Talk:Ancient Macedonian language/Archive 1

Watch

I will be on watch against both Slavic Republic of Macedonia/FYROM nationalists and Greek nationalists who attempt to vandalize or slant this article to conform with their agendas. Decius 08:13, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Greek pan-Hellenists should realize that they are not presenting a good image of themselves when they constantly try to cover-up all the evidence that points to the ancient Macedonian language as being more different than just "a Greek dialect"; and FYROM propagandists should realize that nobody is buying their "autochthonic Slav" fantasy, which has absolutely no evidence in support of it. Decius 10:00, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I do not consider myself to be a shitfaced conceited fool, but I would prefer to see the following statement backed: From classical references, it is apparent that the Greeks viewed Macedonians as a rather separate ethnos, and recognized a marked difference between Macedonian and Greek (all dialects). This has been verified by modern linguists, who have identified a number of differences, including differences at the level of Indo-European sound-change. "From classical references..." and "This has been verified by modern linguists" isn't really convincing with any actual reference. BTW in what sense can one speak about the difference between Macedonian and Greek, as AFAIK there was no one Greek language or one Greek city state or country? User:212.53.118.141

Every thing in the article (right now as of my writing this) is backed by up references and consensus scholarly views, so don't worry about me pushing personal Point of Views. These references will be provided soon. As for your last question, Macedonian is known to have been more different than any Greek dialect, and I will get you a reference for that as well. Note that the article says Macedonian was very different compared to all Greek dialects, so in no way was there any suggestion that there was ever "one Greek language", so I don't know what you were looking at. As for "one Greek nation" or not, that is not a factor, and we are discussing language. Decius 10:48, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

For now, look at these links, which are representative of the scholarly consensus that ancient Macedonian was a separate language: [1]; [2]; [3]. The real references soon. Also consider that User:Dbachmann who also contributed to the article is a linguist who also has knowledge in these fields and would have spotted personal point of views. As you can see compared to what is said in the first link (which points out that ancient Macedonian may have been a Thracian not Hellenic language), this Wikipedia article is conservative, in that I presented the ancient Macedonian language as being more closely related to the Greek languages than the Thracian (because I consider that more probable, and this seems to be the consensus). The second link is The Linguist List sponsored by Michigan State University and Wayne State University, which also classifies ancient Macedonian as an extinct language, not dialect. See this link which explains who maintains The Linguist List [4]. The fact is the ancient Macedonian language was a separate Indo-European language (now extinct). This fact is being presented in a Free Encyclopedia. If certain individuals want to take advantage of this fact for their own political motives, that's a whole other problem. Decius 05:09, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In fact, the one Point Of View that seems to have crept into the article is my belief that Macedonian can be classified as a separate Hellenic language (by this I mean more different than any Greek dialect, so it cannot be considered Greek, but can be considered closely related to Greek); in fact, many linguistic references do not class Macedonian as a Hellenic language, but classify it as a separate group, not included in Hellenic. I may have to remove this POV of mine from the article, then? Decius 06:00, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Macedonian and Phrygian

Mention of a possible relation to the Phrygian language can be added, though I personally don't see a close connection. I also find it suspicious that every other mysterious language in the general area has somehow been connected to Phrygian (i.e., Eteocretan, Thracian, Dacian, etc. etc.). Though since Phrygian seems to have been somewhat close to Greek, that can also extend to Macedonian. There were probably many things in common between Macedonian, Dacian, Thracian, Greek, and Phrygian. Decius 09:33, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

that's right, the less is known about a language, the wilder the speculations that are forwarded. The languages you list, however, do seem to have influenced each other on more than a superficial level, a phenomenon that is labelled balkanization since the Balkans are notorious as a historical linguist's nightmare. Armenian, btw, presents itself to me as layer upon layer upon layer of both Hellenic and Iranic influence, so that it is impossible to separate these from "Armenian proper". dab (ᛏ) 12:10, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that most of the similarities among those above languages mentioned are explained by balkanization (going back many centuries). I don't know much about Armenian to comment on it (though I have seen a table showing its sound-changes from PIE, which do not match Dacian or Thracian, so the old idea that Thracian had some close relation to Armenian cannot really be maintained---here I'm speaking about accepted Dacian or Thracian sound-changes already noted). Decius 12:33, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

ok, so maybe no Armenian. I remember there were lots of features unique to Greek and Armenian (including the gunaik- steml, I think?), but this may all be later contact. Armenian certainly belongs to the "Balkans" group of Indo-European (in spite of not being spoken in the Balkans...), but I am not in a position to prove or disprove any close relationship to Greek or Macedonian in particular. dab (ᛏ) 13:21, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

preserved intervocalic s

ok, I'm getting interested in this. What is the evidence of preserved intervocalic s? If there is a good example of that, the Hellenic hypothesis is out of the window, loss of s is really the earliest thing that happened to the Proto-Greeks. Anything yet earlier would just be late PIE. dab (ᛏ) 18:15, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My reference for that 's' sound is that link that is marked as number 1 on this page, a site which is reliable, but occasionally has errors---though I've never caught a gross error on that website. Decius 19:14, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've been trying to track down a fuller glossary of Macedonian words, and I know of some beyond those in the Geo glossary---the examples might not be on the net. Decius 19:16, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There are lots of Macedonian words not mentioned in that glossary, including sarissa (a Macedonian pike), kebale (head), ade (sky), pellas (stone), et cetera. Decius 19:25, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I know the roots (because they were cited in sources) for all of these except sarissa. Decius 19:26, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The error I've caught on this site was a claim that the Dacians were "uncivilized" prior to Hellenic contact, though archaeology does not make that clear. But that's not a linguistic error. Decius 19:54, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But for instance, its list of Dacian initial consonant sound-changes from PIE are all correct (I've seen other references affirm them, and Romanian substratum words affirm them also), so it is a reasonably well-researched site. Decius 19:57, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The site has also shown itself to be often critical---for instance, when discussing the Venetic language, the site doesn't mention the nationalist Slovenian claim that Venetic had "similarities to Slavic", which claims have been circulating in Slovenia and Croatia for decades, but they are rightfully not given credit in that site. So the site doesn't list just any crackpot theory. Decius 20:35, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also, when discussing Illyrian, no claim of a relation to Albanian is made (as it shouldn't be), and instead the site does not support the Illyrian-Albanian theory, which also shows judgment. Decius 20:37, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So, I assume a qualified linguist or linguists are the source of the Macedonian 's' sound being preserved. They just have to be tracked down in other references. Decius 20:39, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Here is the home page of the short glossary: [[5]. Not as sound as I would like it, but not that bad. Decius 20:50, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The other sound-change (voiced) is well-represented, and here is another one in addition to the many examples already cited here Talk:Macedon. Macedonian 'kombous' (=the molar teeth) from PIE *gembh, while ancient Greek has 'gomphos' (=peg, tooth). And notice also Macedonian initial k instead of Greek initial g. Decius 21:52, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There's no voiced or unvoiced factor here in this next example, but compare this: Macedonian darullos (=oak), Ancient Greek drus (=oak), both from PIE *deru. Decius 23:00, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If these were two modern languages we were talking about, there wouldn't be a linguist on earth who would dispute that we are dealing with two separate languages, though they are related. Ancient Macedonian and Ancient Greek (+ dialects) were certainly more different from each other than Bulgarian is from Serbian (though these are related also). Decius 21:58, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we should all review the definition of dialect and language. Decius 21:59, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It seems some people want to erase all mention of Ancient Macedonian as a separate language from Wikipedia.Decius 23:04, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

nobody is suggesting that. we want balanced reporting. The comparison with the classification of modern languages is flawed, however, since modern languages, unlike Macedonian, tend to be actually known. dab (ᛏ) 06:50, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

ok ok, we have long ago realized that it's about

(a) is there a Graeco-Macedonian branch, or are both Greek and Macedonian simply members of a larger "Balkanic" areal group?

(b) assuming Graeco-Macedonian, should that branch be renamed "Hellenic" to suit the Greek patriots?

but do we or do we not have an example of preserverd inter-vocalic s now? dab (ᛏ) 08:29, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I still haven't found an example yet. It's possible, as you noted, that the existence of that feature in ancient Macedonian has been challenged or abandoned. Decius 08:45, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

yeah, well, I haven't even found any challenging or abandoning. I mean, there must be some word the discussion is based on, otherwise we're just in the air. I suppose there is no good example, since presence or absence of s would really be the striking argument against or for Graeco-Macedonian. dab (ᛏ) 09:33, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Name

I have seen the language as Old Macedonian several times, so may be the name should be added in brackets. VMORO 20:41, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)~

Alright. Decius 20:51, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Old Macedonian is also sometimes applied to Old Macedonian Slavic, according to some websites, so I'd rather not mention that term up front. Decius 21:43, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Tracking information

Okay, the Geocities version that I linked earlier (link 1 above) is a transcript of this site: [6], which is from this home page: [7]. When you click on link six, click on the icon 'Balkan & Armenian', then click on ancient Macedon on the map, then that page will come up, describing the ancient Macedonian language. Who maintains the site, and its principles, are explained here: [8]. The home page is The Indo-European Database. The information about the 's' sound-change (rather, the preservation of a sound) has to be tracked and found in other references---and I'm sure it will be found. Now, whether other linguists challenge this sound-change, I don't know. If they do, someone should provide a counter-reference. Decius 00:35, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I added the link. I'm sorry, but that's not quite good enough. You would never allow a pro-Greek statement to stay on the same grounds (found on a web page without references). I have here Mallory's and Adam's "Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture", and while they give the voiced-aspirates, they don't mention s. I am sure that if there was anything like clear evidence of s, it would be flung around all the time as a very strong argument.

I think we need to consider how to organize the information. At present, it is spread ofer this article, Macedon and the antiquity section of Macedonians. Especially the latter, which was written before any of the other two articles existed, could be redistributed. dab (ᛏ) 05:34, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree it's not good enough indefinitely, but for now it is. If the pan-Hellenists had support from the Indo-European Database, I would present such info in the text. I do need to find the source, though. Worst case scenario, if this 's' sound-change proves to be a disproven idea, then this sound-feature will simply be deleted. It will lessen the case to a degree, but there is still a lot of evidence and major support from linguistic references with or without the 's' factor. Especially when you consider that nowadays even small differences are seized upon to create languages, that in fact should be dialects (Macedonian Slav, Sicilian); Ancient Macedonian and Ancient Greek were more different than Macedonian Slav and Bulgarian; most references that I have seen (no exaggeration) do lean towards the separate language view. Decius 05:42, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Alright, until further verified, 's' factor will be left out. Decius 05:50, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

sure, I meant, it's not good enough for us to say "intervocalic s was preserved" in the article. Of course there is still strong evidence for Mac. as an independent dialect without that. I agree that TIED has no nationalist bias, but it's also a long shot from being an academic resource. It has a status slightly higher than your average geocities homepage. dab (ᛏ) 05:52, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Re: Edit comment: Yeah I know, the word I wanted to underscore was extinct language, not the extinct part. Decius 06:47, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

yes, well, we have established that both views are held now, so I don't see the point of collecting evidence for that on the Internet. What we want now is a more detailed history of research, with names of notable scholars who held either view. dab (ᛏ) 06:53, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Is this the book where Pokorny classifies Macedonian with the Phrygian language? : Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. If so, it should be put as a reference. Decius 06:51, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

yes. dab (ᛏ) 06:53, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

but note that "classifies with" simply means that he lumps them together in the index. He doesn't argue the point, and just does that for convenience's sake. It's not a positive statement, he just chalks them up unter "various". dab (ᛏ) 05:58, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Paleo-Balkan essay written by TIED members (that I gave as a link in the article) suggests that the ancient Mac. language became extinct in BC times, and didn't survive into ad---so this is another point that has to be researched more. Decius 08:20, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

so how do they explain the glosses Hesychius collected after 400 AD? There must have been at least some remnants dab (ᛏ) 08:26, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yup. So then that proves that at least elements of the language survived as late as Hesychius. Okay, I'll erase 'perhaps'. Decius 08:30, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

tone

The generally sensible tone of the article (with the possible exception of considering it clear that the ancient Macedonians were not considered Greek) is badly counteracted by the swearing in Dacius' comments ("shitfaced", "demented" etc.). Retract.

Greek cognates

Bogdan, Macedonian kombous does have a cognate in ancient Greek: 'gomphos' (tooth, peg, bolt), known to be from PIE *gembh. Decius 22:15, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There is also gomphios which even means 'a molar tooth', also from *gembh. Decius 22:17, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

As I have said in the Macedon talk page, there is not enough data to classify with accuracy what macedonian language was -Greek dialect of closely related to Greek.I disagree that most linguists consider macedonian as separate language and in the following days I will present a catalog of linguists. According to this, it's againsts the NPOV policy of wikipedia to write that the upper classes adopted greek language, how do you claim this? We should present all theories not showing which one we like or not.For example to speculate that macedonian are related to phrygian is extreme from linguistic point of view,since we do not have enough data. Claiming that macedonian surely were not a greek dialect cause of the differences and ingoring the fact that the vast majority of macedonian words was of greek origin is also extreme. The supporters of that theory fail to explain why there is not even a single one incription foung in macedonia in this mystirious language and why all that archaeologists have found are Greek ones. For example inscriptions in Illyrian and Thracian exist,where are those of this separate language?

