chilbudios, i didn't say they didn't borrow the names. I said that when borrowing a name, they did not leave it in it's original form but changed it to fit Greek phonology. For example Marcus turned to Markos, Valerius turned to Oualerios, Dārayavahuš turned to Darios etc. Noone says those are not non-Greek names. Ofcourse, there are exceptions like Adam, Eva and Maria which were left intact as their Jewish form. In the majority of names however, changes are made.

Originally posted by Chilbudios But why ancient one? We are also unaware of any source from Myceneaen or Homeric age claiming the Macedonians were Greek back then and yet almost everyone assumes that based on written testimonies from centuries when not millenia later. Thrace nowadays gives a similar example: http://www.pickatrail.com/jupiter/location/europe/greece/map/thraki.gif Yet based on this late reality, few dare to draw conclusions about how Thrace was 20-2500 years ago. Macedonia is a larger region, too. Its inhabitants were once also non-Greek tribes, and at some point some Greek speakers colonized parts of its territory. The Macedonians were also perhaps Hellenized. I am yet to see some serious evidence for an archaic Greekness of Macedonians which does not apply to some other barbarian culture which was later obscured by the Greek language, literacy and civilization.

Yes i got yout point...Like for example in 2000 years from now, maybe peoples perception of Thrace will be the current status. However, people will see that in Thrace, Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks and Romanians inhabited it. That requires ofcourse that most of the data available today vanishes. Todays data is much more than the data produced in archaic ages, so if we find today 0.0010% of what was produced lets say at 700BC, then in 2000 years from now, people should find more than that 0.0010% of archaic data we have now. Anyway, this is another thread concerning how much we will leave behind us, since we use the internet and optical discs instead of stone.

Last but not least, we don't know much about what happened around 1800BC, but we do know pretty much about what was happening 700-1000 years ago.

Originally posted by Chilbudios Hellenization means to become a Hellene.

In that case all Hellenes were Hellenized at different points of history. That was my earlier point...

Originally posted by Chilbudios Strabo says that Macedonia was called Emathia, and that parts of this country (i.e. which was formerly known as Emathia) were held by Epirotes, Illyrians, Bottiaei and Thracians and even goes further to list the Thracian tribe of the Pieres inhabiting Pieria and foothills of Olympus. (VII, fr. 11). He also says that a large part of Greece is held by barbarians, in particular regions of Macedonia and Thessaly by the Thracians (VII, 7, 1). I wouldn't trust Strabo in all what he claims, however if one uses Strabo to prove something about Macedonia, then Emathia and Pieria were mostly non-Greek in the earlier ages, even more, according to Strabo, Thracians seem to have been here (southern Macedonia) the most important ethnos in the archaic times.

We know for sure that other people lived there as well. It doesn't even need to be discussed at this point. Furthermore, from my earlier posts i demonstrated a Macedonian inscription where a Thracian from Macedonia is reffered as barbarian.

However, one would not just rely on Strabo as he is a geographer, not a linguist/ethnologist - he makes the remaining Brygoi Illyrians, he believes Carian has many Greek words (not that Greek inherited the pre-Greek anatolian ones) and he completely omits the ancient presence of Phrygians in Macedonia. I believe he can distinguish a greek from a foreigner, but that's all about it.

However, he speaks of those people you mentioned...Epirotans, Cretans, Thracians, Illyrians etc...Not Macedonians. Others, like Justin, Diodorus mention the establishment of the Macedonian Kindom by Karanos who colonized the area with a large band of Greeks.

That is still problematic...According to others, the Macedonians emerged before the Dorian invasion. So, Karanos based on those traditions cannot be the father of the Macedonians (Attamak ).

I know i'm not giving an answer with this but at least i give perspective. Was a tribe originally called Makednoi that gave their name to the inhabitants of the greater regions? Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe the Macedonians were insignificant in number compared to the other people in the area, but got a boost with the arrival of the Argeads and preveiled. Maybe there were no Macedonians, in the area before Karanos but a myth was created to claim the nativeness from the Brygoi, the Epirotans and the Thracians. All these are hypothesis.

As for your initial question, none of the mycenaean sites in southern macedonia can proove the inhabitants were "The Macedonians". They only proove Mycenaean material culture, linear B litteracy (1 example) and Greek alpgabetical litteracy almost at the same time as the rest of Greece. 

Originally posted by Chilbudios And the shape of the bottle (which was actually the point of my analogy) is the one which really matters (the label gets destroyed faster, not mentioning the symbolism of the bottle which would make it persist in some other representations but the bottle - drawings of all types and for all purposes, comercials recorded in different forms, etc.) and it's not local. It's an import and it's so widely found in many corners of the world. Most of the Greek/Myceneaen pottery has no real clues of its origin, but shapes, ornamentation, color. You won't know if those creating those artefacts or those using them were speaking Greek or not. Like many archaeologists say: pots are not people.

Ofcourse pots are not people, but you've comparing the modern industrial age with times where making a mycenaean pot was hi-tech. Otherwise, the examination of material culture would not be significant in archeology. Just an example...The anatolian limestone kouroi in Cyprus...

