Ancient Macedonian language

So, although you are not interested about what Alexander�s ethnicity was (you said that and you deleted it half an hour later) you should read greek history (especially the history of Macedonians), if you want to post your opinion instead of posting texts from the FYROMian sites.

The Pellas' katadesmos is probably dated before the times of Alexander the Great but maybe during the times of Phillip. This "Hellenization" of Macedonians, means that they started to use the attic dialect which overshadowed the other greek dialects and became the language of all the Greeks. The katadesmos is written in the doric dialect which means that it dates before the supposing "hellenization" otherwise it should have been written in the attic dialect. So, the conclusion is that this text is written in the doric dialect which was the language of Macedonians before their..."hellenization".

And you should have always in mind when you're reading about Demosthenes in the FYROMian sites, that he was a sworn enemy of Macedonians.

And, of course, the strongest evidence of the Greekness of the Macedonian dialect are:

• The excavated inscriptions, where you can find only Greek characters and words
• The coins of Macedonia, where again you can find only Greek characters and words
• The quotations of the ancient writers on the Macedonians' speech
• The characteristics of the Macedonian dialect
• Etoimology of some names in Macedonia

Some years back,a German linguist by the name Otto Hoffman wrote a book with the title "Makedonians, their language and their Ethnicity". Hoffman analyzed the paradoxical or idiomatic words (calling them languages),which past grammaticals,lexicographers and more in general everyone engaged around the Hellenic language had noted them as "worthy to be analyzed" in Makedonia.

To begin with,all those people were believing that the Makedonian language was an Hellenic dialect, and exactly this is the reason mentioning certain of its peculiarities, had they believe that the Makedonian language was alien to that Hellenic one, there was not a reason mentioning those Makedonian paradoxical and/or idiomatic "languages". According to the same Hoffman his conclusions after "supervising" other peoples work are the following:

""And now after supervising the ancient Makedonian linguistic thesaurus we are posting the decisive question,if what is adding to the Makedonian language its character,are the hellenic or the barbarian elements of it,the responce can not be of any doubts. From the 39 "languages" that according to Gustav Mayer their form was "completely alien" has been proven after this research of mine,that 10 of them are clearly Hellenic,with 4 more possibly dialectical forms of common hellenic words,so from the entire collection are remaining only 15 words appearing to be justifiable or at least suspected of anti-hellenic origins.Adding to those 15, few others which with regards their vocals could be hellenic,without till now being confirmed as such,then their number, in comparison to the number of pure hellenic ones in the Makedonian language,is so small that the GENERAL HELLENIC CHARACTER OF THE MAKEDONIAN LINGUISTIC TREASURE CAN NOT BE DOUBTED.

The official code name that given recetly from the linqustics is

 

Ancient Macedonian language (provisional ISO-DIS 639-3.5 XMK).
Subgrouping Code : Ancient Greek language or IEGreekB
Group code: Greek Language or IEGreek.

 

One from the strong arcaelogical evidence that show what language spoken from the ancient Macedonians is the Pella katadesmos .Is a katadesmos (a curse, or magic spell) inscribed on a lead scroll, probably dating to between 380 and 350 BC. It was found in Pella (at the time capital of Macedon) in 1986; it was published in the Hellenic Dialectology Journal in 1993.

The tab has been dated by the original publishers to the "Mid-4th century BC or slightly earlier (letter forms, spelling)". This dating has been contested by Prof. Edmonds of Bryn Mawr College, who proposes a 3rd century BC date.

The former opinion is concurred by the Oxford Classical Dictionary, in which Professor Olivier Masson writes: "Yet in contrast with earlier views which made of it {i.e. Macedonian} an Aeolic dialect (O.Hoffmann compared Thessalian) we must by now think of a link with North-West Greek (Locrian, Aetolian, Phocidian, Epirote). This view is supported by the recent discovery at Pella of a curse tablet (4th cent. BC) which may well be the first 'Macedonian' text attested (provisional publication by E.Voutyras; cf. the Bulletin Epigraphique in Rev. Et. Grec. 1994, no.413); the text includes an adverb "opoka" which is not Thessalian." (OCD, 1996, pp 905, 906).

Of the same opinion is James L. O'Neil's (of the University of Sydney) presentation at the 2005 Conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies, entitled "Doric Forms in Macedonian Inscriptions" (abstract):
"A fourthβcentury BC curse tablet from Pella shows word forms which are clearly Doric, but a different form of Doric from any of the west Greek dialects of areas adjoining Macedon. Three other, very brief, fourth century inscriptions are also indubitably Doric. These show that a Doric dialect was spoken in Macedon, as we would expect from the West Greek forms of Greek names found in Macedon. And yet later Macedonian inscriptions are in Koine avoiding both Doric forms and the Macedonian voicing of consonants. The native Macedonian dialect had become unsuitable for written documents."

 

 

In English the text of Pella katasemos

 

On Thetima and Dionysophon the ritual wedding and the marriage I bind by a written spell, as well as (the marriage) of all other women (to him), both widows and maidens, but above all of Thetima; and I entrust (this spell) to Macron and to the daimones. And were I ever to unfold and read these words again after digging (the tablet) up, only then should Dionysophon marry, not before; may he indeed not take another beside myself, but let me alone grow old by the side of Dionysophon and no one else. I implore you: have pity for [Phila (?)], dear daimones, [for I am indeed bereft (?)] of all my dear ones and abandoned. But please keep this (piece of writing) for my sake so that these events do not happen and wretched Thetima perishes miserably [---] but let me become happy and blessed

 

source:
1- Hellenic Dialectology Journal in 1993
2- C. Brixhe, A. Panayotou, Le Mac�donien in: Langues indo-europ�ennes, ed. Bader, Paris, 1994, 205�220.
3-http://bibleocean.com/OmniDefinition/Pella_katadesmos

4-Hatzidakis,The language of the ancient Macedonians