And how do you explain the fact that if macedonians where a separate nation and had a different language and culture why the archaeologists haven't found something different in the area of macedonia but only findings of greek culture?Odysseas

Something else, using the term Greek to describe which language extinted the macedonian dialect or language (as I have said we can't be 100% certain what it was) is false. Since the Attic dialect was considered to be the most advanced at that time and since medieval and modern Greek dialects (apart the Tsakonian dialect in central Pelopponese which comes from Doric)came from her the correct is Attic dialect not Greek.Odysseas

There are almost no inscriptions in other Paleo-Balkan languages either. There is a very short undeciphered inscription believed to be in Thracian, a 20-letter inscription ("Decebalus per Scorillo") believed to be in Dacian, none in Illyrian (AFAIK, if you know about an actual inscription in Illyrian, please contribute at Illyrian languages), none in Paionian. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 08:02, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am aware of illyrian and thracian inscriptions written in greek alphabet but i can't remember them by hard, i must look in the univercity libraryOdysseas

Category

I have placed ancient macedonian language in Hellenic languages and dialects (without removing the old one)since this theory is also supported by univercities like Oxford, Cambridge and SorbonneOdysseas

Most words allegedly Greek

I took a day off yesterday from Wikipedia, but I see that yesterday was a busy day. Okay Odysseus, first of all let me clear this issue: I'm not an "expert" on the ancient Macedonian language-material (I haven't surveyed all the known Macedonian words), and while it is correct (if I remember right) that most Macedonian names were Greek, the claim that "most known Macedonian words are Greek" sounds false, so please back up that claim with a reference (preferably one we can read on the internet). I'm not an expert myself on the language, but I have surveyed the topic enough to know what most of the experts believe. Your other arguments can all be countered easily: there are no Macedonian inscriptions in this separate language, and there are also no Illyrian inscriptions in the Illyrian language; there are no Paionian inscriptions in their language; there are only a few fragmentary Thracian inscriptions; the longest Dacian inscription is a short phrase. I saw you talking about Macedonian pottery earlier, and how you say that they are all in the Greek style: even if that is true, it can be explained by this: I read in one of my books (don't remember which one, I'll try to track it down) that Macedonians traded their raw products (lumber, honey, crops, etc.) in return for finished products from the Greeks (pottery, fine clothes, etc.), so that would explain why most Macedonian pottery & artifacts (etc.) appear to be Greek. It's hard to use material culture as evidence of language. Decius 20:01, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And I agree with you that the supposed connection of Macedonian to Phrygian is unlikely: as you can see from this Talk Page, I do not believe that Macedonian was closer to Phrygian than to Greek: but User:Dbachmann wanted to present the Phrygian-theory because it was supported by one of the most famous linguists of the 20th century:Julius Pokorny. There is at least one word in common between Macedonian and Phrygian: Bedi meant "water" in both Macedonian and Phrygian. But I doubt that Macedonian was very close to Phrygian. Decius 20:11, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Here in the U.S. (if not also in Europe and elsewhere), most dictionaries, encyclopedias, books, (etc.) support the separate language theory, and most also take it as a matter of fact that Macedonians were Hellenized, not Hellenic themselves. I have read lots of these books over the years, but they are at the library. From the books that I own, here is an example, from The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 13, the letter M: in the "Macedonia" article, we find these sentences:

"A savage and barbaric European people called the Thracians moved into the region about 2000 B.C. After 1100 B.C., the Macedonians came under the cultural influence of the Greeks."

Now, my Encyclopedia is from 1967, but the same view I've seen in current Encycylopedias at the local libraries. Also note here that Greek influence on Macedonians goes back far into the past, long before King Philip, and we should expect this great Greek influence: because from the pattern of their conquests, it seems that the Macedonians expanded from the south (mainland Greece, Thessaly) into Macedonia: Thucydides and others make it clear that they conquered the land that would come to be called Macedonia and expelled the previous inhabitants (Thracians and Paionians, etc.): they conquered Emathia, Eordea, Mygdonia, Crestonia, etc., all of which were previously inhabited by other peoples. So the earlier Macedonian territory was basically in mainland Greece, and the Greek and Macedonian cultures mixed: so now it is difficult to tell whether Macedonian was a language or dialect, but most say it was a language. Decius 21:03, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As I have said you don't like the idea that ancient macedonian language was of greek origin.I don't understand why you erased my comments.I can also present many books specially from Oxford Univercity which are saying the opposite from you. The fact that you have limited knowledge doesn't gives you the right to deside what must be edited and what not, my friend. You also don't seem to beleive that the vast majority of macedonian words is greek, right? Then I challenge you to prove me the opposite.When I will edit here all macedonian words (names of months,names of fests,names of cities,common names) i wonder what are you going to say. 212.205.226.109

To you I say: bring everything you have in your arsenal, and we will see. Decius 21:45, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Challenge accepted...

Try to organize it as neatly as possible. Decius 22:29, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also remember that original research cannot be used in an article, so all examples should be from linguistic sources. Decius 07:01, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My friend, what are you talking about? You wrote: So the earlier Macedonian territory was basically in mainland Greece, and the Greek and Macedonian cultures mixed You claim that macedonians and greeks where separate nations right? And that greeks influenced macedonians right? Then where on earth are the remnants of their culture?Cause all what is found in the area is Greek. Please do not repeat what you said above in front of an archaeologist...Odysseas

You also wrote: I saw you talking about Macedonian pottery earlier, and how you say that they are all in the Greek style: even if that is true, it can be explained by this: I read in one of my books (don't remember which one, I'll try to track it down) that Macedonians traded their raw products (lumber, honey, crops, etc.) in return for finished products from the Greeks (pottery, fine clothes, etc.), so that would explain why most Macedonian pottery & artifacts (etc.) appear to be Greek. It's hard to use material culture as evidence of language.

Are you questioning the archaeological findings in Macedonia??!! Cause nor the FYROM nationalists haven't. Just go to your nearest univercity library and open whichever archaeological book you like. The explanation that macedonians traded honey,lumber,etc for pottery and that's why all pottery is greek is a joke or you are serious when you are claiming this?Odysseas

Most words Greek

Macedonian Words Part One-Personal names

Agathon Avraeas Parmenion Aeropos Alexandros Antipatros Peukestas Alketas Orontis Perdikkas Alkimachos Amyntas Andromenis Antiochos Seleykos Ptolemaeos Amphoteros Egelochos Anaxippos Antikles Antipatros Admitos Etharos Gaeteas Kratennas Stadmaeas Antigonos Antigenis Heraklides Iolaos Arpalos Arravvaeos Arridaeos Filippos Aesaeas Epimenis Aryvvas Archelaos Asandros Eynikos Attalos Kleopatra Vereniki Valakros Nikanor Derdas Sirras Eyridiki Evrylochos Eyfraeos Ippostratos Eromenis Efaestion Karanos Karsis Nikolaos Kassandros Kevalinos Kleitos Dropides Koinos Polemokaratis Lagos Laniki Leonnatos Lysimachos Neoptolemos Meleagros Menelaos Menidas Metron Orestis Filotas Paysanias Peithon Kratevas Pedikkas Peroidas Menestheas Peykolaos Polemon Polydamas Polyperchon Simmias Tlepolemos

Those names are macedonian names which are present in Arrian,Plutarch,Herodotos,Thucidides,etc, next week when the univercity library opens I will edit more personal names from incriptions,names of cities and common words.Odysseas

Alright, good luck. But I want you to realize that linguists & scholars must have already reviewed all of this, yet the predominant view in the West is still that they probably spoke a separate language. I'm just warning you ahead of time, so you won't be accusing me of ignoring your citations---I'm not ignoring what you say, just don't expect that you will single-handedly prove that Macedonians spoke a Greek dialect. It will take new archaeological findings (texts) to prove that. Decius 20:17, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What I say is that it's not logical according to what macedonian words are saved to us for them not to speak a greek dialect or at least a greek dialect with foreign elements.As I so in the macedon talk page you are speculating the meaning of some words Thucidides wrote.You shouldn't trust 100% ancient sources, since you own the History of Thucidides find the passage where he says that Aetolians were cannibals and barbarians, or what Aristofanis wrote, that Thebaeans were pigs, speaking a barbaric language that only an ox understands. You try to prove that ancient sources considered Macedonians as barbarians speculating on the meaning, but most and when I say most,I mean most ancient sources DO consider them Greeks (Arrian,Plutarch,Strabo,etc) Odysseas

I'm not sure if Thucydides ever wrote that the Aetolians were cannibals: the passage that I know says this:

"...the Eurytanians, who are the largest tribe in Aetolia, and speak, as is said, a language difficult to understand, and eat their flesh raw." (Thucydides, Pelop. 3.94)

He actually says that one of the Aetolian tribes eat raw meat, not human beings. I will check the Greek text, which I do not own but is available on the net. In the beginning of his History, Thucydides also says that the Aetolians and Acarnanians are rather barbaric and that they still live in "the old fashion", and that they always carry a weapon on their person. Thucydides was most likely speaking the truth, and he wasn't just slandering people. Decius 00:23, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In Greek, it says "agnostotatoi de glossan, kai omophagoi eisin", "whose tongue is difficult to know, and who are eaters of raw meat"---omophagoi pertains to one who eats raw meat, not human beings. Omos meant 'raw, unprepared', while phagein meant 'to eat'. (Side note, off topic: Perseus ed. has a+gnostotatoi, while Thomas Harrison quotes it as a+gnostatoi) Decius 00:35, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also, I'm not sure if Thucydides ever says the Aetolians were "barbarians": read Thucydides, Pelop. book I, section 5--6 (the first book of his History). He doesn't even call them "barbaric", but he says that they always wear arms like barbarians, and they still live in the old fashion: so, he is implying a barbaric way of life, but I don't think he actually uses the word barbaros to describe the Aetolians. Decius 01:23, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

the question is, when are these names attested. Most of the people in Western Europe have Hebrew names, but that doesn't make them Hebrews. If these names are Greek rather than Macedonian, they simply say nothing about the Macedonian language. It would be rather like saying that ancient Macedonian was Slavic, just look at the many Slavic names found in the area today... dab (ᛏ) 12:16, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So according to you all europeans have hebrew names? right? According to your logic there no greek,polish,bulgarian,french,german,etc names exist,right?....By the way are modern europeans also writing only in hebrew?Do their fests have hebrew names?....

For your information,the regions of Macedon before Philip's expantion were solely in what is today greek macedonia.Odysseas

You are right. I'm unable to tell the difference between 'all' and 'most'. Oh, wait, when I say names, of course I mean festivals. The level of this discussion is really too low to be enjoyable. I wish you'd just cite authorities, such as Greek professors, who all seem to jump on the Greek bandwagon, so we can just include their opinions and be done with it. dab (ᛏ) 15:55, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Macedonian language and it's connection with Greek

We will begin presenting some ancient sources which declare their connection with Greeks.First we have the persian inscription of 513 BC which talks about the nations which are under thei control, it speaks about Yauna Takabara in Balkan area meaning Greeks with big hats.The only nation in the balkans that had a distinguish hat where the macedonians, whith the καυσία(kafsia) hut (Walser, Die Volkerschaften auf den Reliefs von Persepolis-1966 47 E) Herodotus clearly declares that the dorians where created by the unification of the madeonians with other nations. Hellanius presents the father of macedonians, Macedon, is son of Aiolos meaning that he considered them an aeolian greek tride (Hellanius,FGrHist 4,74).Arrian (Arrian,Alexandrou Anavassis 2. 14. 4.) writes that Alexander on his letter to Dareius wrote Your ancestors came in Macedonia and rest of Greece and assaulted us.After i became leader of the Greeks i came to asia to willing to punish Persians.The phrase macedonia and rest of greece is also present in the treaty between Annibas and Philip V (Polybius, 7. 8. 9.).Also in Titus Livius (31. 29. 15.) where he places macedonians among aetolians as greek tribes.Also in Polybius (5. 103. 9.) where Agelaus from Nafpactos wishes to end wars among Aetolians and Macedonians intergreek wars as he names them.The Efessians from an inscription in Efessos (SIG 867, 38-40) ...in the macedonians and the rest Greek tribes...

Let's continue whith linguistics...

Evidences:

In a scene of the comedy Macedonians written by the poet Strattis of arount 400BC an athenaean asks a macedonian: η σφυραινα δ'έστι τις;(=what is sfyraena?-kind of fish-) and the macedonian replay: κέστραν ύμμες ωττικοί κικλήσκετε (=that thing that you Athenaeans call kestra-other kind of fish-).It needs to be pointed that Athenaean comedians presented barbarians to speak bad Greek mived with foreign words but other greek tribes to speak in their own dialects.The macedonian in the passage is speaking greek with dialecting elements ,ύμμες instead of υμείς ωττικοί instead αττικοί κικλήσκετε instead κεκλησκετε.