Originally posted by Chilbudios It is, as it is spoken today. The birth of its dialect may be ages ago, what it matters is most examples you picked to illustrate some phonological features (or accidents) are from today, not from 2500 years ago. Even that wonderful, pitoresque sample of linguistic particularity, but also orality and spontaneity can't prove anything for the Greek dialects spoken millenia ago. I'm sure you can bring many more examples, but you paint the Greek linguistic world of today, not the ancient one. Languages change. For an ancient language you need ancient evidences, and so far, there's only that one name which supports your case. One name is not a linguistic feature, it is not a dialect.   As such, with the evidence you provided so far, those linguists are correct to identify in some Macedonian features some local particularities. It is a matter of awareness and knowledge of the ancient Greek.

Chilbudios, my point was that those phonological changes do not signify non-Greek phenomenas. It's like saying "All birds fly" when you know that penguings, ostrages, chickens and many other birds don't...This renders the "all birds fly" to a false absolute argument. I couldn't not remember instantly ancient greek examples of the same phenomenas, but at least i showed you that similar things occured in remote areas were the foreign influence could not create them (θ -> δ in an area where the foreign language has none of those consonants). Besides, even the modern examples should not be omitted. Modern Greek examples are often used by linguists in the analysis of the Greek language historically.

Last time i showed you Koribos and the Thessalian decree with the phonetically changed names. During my absence, i remembered more words that again cover different geographic areas. Now, that i have time, whithin a week i will find even more. I'm good in attic Greek for obvious reasons, i can't even remember modern Greek dialectal differences, which makes it even harder when it comes to ancient greek. Imagine how it is for a non native speaker that want to draw a conclusion. Now let's see some examples.

First of all i will take the opposite direction...

In Linear B you have the word ζαFετες (za-we-te) translitterated in as Zawetes and standard Greek (τ)ζαβέτες. It means "this year". Later in various Greek dialects it turned to Fέτος (wetos) and then to εφέτος/φέτος. So, in this case the archaic forms have a V/W sound and later turn to Ph-. So maybe it is originally Φ that occasionally interchanged with B instead of the opossite. Unfortunately, we don't have enough Mycenaean sources to be  sure.

Second, the word Tύμβος which means round mound/grave. It also appers as Τύμφος...Today in Greek you have the following forms : Τύμβος, τύμφη (see mount tymphe), τούμπα...All mean the same. The first is panhellenic, the second is local (epirus) and the third is Macedonian (Modern Gk). Taking to consideration the third, anciently in macedonia the word could be τύμβα, where β was pronounced as b (since the W was represented by F-digamma) and υ as -ου. Translitterating that it would be tumba, exactly the same as the current macedonian equivalent (note μπ- in Greek translitterates as b or mb like in this case).

Third the Thessalian lake Boibe described in the Apollonian myths. Obviously, the lake got it's name from Phoibos aka Apollo...

Fourth the Macedonian river Baphyras meaning "bridged river" (Gephyra = bridge).

Fifth the word Βαλαρός in Cretan Doric which means bad/evil man, an excile. In attic the word is not attested exactly like that but instead you have the verb Φαλαρίζω (i'm bad, i behave as a tyran) and Φαλαρισμός (being inhuman).

Sixth, the Arcadocypriot άνωδα instead of attic άνωθε which means up-side.

You will find many similar examples in the Book "The Modern Greek Language in Its Relation to Ancient Greek" by Edmund Martin Geldart. Just some extracts...


 

As you see, there are more phonetical changes than one might imagine.

My point with all these is not to put a finger if Macedonia was hellenized in the bronze age, in the colonial age or in the classical age. None of us can answer that and in the end the result is the same. My point is that some erronious assumptions have been put forward in the past and have been presented with thin arguments and methodology, which in other issues would not be passed that easily.

To start from the basics...The only historically centrum languages of the area we're aware of were Greek and Phrygian.

As I mentioned earlier, since both Greeks and Phrygians (or somekind of ancestors of both) passed through Macedonia, it is impossible to think that they completely emptied it, leaving no people back.

With the collapse of the Hittite empire, the migration of the Phrygians to Anatolia and the migrations of proto/mello-Greeks to the south, a huge vacum must have been created in the area. This vacum could have given space to the formation and a separate development of a new kind of speech.

I'm not insisting that Macedonian is related to Doric or Aeolic, since it can be easily a separate idiom. What i tend to believe nowadays is that it was a language that shared common basis with those dialects.

The consonant changes as you've seen are not unique, nor geographically restricted. Even in Palaeophrygian you can find the same phenomena e.g ber- instead of pher- (i bring), arkieFais instead of Archiereus (where Greek -eus in that case is pronounced -ephs).

With the last example, i add weight to my earlier comment that it might have been originally B that turned to Φ and not the opposite.

Last but not least, i cannot say Phrygian can't have affected a possible macedonian idiom. The opposite, it must have. In that case, it falls into the same group which makes it akin to Greek as some say.