Alexander speaking to the 30000 persians he took to his army says to them: learn the greek language and macedonian army doctrines (Plutarch Life of Alexander 47, 3).From this passage we understand that macedonian soldiers 'spoke greek it's absurd for Alexander to force persians to learn greek if the macedonians weren't speaking greek since they would fight together.

Words: Macedonian words (apart from pesonal and city names)saved to us directly are 112.From them 63 come from ancient dictionaries and 47 from ancient sources.Those from ancient sources are all greek,those from dictionaries 50 are greek and 13 of unknown indoeuropean origin.

Personal names: Apart from the names Μακεδονια,Μακεδονες of clear greek origin from μακος(=length), we have the names of some macedonian tribes, hundreds of personal names(I've already given you),dozens of cities(also I've already given you), rivers,names of gods(Ploutonas,Persephoni,Dionysos,Estia,Iraklis,asklipios,Okeanos,etc) 6 names of fests(Peritia,Telessias, Xanthika,Arantides,etc)and 12 of months(Avdnaeos,Ippalkmos,Xandikos,Peritios,Yperaeretis,etc). For the names of the macedonian tribes Elimiotae,Lyngestae and Orestae.The first is clearly of greek origin,the second has the prefix -st- which is present in Illyrian names and the third is also greek not only in the root Ores-,but also in the ending -tae.As I proved to you before the nanes of cities and rivers (Aliakmon,etc) are greek, could you explain to me how it is possible for a non greek nation to give greek names to cities,rivers and mountains?Or how it is possible to have greek names for gods,fests and months?I'm really curious.From the personal names the 95% has greek origin and the 5% of illyrian and thracian.All the names of months and fests are greek.There is no reply for these facts from those who support that macedonians where not a greek tribe.

Connection of macedonian and other greek dialects

1)Macedonian and western Greek dialects

-dd- instead of -zz-

example the common names between these dialects Drykalos and Pefkestas

2)macedonian and aeolic

-nn- instaed of -sn- or -n- example the common word between these dialects Kranna(fountain) doric krana,attic krene the common name Xennias

3)macedonian and thessalic

-ω- instaed of -ου-

4)macedonian and arcadic

-in- instead of -en-

example the common word between these dialects zerethron(=stair)

Examples of macedonian words from ancient sources and dictionaries You can find the full catalog of macedonian words in this book:Hoffman, O. Pauly-Wissova, Real-Encyclopadie. d.kl. Altertumswiss Makedonia col.681-97

dramis(=type of bread) comes from the IE root *dera-/*deru-, dromis in achaic, dara-tos(<*dra-tos) in thessalian. daryllos instead of doryllos in achaic and in attic drys comes from *dru- means oak kammarae instead of kommorae meanig a kind of fish kynopes common word with doric akronoi common word with doric doa common word with doric akontion akontio in modern greek aspilos same word in modern greek Common creation of personal names and words with doric using endings -ator(Nikator),-asion(korasion) Common convesion of -η- into -α- with doric doric Sparta attic Sparte, macedonian kefala attic kefale Common grammar phenomenon with doric maced./doric Pafsania attic Pafsaniou,macedonian Perdikka attic Perdikkou Common creation of words ending in -an intead of -aon maced./doric peligan attic peligaon Common conversion of -os into -as with doric doric emerodromas attic emerodramas,macedonian voukefalas attic voukefalos (βους + κεφαλη =ox + head) it's Alexander's horse meaning the one with the head like an ox

Want more? Odysseas

Yes, I do want more, because everytime I turn around to look up your quotes, I find something else that calls them into question: in Plutarch's Life of Alexander, I found some interesting paragraphs, which I will quote. I also found more information about the way Greek dramatists portrayed non-Greek speakers as speaking vernacular or broken Greek. I will give the quotes in a few minutes. Decius 23:48, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

More from Plutarch

From Plutarch's Life of Alexander (section 51):

"Alexander, in the meantime turning about to Xenodochus, the Pardian, and Artemius, the Colophonian, asked them if they were not of opinion that the Greeks, in comparison with the Macedonians, behaved themselves like so many demigods among wild beasts.

But Clitus for all this would not give over, desiring Alexander to speak out if he had anything more to say, or else why did he invite men who were freeborn and accustomed to speak their minds openly without restraint to sup with him. He had better live and converse with barbarians and slaves who would not scruple to bow the knee to his Persian girdle and his white tunic.

Which words so provoked Alexander that, not able to suppress his anger any longer, he threw one of the apples that lay upon the table at him, and hit him, and then looked about for his sword. But Aristophanes, one of his life-guard, had hid that out of the way, and others came about him and besought him, but in vain; for breaking from them, he called out aloud to his guards in the Macedonian language, which was a certain sign of some great disturbance in him, and commanded a trumpeter to sound, giving him a blow with his clenched fist for not instantly obeying him..."

These are three consecutive paragraphs from Plutarch, where we see Alexander the Great himself distinguishing between Macedonians and Greeks. We also see that Alexander was bilingual (if not more): he spoke Greek usually, but when in an emotional state he spoke the Macedonian language: my English translation uses the word language, and I suppose the Greek text would use "glossan" or something like that, but I don't own the Greek text, nor have I found it on the net. So, obviously there was a Macedonian tongue that was different at least from Attic Greek---there is no conclusive evidence that this Macedonian language was a Greek dialect, and like I keep repeating, Wikipedia has to give more support to the predominant view that the ancient Macedonians spoke a separate language from Greek.Decius 00:34, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

We also see from this quote that at least some of his soldiers that were of Macedonian stock also understood the Macedonian language. My interpretation of this (which of course others will disagree with) is that he and most of his Macedonian troops were bilingual, that as a matter of course they spoke Greek (Attic, one would suppose), primarily because in Alexander's army there were many non-Macedonians (Greeks, Agrianes, etc.) and Greek was the standard language, in order to make the army a unit. So I'm not surprised that he would appoint teachers to teach those young Persians Greek, rather than Macedonian. Greek was also the official language of his Empire, if I remember right. This was also out of practicality and diplomacy: he wasn't planning on imposing Macedonian, a minority language with less prestige, less international usage (back then), and much less literature, on his entire Empire. Decius 01:06, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't see how you can claim that Plutarch definitely supports the idea that Macedonians spoke a Greek dialect. Plutarch, as most of these sources, is once again inconclusive, and from what I've quoted, Plutarch is just as damaging as he is helpful to the view you represent: and in fact he is more damaging than helpful. Decius 01:16, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My English translation is by John Dryden, I think (it's entitled "The Dryden translation"). I've reviewed another English translation by Thomas North (whoever he was), and he is more clear on an important sentence, where Alexander says:

"Do not the Greeks appear to you to walk among Macedonians like demi-gods among wild beasts?"

If this translation is accurate, it further shows not only that Alexander distinguished between Macedonians and Greeks, but it shows that Greeks had a chauvinistic attitude towards Macedonians, according to Alexander the Great himself, as reported by Plutarch. Decius 02:22, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The phrase "Macedonian language" in Plutarch is of course on its own inconclusive: I suppose the Greek phrase could also be translated as "the Macedonian tongue" or "the Macedonian speech". But I assume that the word dialektos (which could mean simply 'dialect') was not used in the original, or else the translators would surely have leaped at the opportunity to translate it as "the Macedonian dialect". Decius 02:31, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Here is an interesting essay by Thomas Harrison that deals with the problems concerning the ancient Greek view towards other languages & other dialects, and the problem of evaluating what the ancient authors wrote concerning language and dialect: [9] (despite the title, it deals with the issue in general, not just in Herodotus, though it focuses on him). The Tragedians and Comedians are particularly unreliable, because they were very much concerned with entertaining a Greek audience, rather than with accuracy. Strattis' quote (Strattis was a Comedian) is not very reliable. It would be extremely more convincing if that quote was from Thucydides or another ancient historian. Decius 02:55, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

my English translation uses the word language, and I suppose the Greek text would use "glossan" or something like that You suppose wrong it uses the word makedonisti.The ending -isti is used in greek to describe either a dialect either a language f.e lakedemonisti,latinisti. As I said you speculate on the meaning of some ancient quotations.It's quit impressing the fact that you consider relyable only those that you think support your ideas and reject all the others Just before my edit you were a keen fan of linguistics,but after I presented what is left to us from macedonian words mysrtiriously,you stopped refering to them and turned into interpratation of ancient sources.Please don't make me search again for ancient sources to prove again the same think.

I also don't allow you to question my relyability as you did,cause i will start questioning yours.

You also forgot to comment my questions on the previous editOdysseas

I said myself that the phrase from Plutarch on its own is inconclusive: it is not 100% certain whether he meant 'language' or 'dialect'. Yet what I was pointing out is that contrary to what you say, Plutarch is not saying that Macedonian was a Greek dialect: no one can say exactly what he meant in that phrase. Decius 22:04, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Common words

A question of yours that I didn't address yet is the one about how it is possible for a non-Greek nation to have Greek names for its rivers, mountains, towns, et cetera. Before I address that, I'm going to discuss something that you probably won't like, but which is true: there are an enormous amount of words and names in ancient Greek that have not been traced to Proto-Indo-European roots, and that have not been explained conclusively within the context of Greek: such words are generally considered to be pre-Indo-European, in other words, that they entered the ancient Greek dialects long ago from autochthonic populations such as the Pelasgians, Leleges, and so on. Many of these words and names are common words and names, and they include some that you have mentioned as being in common to Greek and Macedonian, and include many more in addition to those: Okeanos (which you mentioned), Ge or Gaia, Thalassa, Nike, Basileus, Athos (mountain name), Larissa (a town in Thessaly, and another town in Aeolia), Corinth (a city in Peloponnesus), Athena (the goddess), Athenai (the city), Hera, and so many more which I will mention. Decius 22:52, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The problem here is this: in Latin, there are also many words of unknown non-Indo-European origin, and a number have been traced to Etruscan (a non-Indo-European, pre-Indo-European people). For comparison, let us say that Latin represents Greek and Etruscan represents Pelasgian. Now, consider that many of the same pre-Indo-European words that entered Latin (mostly from Etruscan) also entered the ancient and extinct Venetic language (an Indo-European language once spoken in northeastern Italy): these words also entered Venetic mostly from Etruscan. As Latin here can represent Greek, Venetic can represent Ancient Macedonian: Latin and Venetic were similar in some respects, but they were very separate languages. Venetic is known to have borrowed many words and some names from Latin and Etruscan: so you see what I am saying. Ancient Macedonian surely had many of the same unknown Pelasgian words and names that Greek had: Okeanos, Nike, etc. etc.; also, from an early period, Macedonian no doubt absorbed many Greek words, just as Venetic absorbed Latin words. Decius 22:52, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So when you are listing words and names in common between Macedonian and Greek, any person must take this factor into consideration: words/names such as Okeanos are Greek, but it is probably of Pelasgian origin. Also, Dionysos which you also mentioned has not been given a full Greek etymology (-nysos is still inconclusively explained) and Dionysus is generally considered to be of non-Greek origin: if not completely, then partly (Dionysos is usually considered to be from Thracian, and Dio- is a form generally considered to have been native to Greek and Thracian). Decius 22:57, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You can see what this does to your list: such pre-Indo-European and non-Greek words and names have to be set aside in a separate list. The words that are fully Greek in etymology must be the ones presented in your core-list-of-common-words if they are to have an impact. Decius 23:02, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And another thing: Greek names were found even among Thracians: Apollodorus and other ancients for example mention a Thracian King with the name Diomedes (see Mares of Diomedes), which has a full Greek etymology: Dio- is from Greek Dios ('of Zeus') from PIE *deiw-, while -medes is from Greek medesthai ('to think'), medesthen ('to contrive, plan'), medeis ('guardian', etc.), which are all from the Greek word medo, which is from PIE *med-; nevertheless, a Thracian had that name (see also Greek archi-medes, etc.). And many more examples, such as the Thracian name Diozenes, which is known to be the Thracian version of the Greek name Diogenes; and also the Thracian leader with the Greek name Euphemos mentioned in the Iliad, book II (Euphemos was the Thracian who lead the Thracian Cicones tribe against the Greeks, on the side of the Trojans). Decius 23:25, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

An example of names of unknown origin: the Macedonian name Agathon is also attested as a name that Greeks also had, the name being related to Greek Agathos (=good). The thing is, Greek agathos is of unknown origin, and is probably from Pelasgian, and the Macedonians, for example, might have also picked up the word along with the names from Pelasgian: anyway, to be precise, these kinds of words and names of unknown origin are much less conclusive, and they should be differentiated from the Indo-European Greek words. This whole common-name thing is not definite evidence, though it is interesting to make a list of exactly how many are in common with Greek, and how many are different. Decius 07:33, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Noy only i agree with what you have written about greek words of unknown origin, but i must tell you that according to a study the 40% of ancient greek vocabulary can not be explained using IE theory. You wrote about thracians that had greek names which is true,but you must be careful to see when they appear.They appear after the 4th century when greek influence became intence.On the contrary,macedonians have only greek names and in their greek form,following greek linguistic rules. Let me clear some things here, my intention when i wrote the above edit was not to persude you about my believes, nor to force anyone to change the article's form.When i first red it, it whas obvious to me that it was not equal to the theories that exist.My intention is to make clear that according to numerous linguists and historians,macedonians were a speaking a greek dialect or at least a form of greek.Anyway it's always pleasant to discuss about history,specially with someone who has the same quality and knowledge as you do. Have a nice day!Odysseas

You too Odysseus, and Peace to the Greeks and everybody else. I'm just doing this for the sake of science & history. It's been pleasant. Decius 08:57, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But I still have to verify that most Macedonian words are Greek, and I will still ruthlessly edit anything that is not representing actual facts or linguistic views. Decius 02:44, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Decius WAKE UP please

The thing is, Greek agathos is of unknown origin, and is probably from Pelasgian, and the Macedonians, for example, might have also picked up the word along with the names from Pelasgian: anyway, to be precise, these kinds of words and names of unknown origin are much less conclusive, and they should be differentiated from the Indo-European Greek words.

Decius what are you talking about? Let's get this clear, in ancient Greece there was NO Greek language, there were only dialects of Greek that were constructed by Indo-European Greek's admixture with the local proto-Greek BARBARIC Languages. That means that ALL Greek dialects have a variecty of distinct words that are NOT Indo-European Greek (but that doesn't mean that they're not part of the Greek language). This is how dialects are formed in any part of the world. One common root language (in this case Indo-European Greek) and elements of other FOREIGN languages. So it's normal to encounter different words and accents between dialects of one language, otherwise they'd be the same language. In the Attic dialect which is mixed with Pelasgian, the very word ATTICA is Pelasgian non-Indo-European Greek word! The thing is that ALL those words (including Attica) ARE now considered part of the Greek language, because the ancient GREEK language as we refer to it today is NOT the Indo-European Greek. In the case of "Agathos" for instance, it is biased and stupid to assume that it derives from Pelasgian and not from Greek, because it's a Greek world in definition, and structure and phonology! With your logic you could even prove that Doric is not Greek either, since many Greek words have common roots in other Indo-European languages. How would we know that they're Greek? And as for the list of Macedonian words that was mentioned in some link here, most of those words (like hetairos) that supposedly don't have any equivalence in other IE languages, it's because those words are 100% Greek, unlike some others that have similarities to Greek and other IE language. The word hetairos in particular is used very frequently in the Homeric language and it's probably of Ionic origin.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/morphindex?lookup=e(tai%5C=ros&display=Latin+transliteration

What you can't understand is that we KNOW that Macedonia was since Homeric times inhabited by various Barbarian peoples, including known ones such as Thracian and Illyrian tribes. It is only NATURAL that its dialect had elements from those barbaric peoples, it's the same in the REST OF GREECE. The difference that Macedon was a Mycenaean-style Kingdom and not a city-state, it's because it was in the border of Greece and the barbarian tribal world. Same goes for Epirus. There are no serious linguists that characterise Macedonian as a non-Greek dialect, this assumption is a huge exaggeration. Every Macedonian text known to us was written in Greek, in total ALL Classic and post-Classic references (including the ones of Demosthenes who supposedly prove that Macedonians were not Greek), actually verify that Macedon WAS viewed as Greek. Classic references include even historians like Thucydides and post-Classic ones include even chapters of the BIBLE. On the other hand all Macedonian literary texts were in Greek, and we even have archaeological evidence of a Greek dialect that different from all others. Then we have a pan-Hellenic conquest of the Macedonian Kingdom that had assumed HEGEMONY over Greeks and takes REVENGE against the Persian Empire's aggressions to Greece. Philip says it HIMSELF that he is the Hegemon of the Greeks, meaning a GREEK ruler over the GREEKS. That was the difference between hegemony and conquest. All the Hegemonies in the Greek world were the Athenian, Spartan, Theban and finally the Macedonian. Then we have some lexicon with supposedly Macedonian words, out of which most are purely Greek, some are slightly changed from Greek, and a very small percentage that is NON-IE, something which is common in ALL the rest of Greek dialects. Then we have the Ancient Macedonian Empire, that conquers the entire world, spreads Greek culture, adopts a NEW Greek dialect as its official language, and suddenly people stupidly claim that in that generation the fictional "Macedonian language" was lost... It's just plainly ludicrous and what's most ironic is that you consider yourself a neutral person (despite the fact that you have literally QUOTED lines of FYROM propagandists). Just open your eyes and realize that the only one who is against the scientific truth is YOURSELF.

Miskin

Agathos has no accepted Indo-European etymology. What I said is that it is a Greek word of unknown origin (fact), and probably from Pelasgian (theory). The English word garage is an English word, but it was borrowed from French. Decius 13:30, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I never said such words are "not part of the Greek language". Quote the line where I said that. Decius 13:37, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What I was saying is that when listing common words between Macedonian and Greek, the common Indo-European words are much more relevant to the issue (trying to prove that it's the same language) than the non-IE words. Because when you know the Indo-European root of a word, you can compare how it evolved from IE to Macedonian (language or dialect) and IE to Greek. Non-IE words are untraced, so they are not very useful for the purposes of showing that you are dealing with the same language. Decius 13:50, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There was an attempt by I forgot-which-linguist to derive Agathos from PIE *magh, 'to have power, be able', but his theory didn't gain any acceptance. The root is given as unknown by references (see Beekes' Ancient Greek Etymological Dictionary; American Heritage Dictionary, etc etc.). Decius 14:00, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As of 2005, Agathos is of unknown origin. If in the future it is traced to an IE root, proven to be of Greek origin from Proto-Indo-European, and the etymology is accepted by references, then the situation will change, and no one will be able to say "it is probably from Pelasgian". The same goes for the other cases. Till then, you will indeed see many linguists such as Beekes saying that Agathos is "probably of pre-Greek origin", as he says in his dictionary. Decius 14:07, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Let's compare Classic quotes

1. Herodotus

Afterwards he (Croesus) turned his thoughts to the alliance which he had been recommended to contract, and sought to ascertain by inquiry which was the most powerful of the Grecian states. His inquiries pointed out to him two states as pre-eminent above the rest. These were the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians, the former of Doric, the latter of Ionic blood. And indeed these two nations had held from very, early times the most distinguished place in Greece, the being a Pelasgic, the other a Hellenic people, and the one having never quitted its original seats, while the other had been excessively migratory; for during the reign of Deucalion, Phthiotis was the country in which the Hellenes dwelt, but under Dorus, the son of Hellen, they moved to the tract at the base of Ossa and Olympus, which is called Histiaeotis; forced to retire from that region by the Cadmeians, they settled, under the name of Macedonians, in the chain of Pindus. Hence they once more removed and came to Dryopis; and from Dryopis having entered the Peloponnese in this way, they became known as Dorians.

[Book I]

Amyntas, when he had thus besought his son, went out; and Alexander said to the Persians, "Look on these ladies as your own, dear strangers, all or any of them- only tell us your wishes. But now, as the evening wears, and I see you have all had wine enough, let them, if you please, retire, and when they have bathed they shall come back again." To this the Persians agreed, and Alexander, having got the women away, sent them off to the harem, and made ready in their room an equal number of beardless youths, whom he dressed in the garments of the women, and then, arming them with daggers, brought them in to the Persians, saying as he introduced them, "Methinks, dear Persians, that your entertainment has fallen short in nothing. We have set before you all that we had ourselves in store, and all that we could anywhere find to give you- and now, to crown the whole, we make over to you our sisters and our mothers, that you may perceive yourselves to be entirely honoured by us, even as you deserve to be- and also that you may take back word to the king who sent you here, that there was one man, a Greek, the satrap of Macedonia, by whom you were both feasted and lodged handsomely." So speaking, Alexander set by the side of each Persian one of those whom he had called Macedonian women, but who were in truth men. And these men, when the Persians began to be rude, despatched them with their daggers.

[Book V]

Now that the men of this family (Alexander I) are Greeks, sprung from Perdiccas, as they themselves affirm, is a thing which I can declare of my own knowledge, and which I will hereafter make plainly evident. That they are so has been already adjudged by those who manage the Pan-Hellenic contest at Olympia. For when Alexander wished to contend in the games, and had come to Olympia with no other view, the Greeks who were about to run against him would have excluded him from the contest- saying that Greeks only were allowed to contend, and not barbarians. But Alexander proved himself to be an Argive, and was distinctly adjudged a Greek; after which he entered the lists for the foot-race, and was drawn to run in the first pair. Thus was this matter settled.

[Book V]

At least these towns served as a pretext for the expedition, the real purpose of which was to subjugate as great a number as possible of the Grecian cities; and this became plain when the Thasians, who did not even lift a hand in their defence, were reduced by the sea force, while the land army added the Macedonians to the former slaves of the king. All the tribes on the hither side of Macedonia had been reduced previously. From Thasos the fleet stood across to the mainland, and sailed along shore to Acanthus, whence an attempt was made to double Mount Athos. But here a violent north wind sprang up, against which nothing could contend, and handled a large number of the ships with much rudeness, shattering them and driving them aground upon Athos.

[Book VI]

It were indeed a monstrous thing if, after conquering and enslaving the Sacae, the Indians, the Ethiopians, the Assyrians, and many other mighty nations, not for any wrong that they had done us, but only to increase our empire, we should then allow the Greeks, who have done us such wanton injury, to escape our vengeance. What is it that we fear in them?- not surely their numbers?- not the greatness of their wealth? We know the manner of their battle- we know how weak their power is; already have we subdued their children who dwell in our country, the Ionians, Aeolians, and Dorians. I myself have had experience of these men when I marched against them by the orders of thy father; and though I went as far as Macedonia, and came but a little short of reaching Athens itself, yet not a soul ventured to come out against me to battle.

[Book VII]

But, notwithstanding that they have so foolish a manner of warfare, yet these Greeks, when I led my army against them to the very borders of Macedonia, did not so much as think of offering me battle. (SS 3.) Who then will dare, O king! to meet thee in arms, when thou comest with all Asia's warriors at thy back, and with all her ships? For my part I do not believe the Greek people will be so foolhardy.

[Book VII]

Now these were the nations who composed the Grecian fleet. From the Peloponnese, the following- the Lacedaemonians with six, teen ships; the Corinthians with the same number as at Artemisium; the Sicyonians with fifteen; the Epidaurians with ten; the Troezenians with five; and the Hermionians with three. These were Dorians and Macedonians all of them (except those from Hermione), and had emigrated last from Erineus, Pindus, and Dryopis. The Hermionians were Dryopians, of the race which Hercules and the Malians drove out of the land now called Doris. Such were the Peloponnesian nations.

[Book VIII]

This Alexander was seventh in descent from Perdiccas, who got for himself the tyranny of Macedonia in the way that I will show. Three brothers of the lineage of Temenus came as banished men from Argos to Illyria, Gauanes and Aeropus and Perdiccas; and from Illyria they crossed over into the highlands of Macedonia till they came to the town Lebaea.

[Book VIII]

The whole nation of the Phocians had not joined the Medes; on the contrary, there were some who had gathered themselves into bands about Parnassus, and made expeditions from thence, whereby they distressed Mardonius and the Greeks who sided with him, and so did good service to the Grecian cause. Besides those mentioned above, Mardonius likewise arrayed against the Athenians the Macedonians and the tribes dwelling about Thessaly.

[Book IX]

After Mardonius had put his question about the prophecies, and spoken the above words of encouragement, night drew on apace, and on both sides the watches were set. As soon then as there was silence throughout the camp,- the night being now well advanced, and the men seeming to be in their deepest sleep,- Alexander, the son of Amyntas, king and leader of the Macedonians, rode up on horseback to the Athenian outposts, and desired to speak with the generals. Hereupon, while the greater part continued on guard, some of the watch ran to the chiefs, and told them, "There had come a horseman from the Median camp who would not say a word, except that he wished to speak with the generals, of whom he mentioned the names."

They at once, hearing this, made haste to the outpost, where they found Alexander, who addressed them as follows:-

"Men of Athens, that which I am about to say I trust to your honour; and I charge you to keep it secret from all excepting Pausanias, if you would not bring me to destruction. Had I not greatly at heart the common welfare of Greece, I should not have come to tell you; but I am myself a Greek by descent, and I would not willingly see Greece exchange freedom for slavery. Know then that Mardonius and his army cannot obtain favourable omens; had it not been for this, they would have fought with you long ago. Now, however, they have determined to let the victims pass unheeded, and, as soon as day dawns, to engage in battle. Mardonius, I imagine, is afraid that, if he delays, you will increase in number. Make ready then to receive him. Should he however still defer the combat, do you abide where you are; for his provisions will not hold out many more days. If ye prosper in this war, forget not to do something for my freedom; consider the risk I have run, out of zeal for the Greek cause, to acquaint you with what Mardonius intends, and to save you from being surprised by the barbarians. I am Alexander of Macedon."

As soon as he had said this, Alexander rode back to the camp, and returned to the station assigned him.

[Book IX]

2. Diodorus of Sicily

On his father's side Alexander was a descendant of Heracles and on his mother's he could claim the blood of the Aeacids (Achilles), so that from his ancestors on both sides he inherited the physical and moral qualities of greatness.

[17.1.5]

"After this Alexander left Dareius's mother, his daughters, and his son in Susa, providing them with persons to teach them the Greek language, and marching on with his army on the fourth day reached the Tigris River. "

[17.67.1]

"Alexandros observed that his soldiers were exhausted with their constant campaigns. ... The hooves of the horses had been worn thin by steady marching. The arms and armour were wearing out, and the Hellenic clothing was quite gone. They had to clothe themselves in materials of the barbarians,..."

[17.94.1]

"Every seat in the theater was taken when Philip appeared wearing a white cloak and by his express orders his bodyguard held away from him and followed only at a distance, since he wanted to show publicly that he was protected by the goodwill of all the Hellenes, and had no need of a guard of spearmen." [16.93.1]

"Such was the end of Philip, who had made himself the greatest of the kings in Europe in his time, and because of the extent of his kingdom had made himself a throned companion of the twelve gods. He had ruled twenty-four years. He is known to fame as one who with but the slenderest resources to support his claim to a throne won for himself the greatest empire in the Greek world, while the growth of his position was not due so much to his prowess in arms as to his adroitness and cordiality in diplomacy.

[Historical Library 16.95.1-2]

3. Thucydides

The country on the sea coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from Argos.

[Book 2]

4. Aristotle

Of the rivers in the Greek world, the Achelous flows from Pindus, the Inachus from the same mountain; the Strymon, the Nestus, and the Hebrus all three from Scombrus; many rivers, too, flow from Rhodope.

[Meteorology, Book 1]

"The deluge in the time of Deucalion, for instance, took place chiefly in the Greek world and in it especially about ancient Hellas, the country about Dodona and the Achelous, a river which has often changed its course. Here the Selli dwelt and those who were formerly called Graeci and now Hellenes..."

[Meteorology, Book 1, Par. 13]

5. Isocrates

Argos is the land of your fathers, and is entitled to as much consideration at your hands as are your own ancestors.

[To Philip]

"Therefore, since the others are so lacking in spirit, I think it is opportune for you to head the war against the King; and, while it is only natural for the other descendants of Heracles, and for men who are under the bonds of their polities and laws, to cleave fondly to that state in which they happen to dwell, it is your privilege, as one who has been blessed with untrammeled freedom, to consider all Greece your fatherland, as did the founder of your race, and to be as ready to brave perils for her sake as for the things about which you are personally most concerned."

6. Titus Livius

"The Aitolians, the Akarnanians, the Macedonians, men of the same language, are united or disunited by trivial causes that arise from time to time; with aliens, with barbarians, all Greeks wage and will wage eternal war; for they are enemies by the will of nature, which is eternal, and not from reasons that change from day to day."

[The foundation of the city, par. 31]

7. Plutarch

"Philip, after this vision, sent Chaeron of Megalopolis to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, by which he was commanded to perform sacrifice, and henceforth pay particular honour, above all other gods, to Zeus;"

"He [Alexander he Great] erected altars, also, to the gods, which the kings of the Praesians even in our time do honour to when they pass the river, and offer sacrifice upon them after the Greek manner."

[Alexander]

8. Arrian

"He [Alexander the Great] sent to Athens three hundred Persian panoplies to be set up to Athena in the acropolis; he ordered this inscription to be attached: Alexander son of Philip and the Hellenes, except the Lacedaemonians, set up these spoils from the barbarians dwelling in Asia"

[Alexander the Great 1,16,7]

9. Flavius Josephus

"And when the book of Daniel was showed to him (Alexander the Great) wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended"

[11.8.5]

10. Pausanias

"The Phocians were deprived of their share in the Delphic sanctuary and in the Greek assembly, and their votes were given by the Amphictyons to the Macedonians."

[Description of Greece -10.3.3]

"They say that these were the tribes collected by Amphiktyon himself in the Hellenic Assembly: [...] the Macedonians joined and the entire Phocian race [...] In my day there were thirty members: six from each of Nikopolis, Macedonia and Thessaly [...] "

[Phokis - 8,2]

11. Aeschines

"For at a congress of the Lacedaemonian allies and the other Greeks, in which Amyntas, the father of Philip, being entitled to a seat, was represented by a delegate whose vote was absolutely under his control, he joined the other Greeks in voting to help Athens to recover possession of Amphipolis. As proof of this I presented from the public records the resolution of the Greek congress and the names of those who voted".

[On the Embassy 2.32]

Alexander the Great's letter to Darius:

'Your ancestors invaded Macedon [3] and the rest of Greece [4] and did us harm although we had not done you any previous injury. I have been appointed commander-in-chief of the Greeks and it is with the aim of punishing the Persians that I have crossed into Asia, since you are the aggressors. You gave support to the people of Perinthus, who had done my father harm, and Ochus [5] sent a force to Thrace, which was under our rule. My father died at the hand of conspirators instigated by you [6], as you yourself boasted to everybody in your letters, you killed Arses [2] with the help of Bagoas [7] and gained your throne through unjust means, in defiance of Persian custom and doing wrong to the Persians. You sent unfriendly letters to the Greeks about me, to push them to war against me, and sent money to the Spartans and some other Greeks, which none of the other cities would accept apart from the Spartans. Your envoys corrupted my friends and sought to destroy the peace which I established among the Greeks [8].

I therefore led an expedition against you, and you started the quarrel. But now I have defeated in battle first your generals and satraps, and now you in person and your army, and by the grace of the gods I control the country. All those who fought on your side and did not die in battle but came over to me, I hold myself responsible for them; they are not on my side under duress but are taking part in the expedition of their own free will. Approach me therefore as the lord of all Asia. If you are afraid of suffering harm at my hands by coming in person, send some of your friends to receive proper assurances. Come to me to ask and receive your mother, your wife, your children and anything else you wish. Whatever you can persuade me to give shall be yours.

In future whenever you communicate with me, send to me as king of Asia; do not write to me as an equal, but state your demands to the master of all your possessions. If not, I shall deal with you as a wrongdoer. If you wish to lay claim to the title of king, then stand your ground and fight for it; do not take to flight, as I shall pursue you wherever you may be.'

[Arrian, Alexander's Anabasis - 2.14]

Alexander the Great's Oath at Opis, 324 BC:

"I wish all of you, now that the wars are coming to an end, to live happily, in peace. All mortals from now on will live like one people, united, and peacefully working towards a common prosperity.

You should regard the whole world as your own country with common laws, a country where the best and the brightest rule, regardless of race.

I do not separate people, as do the narrow-minded, into Greeks and barbarians. I am not interested in the origin or race of citizens. I only distinguish them on the basis of their virtue. For me each good foreigner is a Greek and each bad Greek is worse than a barbarian.

If ever differences arose, never resort to arms, but resolve them peacefully. If need be, I will serve as your arbitrator. Do not consider God as a dictatorial Ruler, but as Father of all, so that your conduct would resemble the cohabitation of siblings within one family.

On my part, I consider all of you equal, white or dark, and I would like you not to be only plain subjects of my Commonwealth, but all shareholders, all partners.

To the extent it is in my power, I shall try to accomplish all that I promise. Keep the oath we are taking with the libation tonight like a Contract of Love"

[Callisthenes]

Coingage:

http://www.usask.ca/antiquities/coins/macedonia.html

PS: As for the example you gave in the coinage of an Paeonian King, you should be aware that this coin is dated well into the Hellenistic Era (started by Macedonians), where almost all Kingdoms in the world were absorbing elements of the Greek culture. The point of the Macedonian coins and inscriptions in Greek, is that they're dated BEFORE the Hellenistic Age.

And as for the word "agathos", as explained above the root word is of proto-Greek non-IE origin, but the structure of the word (such as the -os) ending is its Greek version. For that reason when we examine the Macedonian tongue, this is seen as a Greek word.

Miskin

I read a number of these quotes before: in fact, that first Herodotus quote that you posted I was reading last night. Like I said before: you can assemble the entire library of quotes, and the situation will still be inconclusive. If you want to change things, go poke around an archaeological site and find some evidence that will settle the question. Decius 15:02, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The paragraph that you've erased twice is not false information: it says that there are a number of classical references that indicate separate, etc. (true, there are a number of such references), while other references indicate the opposite. Then it says that some scholars have taken those references (that indicate separate, etc.) along with the distinct character of many Mac. words, etc., to indicate, etc. (true, some, in fact many, scholars interpret those passages along with those words in that manner. Decius 15:12, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The information would be false if: no such references existed (but they do); if no such scholars with such views existed (but they do). There are no grounds to erase the paragraph. Decius 15:15, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've toned it down by added qualifying statements ("may have", etc.). Decius 15:23, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The '-os' suffix is not necessarily Greek: that's a common suffix. It may well have been Hellenized after it entered Greek: it also may well not have been appreciably modified. Beekes didn't mention that "the suffix though, is of Greek origin". The whole word is possibly pre-Greek. Decius 15:29, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by finding more archaeological evidence. So far all Macedonian inscriptions and coinage that have been discovered (many of which dated before Philip II in the 5th c. BC), are written in distinct Greek dialect. What more proof do you need?

It is false information. As I said before I'm willing to refute every quote that SUPPOSEDLY implies a non-Greek status of Macedon. In every single occasion those are isolated quotes that change the true meaning of their sources (Demosthenes' Philippics is the typical example). The quotation you provided from Thucydides is another example. The terminology of the Attic-Ionic dialect is exploited and readers interpret "ethnos" as a synonym to our modern-day concept of "nation". As you can see above Herodotus refers to Athens and Sparta as two separate NATIONS, but how come nobody doubts the Greekness of the Spartans or of the Athenians? I can find you Platonic dialogues that can be misinterpreted and exploited in order to propagade that Athenians didn't speak Greek (e.g. "Socrates: Is he a Greek who speaks our language?"). In his first book Thucydides explains how many Greek tribes such as Thessalians and Aetolians are in fact culturally barbaric. He uses them as the example of GREEKS who have not advanced since the Mycenaean Age. He clearly proves this way that in oder times, Greeks had similar ways to the barbarians, and even today there ARE cultural distinctions between Greek peoples, and that many Greeks can also be labeled as Barbarians. Thucydides himself never considers Macedones amongst those "barbarian-Greeks". Miskin

What the text says in that paragraph is Observation: some references may indicate,etc., some references may not etc. etc. I've already explained this. What the hell do you want? The fact is such references that may indicate such a separate language/ethnos exist: so that fact is reported. The fact is that many scholars interpret those references to mean etc.etc. etc. along with many of the distinct words etc etc. to indicate etc.---I'm getting tired of this. Go vandalize the Greek Wikipedia and leave the English one alone. Decius 16:18, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It will be apparent to those who read this Talk Page that the one trying to cover things up and sweep them under the rug is not me. Decius 16:50, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

some references may not etc. etc. I've already explained this. What the hell do you want? The fact is such references that may indicate such a separate language/ethnos exist: so that fact is reported.

As I said before I refute this "fact" and I call it false information. Such sources don't exist. Their meaning is intentionally misinterpreted, and this becomes obvious after reading a little further from the isolated quotes. The only actual source which can be easily misunderstood is the Philippics by Demosthenes, but if you read futher you realize that the greatest orator of all times is either contradicting himself or that he just doesn't mean everything literally. If you refuse to believe it by simply claiming that "there are people that do" (knowing that there are scholars who also believe that the earth is rectangular) then there's nothing I can do about it. Miskin

How can you be Unbiased!

"I will be on watch against both Slavic FYROM nationalists"

The fact that you refer to Macedonians as "Slavic FYROM" is greatly insulting and proves that you are biased and violate the POV rules.. User:207.188.67.232

The question of whether the Republic of Macedonia (or Former Yugoslav, etc.) should be called the Republic of Macedonia is not a factor in this language/dialect debate. The name of the country could be the Republic of Atlantis and it wouldn't impact the language/dialect debate. The reason I refer to the republic as FYROM is because I disagree with the 'Republic of Macedonia' name: the modern country contains only part of Macedonia: it does not contain the core parts of Macedonia (which were further south). Most of the modern nation was once the Kingdom of Paionia: and when Paionia was conquered by Macedon, this land would be more accurately "the Paionian province of Macedon" (remember, the Macedonians when they conquered Paionia didn't slaughter the inhabitants, so the population of the Paionian province of Macedon was more Paionian than Macedonian). POV rules are not violated because 1) it's on a Talk Page; 2) it's not an issue in the debate/article. Decius 02:15, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If the ancient Macedonian language is later proven to be a Greek dialect (as unlikely as that may seem) it wouldn't bother me (though a separate language would have been more interesting): the good side would be that you wouldn't see anymore Macedonian Slav websites trying to connect ancient Macedonian to Slavic. I saw one website that tried to connect the Macedonian name Glaukos (which is the same as the Greek word glaukos=blue-green, gray, etc.) to the Slavic word glava (=head): "glavkos" ... Decius 02:24, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have seen countless maps (old maps, so they are unbiased) that have the legend Paeonia written over the land that is now the Former Yugoslav, etc. And that is accurate. The ancient Paionian capital Bylazora is/was located in the geographical center of the new nation. Decius 02:56, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I wonder whether any Slav nationalists have discovered the probably coincidental similarity between Bylazora and Belozero.--Wiglaf 11:25, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

And anyway, when did I ever say that I'm "neutral"? It should be obvious that I support the more common view that Ancient Macedonian was a language, not a dialect. But the thing is, Wikipedia is not just about "neutrality", it's also about giving more support to views that are more generally held by the scholars in question (in this case linguists). See the case of Balto-Slavic languages. If it was up to the Anonymous contributor who keeps vandalizing that article (see its history), that article would not exist (he is a Baltic speaker, and he doesn't like his language being connected to Slavic). Yet the more common view is that the Balto-Slavic language group-theory is correct, so the article is justified in existing. And so is this article. "Neutrality" is not always the best viewpoint. With that said, I also don't believe in hiding the fact that many disagree with the ancient Macedonian language-theory, and I won't stop anyone from adding more from the other side of the debate in the article---unless they add bullshit or redundant material, or material that is not as relevant as it seems. Decius 05:49, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am also biased against the Macedonian-Quechua hypothesis. dab (ᛏ) 07:04, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

'Thanatos'

'Thanatos' was the common Attic ancient Greek word for 'death', but 'thanos' was posted because that internet site gave the form "Greek 'thanos'" as opposed to Macedonian 'danos' (see the first link provided in the External Link section), so I used that form. I suppose it is dialectical form, though I haven't found it in my dictionary, which lists 'thanatos' and some kindred forms, etc. The point is the 'th' opposed to 'd' sound, either example exhibits that. Decius 02:30, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Some other forms from the root include: 'thanon' (epic); 'thnatos' (Doric), etc. Decius 02:38, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

indeed. Anon:

thanatos is a relatively modern form form for death- kathareuousa & dhimotoki- if you dont know what you are talking about then try to research - th to d can also be explained by the dialect theory

I say, you should try get a username. Then you should try to discuss politely. And then you can maybe still invest some time into finding out what we are talking about here. "thanatos" is "relatively modern"? Such as Homeric?? Don't make me laugh. You can 'hypothetize' about a dialectal thanos, no problem. But if you think that "th to d can also be explained by the dialect theory" you are quite brave. Because then I can also explain the "Hellenic is really Russian" hypothesis by the dialect theory. dab (ᛏ) 02:51, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Decius I don't think you realise how ridiculous and contradictory the original article is. You start off by saying that Macedonian was a separate language and a few lines below you say that we have very little information about this language/dialect thingy, namely from a lexicon which reveals that most native Macedonian words are Greek. I removed all false information about Classical sources supposedly regarding Macedonians as non-Greeks and everything else that was intentionally misinterpreted and almost ripped by propaganda sites. Nobody mentions that ALL Macedonian archaeological inscriptions (including coinage from 6th-5th century BC) were found to be in a unique Greek dialect. The example of Paeonian coinage that you once brought up in order to justify the Greek language on Macedonian coinage, is simply out of context because it goes back to the Hellenistic Age AFTER the entire world had been conquered and partially Hellenised by the Macedonian Empire (I've already mentioned this but you ignored it). Nobody talks about Macedonian names and toponyms, and nobody talks about how EACH Greek dialects has non-Greek, non-IE root words that were assimilated in their languages by the proto-Hellenic peoples. Thucydides that you once brought up, he never for once claims that Macedonians were not Greek. On the contrary he talks about Greek tribes of Thessaly and mainland Greece who live in a way similar to the Barbarians', and they speak in unintelligible dialects. Nobody doubts their origin and ethnic status (based on religion and language) as Greek. On the contrary he uses them as an example to back up this theory that once ALL Greek peoples were living like the Barbarians. If you so easily claim that Macedonians didn't speak Greek (basing it on unsupported and contradictory information), then maybe you should re-consider the ethnic status of many other ancient peoples. Furthermore, just because Slav nationalists from FYROM ravage this page without knowing what they're talking about, you tend to generalise that every opposing opinion is an extreme as well (without considering any facts). And similarly, just because all FYROM nationalist pseudo-scholars are talking out of their behind, you fail to realise that this is not the case with Greek scholars. Because of the FYROM nationalist situation there's an unwritten rule for you that states how scholarly opinion from those two countries should not be regarded. In this manner you're failing to see the fact that the BEST linguists on the Greek language have naturally been of Greek origin, and the proof of this is the fact that all established and accepted opinions on the origins of post-Classic Greek dialects (including Hellenistic and Modern Greek Koine) have been researched by Greek linguists. To see how biased your claims sound, just think of the play "MAKEDONES" by Strattis. I mean what more proof do you need to see that the Hellenisation theory is an unsupported fairy tale that only serves for modern propaganda purposes? Do you actually leave an open possibility for this man to have been talking out of his bum and working on a Sci-Fi play?? After knowing about this play, the debate should not be on whether Macedonians spoke Greek or not, but on whether or not this ancient source is authentic.

Miskin.

I'm sorry Miskin, but you really don't seem to understand the subject. FYROM has nothing to do with it. At the time in question, the Slavs were probably hanging out somewhere in the Baltic. This article is concerned with questions of the historical Grammar of Greek, in particular the transition from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Greek, and unless you show some understanding of the processes invoved instead of throwing around red herrings, I don't see how your contributions can possibly be useful. dab (ᛏ) 10:47, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Point taken. So what makes you two such experts on the Greek language by the way? With what criteria are you deciding that phonology between Macedonian and Attic is sufficient to categorise them as different languages (referring to the Danos vs Thanos exaple)? Have you already examined all differences between the rest of Greek dialects and concluded that Macedonian has far too many to be categorised as Greek? Because if that's the case, then you might be interested to explain where do Greek toponyms of Attika and Asia Minor originate from? What does the word "Attic" means in the Greek language? What about the word "paradeisos" (paradise)? What about all Greek words of proto-Greek non-IE roots? Why should we categorise Attic as a Greek dialect since it has words of non-Greek origin that don't exist in other Greek dialects? What about the spelling and pronunciation of the Attic-Ionic "thalatta" versus the Doric "thalassa"? Where does Modern Greek Koine inherit the -ksa and -sa ending of past tenses from? Point made.

Miskin.

Dab is quite knowledgeable in this field of research and I have full confidence in his additions. The limit between dialect and language is very hard to define, and I believe that there is too little left of Macedonian to make a definite statement other than it is held to be a language related to Greek by most linguists.--Wiglaf 11:08, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Miskin, your questions are discussed and partly answered in the pertinent literature. This talk page is not a free course in historical linguistics. Yes, the possibility that Mac. may be considered a Hellenic dialect is entertained by a minority of linguists, just as we said in the bloody article from the very beginning. We are looking at the result of balkanization, and that, combined with the fragmentary attestation makes it really impossible to say much more than that. dab (ᛏ) 11:14, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Transition

I have a question for you two and I'm expecting a serious answer. Let's assume that a separate Macedonian language DID exist. When (according to your linguists) did the Macedonian PEOPLE replace it in favour of Attic? To rephrased myself: During which chronological period did Macedonian people become UNABLE to understand their native tongue? Miskin

It is impossible to answer that question. As a linguist, I guess that since Macedonian probably was closely related to Greek, it could have been a matter of slow transition from Macedonian to mixed Greeco-Macedonian to Greek. So it was probably not so abrupt as you're suggesting. Since the corpus is so scant, the transition probably happened during the last centuries before Christ. However, it is probably impossible to know when it happened. We can perhaps know when the literate class of Macedonia had started to write exclusively in Greek, but not when the last iliterate peasant stopped speaking Macedonian. For what we know, the last speaker of Macedonian may have died in the 5th century or even later. If he did not write in Macedonian, nobody will ever know that the language existed so late.--Wiglaf 17:02, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

None of these Hellenisation assumptions justify the 5th CBC comedy of Strattis on the Macedonian dialect versus the Attic. They don't even justify Livy's quotations of Macedonians referring to Greek as their mother tongue as back as 3rd century BC. A "Hellenised" people would never say "all Greeks, same race, same tongue, waged at ETERNAL war". And most of all nothing would justify the 5th BCB Greek inscriptions on coins and monuments. Or would it justify the 6th-5th BCB Persian reference to Macedon as the "Greek wearing hats". There are Doric dialects alive and spoken in Peloponnese and Southern Italy 2300 years of history. How could the so-called Macedonian language be lost in some mere 100 years (with Macedonians as the conquerors)? And why would Macedonians be included in the Pan-Hellenic events and the Olympic games in the early 5th CBC if they were not Greeks? In the entire Greek World during the Classic and Hellenistic eras there was not ONE single person to refer to a lost or unwritten Macedonian language? How can we have so much information for other barbaric cultures? This is all just a big joke. Miskin

The extension of ethnic names depends on who says them and for what purpose. An Iron Age Swede did not normally call himself a Dane, but used the name Dane to refer to the people of the Danish Isles. However, this did not make Anglo-Saxons and Franks stop calling all Scandinavians Danes. It is not interesting in this article to make a discussion on whether the Macedonians were Greeks nor to whom they were Greeks. What is interesting and relevant is how scholars classify their language.--Wiglaf 18:39, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

the transition would have begun in the 5th century BC. The rural population may have continued using the language up to the 5th century AD, so we are looking at a process that took place over a millennium. Now even if in the 5th century BC Attic and Macedonian were not intercomprehensible, there would have been a lot of Macedonians fluent in "Attic as a second language", and they would have had a peculiar accent. Look at the relation of, say, Danish and English. Danish is North Germanic, and English is West Germanic. It is certainly correct that they are two separate languages. Still, there was a lot of contact over the last millennium, and a lot of Danish words were borrowed into English. Today, many Danes will be fluent in English, and they will have a characteristic accent. A Dane appearing in a Hollywood movie (this is meant to be anologous to a Macedonian appearing in Attic comedy) will naturally speak English, but with a funny accent. This doesn't mean that Danish is a dialect of English, or that the Dane is supposed to speak his native language in the movie.

the urban Macedonian elite will have switched to Attic immediately, in the time of Philipp II. These are the people responsible for the inscriptions. This is analogous to everybody suddenly speaking French at English courts after 1066. This doesn't mean that the English population suddenly turned into Frenchmen. The French language trickled down into lower strata of society, but it never entirely replaced English (but there are of course examples where the language was entirely replaced within a couple of centuries, take Gaulish being replaced by Latin. There are practically no traces of Gaulish in French, and if you randomly selected 700 French words, you would be very lucky to have one with Gaulish ancestry among them). dab (ᛏ) 08:46, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Now even if in the 5th century BC Attic and Macedonian were not intercomprehensible, there would have been a lot of Macedonians fluent in "Attic as a second language", and they would have had a peculiar accent.

Speaking about unsupported assumptions. The text is as clear as crystal, there's no implication about a foreigner who's trying to speak Greek to a Greek, it's about two Greek person speaking different dialects or idioms. Does this sound like a person who's trying to speak a second language to you? "what you Attics call a hammer-fush, (we call a) freen". You're argument is unsupported, not even scholars who supported that Macedonian was a separate language wouldn't come up with something like that.

Look at the relation of, say, Danish and English. Danish is North Germanic, and English is West Germanic. It is certainly correct that they are two separate languages.

I hope you're serious with this example. You're comparing a family of language of the modern era with a family of dialects of the Classic Age? The fact is that ALL Germanic languages were once dialects of the same language, exactly like Greek dialects of Antiquity and Slavic of the middle ages. The reason that today we speak about a Greek language as opposed to families of Germanic and Slavic languages, it's something that has to do with those people's historical backgrounds. After the conquests of Alexander the Great, a new Greek dialect known as Hellenistic (or Alexandrian) Koine emerged from the main ancient Greek dialects. The history of Greeks and the Greek language up to Modern Greek, evovled from the language of that very historical era. If the Greeks had retained separate states (like Germans and Slavs did), today we'd be speaking about languages of Hellenic origin and not about a continuous Greek language. It's thanks to the unification of Greeks under a) Alexander the Great who created a common Greek language, and b) under the Roman Empire which preserved the Greek culture and gave birth to the medieval Greek civilization known as the Byzantine Empire.

the urban Macedonian elite will have switched to Attic immediately, in the time of Philipp II. These are the people responsible for the inscriptions.

Macedonian inscriptions on monuments and coinage (written in Greek idioms) date long before Philip II's time. In fact there haven't been found ANY Macedonian archaeological evidence in any language other than Greek. And as for the Macedonian people's names and toponyms (dating at the beginning of Archaic Greek history)..? I'm curious to know what kind of childish excuse have you invented for that.

This is analogous to everybody suddenly speaking French at English courts after 1066. This doesn't mean that the English population suddenly turned into Frenchmen.

Another irrelevant example of a completely different era.

but there are of course examples where the language was entirely replaced within a couple of centuries, take Gaulish being replaced by Latin. There are practically no traces of Gaulish in French, and if you randomly selected 700 French words, you would be very lucky to have one with Gaulish ancestry among them).

First of all the French people (as the word implies) hail from the Franks and not from the Gauls. The Gaulish culture and language had been assimilated by the Roman Empire nearly 800 before the Frankish conquest of Gaul and the beginning of French history. In that case you should be looking for Germanic elements in the French language and not for Gaulish. In that respect today, the French language (in grammar, vocabulary and phonology) DOES have traceable roots in medieval Germanic. Speaking of the Gaulish people, there's a little region in France called Bretagne, which despite centuries of assimilation, it still retains cultural elements (including a separate Keltic dialect) from its Keltic Brithonic settlers. Similarly Ireland, Wales, Scotland and even Cornwall, have preserved to some degree their Celtic ethnic identity and language. And to think that all those examples refer to cultures who were being assimilated for dosens of centuries. Macedon on the opposite was a state that conquered the entire world. The Hellenistic Age was characterised by cultural achievements, and yet you claim that unknown Macedonian language existed for 1000 and NOBODY ever made a reference to it? Does this sound extremely ridiculous? On the other hand, think about Macedonian as a dialect of Greek. The most typical example of dialects being passed out of history, is when they're replaced by different dialects of the SAME language. I think it's more than blatant that I have refuted all of your arguments, so if you want to keep up this page without being considered biased, is by coming up with something better. Miskin

I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? I gave three examples,

• Danish and English
• English and French
• Gaulish and Latin

which all have some similarity to the case under consideration. Breton, incidentally, is not descended from Gaulish. The examples are of course only useful if you know their context, and you do seem to muddle them together. I don't have the patience to feed you with encyclopedic knowledge. read it up, and come back with concise quotes and references. Sorry if this sounds condescending, but I'm afraid I do not consider this a very academic discussion. By the time of Hellenism, of course, Macedonian had become a completely unnotable language. You think it unbelievable that it should not have been described in more detail? Good luck reconstructing the Welsh language from the pages of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, or from the accounts of Julius Caesar then! Look, we'll be happy to give a few quotes of Greek (or other scholars) saying "Greek Greek Greek", no problem. In the present version, all statements are attributed. What exactly is the problem you see, at this point? dab (ᛏ) 16:17, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I think it's more than blatant that I have refuted all of your arguments, so if you want to keep up this page without being considered biased, is by coming up with something better. I made a good-faith effort to give you some context. I don't have to do this. After all, we are not talking about my theory here, but about linguistic communis opinio. If you are more intelligent than everybody else, good for you, why waste your time on Wikipedia, go and win a Nobel Prize. If you do decide to honour WP with your brilliance, just quote author, title and page from now on when including views, just like I did, thanks. dab (ᛏ) 16:23, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

which all have some similarity to the case under consideration.

Just how hard is to realize that you can't compare modern languages families with the ones of antiquity? If you can't understand this simple concept then obviously there's no academic level on the discussion. What's next? Link Latin America to the Roman Empire because they speak Romance languages?

Breton, incidentally, is not descended from Gaulish.

It depends on what context you use the term Gaulish. If you're talking about the Gaulish speech of the inhabitants of Gaul, then no, obviously Breton has nothing or very little to do with that (this is why I referred to Brythonic settlers). I was using Gaulish as the synonym of "Gallic", which is the Latin equivalent of the Greek Keltic. Anyway, off topic.

By the time of Hellenism, of course, Macedonian had become a completely unnotable language.

What exactly do you mean by "unnotable"? Before you said that it was being spoken until the 5th century AD (i.e. during the Byzantine Empire). My question was, how in an important region (close to Constantinople) of such a cultivated civilization, nobody ever bothered not only to document the language, but just refer to it for the heck of it? How is this possible? I haven't received an answer yet and something tells me that I never will...

Look, we'll be happy to give a few quotes of Greek (or other scholars) saying "Greek Greek Greek", no problem. In the present version, all statements are attributed. What exactly is the problem you see, at this point?

The problem is that despite what you claim, your actions lead to the conclusion that all you want to is "NOT NOT NOT" say "Greek", no matter what all evidence shows. The problem with this article is not that it quotes authors at random. It's that it pretends to be doing that, while at the same time it states clearly that Macedonian was a separate language (refer to my "contradiction of this article" above). I tried to change the biased context of Decius' additions in order to make the article agnostic and you restored them without providing any reason. And now you wonder what my problem is? Use your head a little.

And anyway, when did I ever say that I'm "neutral"? It should be obvious that I support the more common view that Ancient Macedonian was a language, not a dialect. But the thing is, Wikipedia is not just about "neutrality", it's also about giving more support to views that are more generally held by the scholars in question (in this case linguists)...And so is this article. "Neutrality" is not always the best viewpoint. With that said, I also don't believe in hiding the fact that many disagree with the ancient Macedonian language-theory, and I won't stop anyone from adding more from the other side of the debate in the article---unless they add bullshit or redundant material, or material that is not as relevant as it seems. Decius 05:49, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And I assume my point is clear.

>>If you do decide to honour WP with your brilliance, just quote author, title and page from now on when including views, just like I did, thanks.

Oh. So is that how it goes? Quote from as many sources as we can? That's interesting, cos if that's really the case, then I suppose this article (and any article) would become some million lines long. Except of course there are some unwritten criteria for the sources we're allowed to list. So what are they? Let me guess, "no Greek scholars", "no Greek posters", "no Greeks". Of course there HAS to be c riterion corcening the quality of sources, there are countless of scholars out there, but only a small number of them is accepted by the academic societies, e.g. the syllabus that is taught in universities (everywhere outside of FYROM that is). A third option would be to try to justify on our own the information that we provide on these articles, either by verifying ESTABLISHED academic opinions or ancient sources which are most certainly unbiased. But from what I have understood you belong to the school of "since some person in the world wrote this in a book, who cares why, but it has to be like that". This is why you have been constantly failing to provide your position with valid arguments. Miskin

Oh, and by the way, don't you think I didn't notice that. Behold the multiple personality of the talented mr dab:

• Phase 1:

You will find that more polite edit summaries will do wonders for the chances of survival of your edits. dab 09:49, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Phase 2:

our understanding of the things you attempt to pose as an expert of is hazy at best. being a prick with 20 years of specialist studies under your belt is annoying enough. Being one with an assortment of high school education and google searches is just silly. You have made a mediocre attempt at following the discussion. But of course you think you have "blatantly refuted all of my arguments". This is childish. Publish your "refutataion" (not of my, but of the authors I quote), and we'll reference them as "Miskin (2005)". Until then, you should swallow your intellectual pride and just report what the authorities in "your camp" have seen fit to say. dab 16:23, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Someone in here can't take the pressure, La, la, la, la-la :) Miskin

I am very sorry Miskin. In spite of the fact that you consider yourself to be extremely brilliant, I'd rather have you quote scholars so that other contributors can verify whether you have provided accurate information. If the article has to become a whole book, I don't care. It is much better than having you present your personal point of view, and the Wikipedia rules are "cite sources" and "no original research". If you don't agree with these rules you're liable for an rfc.--Wiglaf 18:32, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

quoth one Miskin:

Someone in here can't take the pressure, La, la, la, la-la :)

— you have no idea. I haven't even reached the 'mildly annoyed' stage. Your free classes are over, now edit up to standard or be reverted. "some person wrote it in a book somewhere" is the minimal requirement for inclusion here. "Some hack wrote it on a Wikipedia talkpage" is certainly not a better criterion. If we have too many references, of course the more notable ones (i.e. peer-reviewed, widely accepted, published in reputable journals or publishing houses etc.) will have to be applied. But so far, we are not really swamped by the references you provide now, are we? All you say is that it's perfectly obvious to anybody but a copmplete fool that Macedonian was Greek. I, on the other hand, with no preconceived opinion on the subject, took a few books from the shelf and read there that the commonly accepted opinion among linguists is that it's probably a separate branch. So this is the position I am now defending. I could do so blindly, but I happen to also understand the arguments this opinion is based on, so unfortunately for you I will realize when somebody is bullshitting me. dab (ᛏ) 10:07, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

abroutes

I've been sitting back watching this on & off. Comment: while there may have been graphical errors creeping in here & there, the chances are astronomical that these graphical errors would consecutively & often happen right at the critical place & in the critical manner ('b' instead of 'ph', 'd' instead of 'th', and so on). The fact that the sound-differences follow a pattern shows that the sound-differences were actual, not graphical errors. Anyway, I'm looking for more epigraphical references (studies of Hesychius' text, etc.) on the matter, to see what kind of graphical errors have been conclusively observed in the text (as I remember, there is only one text of Hesychius surviving). There are corruptions observed, but I'm wondering what exactly & how, etc, what letters were often mixed up, and so on. Decius 20:13, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

And it looks to me that "Olivier Masson" was sweating from his forehead while he penned his essay: if the sound-differences can be easily explained by the "fringe" aspect of the Macedonian "dialect" as he implies in one place, why is it that in another place he tries to claim that the sound-difference in that instance (abroutes, etc.) was "a graphical error"? That sound-difference should pose no problem to his brilliant and highly-detailed theory. It looks more like the French professor was being a spindoctor. Decius 20:23, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

In other words, Masson was using cheap side-stepping tactics and he didn't explain anything in a satisfactory manner. Decius 04:17, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

About Macedonian abroutes: I don't know why Olivier Masson (of whom you can barely find mention on the internet) was focusing on the tau vs. digamma. Even if it was a digamma, there is still the issue of the 'b' opposed to 'ph' once again, and also the initial 'a' opposed to initial 'o'. The Macedonian word & the Greek words come from PIE *bhru, 'eyebrow'. Ancient Greek (Attic) as expected has ophrus (eyebrow; singular form). Macedonian, as we've come to expect, has Abrou- (cf. Persian abru, 'eyebrow'; Old English bru, 'eyebrow'). Aspirated would not be 'p', as User:Ninio apparently thought, it would be 'b', as we see. Even if the tau was a digamma, there is still once again a beta instead of phi, and the alpha instead of omicron. Decius06:29, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

For future reference Ninio: ph in ancient Greek never comes from an initial 'p' in Proto-Indo-European. 'Ph' usually indicates an initial 'bh' or 'gwh-' sound. Decius 07:34, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

I never said or implied in any way that ph (phi) comes from an initial p. It seems that you are not familiar with ancient Greek phonologies. Pre-classical and Classical Attic ph for example was (as the vast majority of linguists and scholars agree) pronounced as aspirated somewhat voiceless bilabial 'p' (as an English initial p like in pop); not like the Modern Greek letter phi which sounds like an 'f'. Thus a word like 'philos' would most probably sound like 'pilos'.

Even though, I can understand the argument of aspirated voiceless 'ph' opposed to voiced and somewhat unaspirated 'b', it could be a much less compelling argument if we consider Greek phonologies and dialectology.

For example, if IE bh became ph in various Greek dialects (aspirated p) and in the Macedonian idiom bh became 'b', then it could equally work to say that Macedonian followed the shift from bh to ph (as in many Ancient Greek dialects) and then progress it even further to 'b'.

Since there are not many attested words and it is difficult to clearly reconstruct the phonologies, I am the first to admit that any evidence is ambiguous and not overly robust.

Exactly because of this ambiguity of the ph vs. b , d vs. th (open to other interpretations) argument but most importantly for the number of similarities, other linguists and many scholars categorize it as a Greek dialect ("characterized by its marginal position and local pronunciations," to quote OCD that you so easily and spuriously dismiss and defame).

So for future reference: I won’t tolerate any kind of provocative, spurious or tedious remarks. I won’t tolerate any misleading or mischievous editing techniques as: overly-emphasizing on the differences, comparison of different things by the deliberate (or not) infuse of misspellings , syntax fallacies or mistakes, slandering of highly authoritative references without any academic proof etc.

In case I misunderstood your intentions, I sincerely (and I do mean it) apologise. On the other hand though, by silently watching the commenting and the various attempts to push a POV, I ' tentatively' (no pun intended) doubt it. -- Ninio 08:17, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Alright, and I also apologize for being somewhat agressive. The reason I responded like that is because you assumed that that one word is the crux of the language-dialect argument (as revealed by your edit). I'm also familiar with the idea that in Macedonian PIE *bh may have developed as 'ph' then later as 'b' (this was mentioned on Talk:Macedon about a month ago). But as pointed out, we haven't found any linguist that explicitly states this. Thanks for tracing info regarding TIED: I noticed since a year ago when I first came across that site that some of the information on there is slanted at times, and I don't and did not consult only TIED for the prevalent view, which I gathered from various sources (including books I read years ago). Decius 22:03, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

If you don't tolerate tedious and spurious remarks, then you must be very intolerant of Miskin: who definitely is the Gold medal champion of spurious remarks. Decius 22:52, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I noticed something here: 'ph' was pronounced somewhat as 'p' as aspirated by the ancient Greeks: that seems to pose something of a problem for those who think that Macedonian 'ph' (from PIE *bh) later became 'b'. It would more likely (it seems) have become a 'p'. But we'll see what the linguists say on this issue---if we can find the references. I still agree with those linguists who consider that Macedonian 'b' is a different sound-change from PIE, and I haven't read a detailed argument against that theory. Decius 22:47, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

If somebody here has read Masson's essay (Sur le...Abroutes, etc), I'd be curious to see his comments regarding the rest of the differences evident in that word, besides that one letter he focuses on. The root is known to be *bhru, no mystery. Decius 08:39, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

If we're saying that abroufes is "encompassable" we'd have to say which Greek word it is a dialectal variant of. it would have to be one containing a beta. Otherwise, the digamma variant is even closer to ophroues, for the variant with tau you have to assume an additional suffix.

• ophroues < *(h)bhruves
• abroutes ?< *(h)bhru-t-es
• abroufes ?< *(h)bhruves

i.e. the digamma reading makes it an even better example. I cannot conceive of what Masson may have thought, unless that like Miskin he completely missed the unvoicing argument, and thought the word was being quoted as from "a different language" because of the additional -t- suffix. So while I have no problem saying that the historian Masson thought Macedonian was a "North-Western dialect", his linguistic argumentation just doesn't seem to hold water. I assume his impression is primarily based on the strong cultural proximity (which is undisputed, but unfortunately, this is an article about a language (check its title!), and not about a culture). dab (ᛏ) 10:07, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

700 words of disputed reliability are no evidence to draw conclusions

You're still contradicting yourselves. First you tell me to site scholars (which I already have) and now you performing your personal criticism on the scholars that you don't agree with. All I want to prove to you in that you're not neutral on your judgement and you're using bad logic to draw your conclusions. All we have here is 700 words, the vast majority of which, lead us to a Greek dialect. Then we have some words of non-Greek origin, which as I have so many times stated, it is something common for EVERY Greek dialect. All the rest of evidence (such as inscriptions, coinage, names, and toponyms) which ARE in fact examined by linguists, are also leading to a Greek-speaking people. The pronunciation differences you're stating (assuming full validity of sources) are just ridiculous. I can site you examples of much greater differences between other Greek dialects. You also have to understand that the term 'dialect' refers to a group of speeches with SIGNIFICANT differencess (and even difficulty in intelligibility) that are yet categorised under the same language (with no official dialect representing the actual language). I started this discussion without citing contemporary scholars for the following reasons:

• There are some millions of unbiased scholars who have cited opinions on this matters, each of which has a DIFFERENT status of academic importance (that we do not consider).

• Only a tiny part of those scholars has been translated into to English (and the languages we speak) and therefore be familiar of the majority's opinion.

• Out of the best scholars, the ones who of Greek origin (which is many) are automatically ignored.

• Out of the best ones who are not (e.g. Masson, Hammond), you have already a take-away theory to ignore their opinions.

I tried to quote some ancient sources and analyse their context, cite archaeological evidence dating before Philip II and the fictional Hellenisation of Macedon, but you two never paid any attention nor replied.

Last but not least, the typical sample of your faulty logic is the naive examples you keep coming up with e.g. comparing the contemporary Germanic family of languages with the ancient Greek language (family of dialects). Dab came up with another genial example which would involve choosing at random 700 words of the French language and expect to find a Celtic root. Mr Dab never took into account that the fundamental probability formula applies only for events of equal possibility factor, Id est: we do NOT know whether Hesychius gathered those words at random or not.

Eventhough I disagree wholeheartedly with both of you, all I'm asking for is neutrality and an agnostic character to this article (as opposed to a contradictory biased one). The reader should read the evidence and draw his own conclusions. Miskin

This is how it went down for me personally: when I started the initial article, I was not familiar with Olivier Masson and I did not find any counter-argument from the linguistic side of the debate that was worth mentioning (in my opinion, of course), so I went ahead and presented the majority linguistic view (Macedonian a separate language from Greek) as I gathered it (and it is indeed the more prevalent linguistic view, as reference after reference substantiated for me and others). Every thing I saw from the other side was mere mumblings, grumblings, & evasive arguments. Hammond has some arguments, but they are vague and he does not address the linguistic problems in any work of his that I've seen. Masson is also very vague, though I haven't read enough from him: what I've seen from him so far is not enough to impact the more prevalent linguistic view. Decius 02:45, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

And there was nothing "contradictory" in the initial short article: "our knowledge of" Macedonian is "very limited", I wrote, yet I proceeded to present the prevalent (<key word) linguistic view that Ancient Macedonian was a separate language: that's not a contradiction. Our knowledge of Thracian is also very limited (maybe even more than Macedonian, since not nearly as many Thracian words are known) but enough remains for linguists to say it was separate from Greek (as it was), and virtually all now say that Thracian was also separate from Illyrian (though we know nothing of what an Illyrian or Thracian sentence looks like). Enough remains of ancient Macedonian for a prevalent number of linguists to say it was a separate language from Greek. Decius 03:19, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

And what is very strange about your comments is that you continue to be under the delusion that the "greatest and best" scholars view ancient Macedonian as a Greek dialect. Decius 03:19, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I criticized Masson here, on the talk page. I didn't remove him from the article, or ridicule his view there. Cite linguistic arguments from his abroutes article, and we'll work them into the article. Be specific. Which scholar (argument, quote, article, page) is underrepresented? Make a suggestion how to include him. Masson was very cautious to formulate his view as extremely hypothetical, he was not a linguist, and from what we know, his argumentation was not linguistic. Cite his linguistic arguments. Does he discover any peculiarities of North-Western Greek in Macedonian? What peculiarity? Which dialect do the others "Greek dialect" proponents favour? North-Western? Dorian? Attic-Ionic? Do you even know how they differ? An independent dialect? With what characteristics? Author, title, page, example words? Don't wave your hands at "millions of scholars", be precise, cite relevant ones. I'll be happy to include Masson's theory, if he has one. Cite it, maybe I'll be even convinced, but we'll include it anyway. You want to include arguments in favour of "Macedonian is Greek". Interestingly, you don't seem to have them ready. Why should you, you know they must be correct before you have even seen them. We won't do your work for you. Go to the library, find the literature, and cite the relevant arguments here. If you cannot do this, leave it to others to work things out. We continue to say that things are uncertain, and that most linguists tend to assume balkanization, an independent branch, or a Graeco-Macedonian branch. This does include your position, but it doesn't favour it. You have failed to point out why this approach should be incorrect. Except for complaining that we ignore "millions of Greeks". That's just not helpful. Give one author, Greek or not, who argues based on an understanding of Greek historical Grammar, and some knowledge of Greek dialectal differences. We are really stooping low to quote Masson's "dialectal variant" as a linguistic argument. This is so imprecise, we could as well argue that German or Russian are "dialectal variants" of Greek (which they are, too, from a Hellenocentric view). dab (ᛏ) 10:05, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

"for future reference" / bh > ph > b

said Ninio:

So for future reference: I won’t tolerate any kind of provocative, spurious or tedious remarks. I won’t tolerate any misleading or mischievous editing techniques as: overly-emphasizing on the differences, comparison of different things by the deliberate (or not) infuse of misspellings , syntax fallacies or mistakes, slandering of highly authoritative references without any academic proof etc.

hell, Ninio, we are desperate for "highly authoritative references". Why don't you provide one instead of all this bickering. "TIED" and the "linguistlist" are not "highly authoritative", but we quote them for lack of better references. At the moment, the best reference we quote is Mallory and Adams (quoted by me), both respected and well known scholars (though maybe not "top notch", I'll agree). So there, you are more than welcome to bring up others. What did Brugmann say on the question? Anything by Meillet, Saussure, Szemerenyi, Schweizer? Care to quote from Brixhe andPanayotou? Or even Masson? Please do, we'll treat your quotations with all due respect. The ball is in your court, really. dab (ᛏ) 10:36, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

As for mischievous, I wouldn't have a problem with Macedonian being derived from Proto-Greek, why should I? It's just that the evidence doesn't seem to point in that direction. If you really badly want to find a way how it could be descended from proto-Greek, your best bet would be an argument of

For example, if IE bh became ph in various Greek dialects (aspirated p) and in the Macedonian idiom bh became 'b', then it could equally work to say that Macedonian followed the shift from bh to ph (as in many Ancient Greek dialects) and then progress it even further to 'b'.

That has in fact occurred to me, and I would be happy to include that possibility. Just find explicit mention of that possibility somewhere, and we'll be certain to include the quote (i.e. do your work, don't blame us for not doing it for you). Including that idea just because it occurred to you and me would be original research. dab (ᛏ) 10:43, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

TIED

That is exactly what I mean about spurious, ignorant or deliberate spread of false information. The comparison of a site as LinguistList with the writings of a site as (TIE- DB) which at best can be described as the unwarranted and suspicious views of a Russian Business Administration student.

===TIED===

To elaborate:

All pages related to the so called Paleo-Balkan languages were (and are) written and maintained by the 20 something Mr. Cyriil (or Daniil) Babaev. The full listing of his "works-essays" can be found here [10].His info page within TIED can be found here [11] and his personal page can be found here [12].His is the owner, administrator, “chief in editor," founder and maintainer of TIED and Paleo-Balkan pages and essays within.

His writings (not essays because one has to provide references and citations clearly embedded on the text, to be called as such) are used here as somewhat an academic recourse of mportance, into such a degree that 3 of the external links on the main article are pointing out to his pages. His so called table of 'Old Macedonian Glossary' is taken to face value without any attempt of scrutiny or at least a decent degree of research, for the provided terminology, orthography, applied phonology, comparative or even actual validity.

In his short list he does not provide the various Greek words (found in various Ancient Greek dialects) as opposed to the Macedonian words that actually bear not only a sticking resemblance but can be further used in the context of comperative linguistics. For example agéma, agkalis, kanadoi, klinotrohon, kombus etc.

He compares only opposite to IE and PIE roots and when he sees an oddity (meaning that after an initial glance, it might be not directly evident with other ancient Greek dialects), then and only then he provides the Greek words. (e.g. danos vs. than-at-os, d vs. th).In the example of kombous he does not even mention the Greek gomphus etc.

I do not claim to be an linguist expert in ancient phonologies and dialectology, nor an expert in matters "Macedonienne linguistique," but even me (an amateur editor of wikipedia)almost instantly can recognize the presented fallacies and mistakes or at least the ambiguity (at best) of the so called presented evidence.

Let’s have a bit more deep look at the site, its members, or more correctly its supposed members, the whoiswhos, and what their claimed (by the site) contributions or affiliations are:

1)TIED info A computer programmer with a 404 page at Yahoo geocities [13].His only (and irrelevant at that)contribution to TIED can be found here [14]

2)TIED info An Ukranian (ex-soviet military officer?). No contribution towards the so called 'essays' list. His Yahoo! geocities site [15],called INDIN Valentyn Stetsyuk's Independent Investigation is soemwhat claimed as affiliated with TIED.(photos here [16])

3)TIED info A web developer.No contributions to TIED “essays” list at all. The claimed affiliated project in his tripod site [17] named ‘The IndoTyrrhenian Glossary’ is an empty page.

3)TIED info A web developer. No contributions to TIED at all. The claimed affiliated projects are also empty–broken external pages.

4)TIED info A self(?)-proclaimed indepented scholar of unknown field 'expertise'. The claimed affiliated project [18] is a page "under construction" since 2000, currently looking like a advertising (spam?) link site.

5)TIED info An advertiser. All 3 claimed contributions to the TIED essays are in fact linking to the advertiser’s own personal website in Yahoo! geocities here [19]

6)TIED info A Microsoft Engineer.Very interesting indeed. No contributions to the TIED essays at all. The claimed affiliated 2 projects are also linking to a geocities site here [20]

7)TIED info A polish linguist teacher.One of the claimed contributions to TIED essays , titled Structural Variability of Indo-European Morphology (Piotr Gasiorowski) , is actually pointing to a writing by Cyril Babaev (Moscow 2000)here [21]. The other is 404 in Yahoo! geocities and the remaining 2 are pointing to a personal site here [22]

8)TIED infoBelgian Professor of Ancient Greek. No contributions to the TIED essays at all. His personal academic site [23] (and if I may add, a very good one)is spuriously claimed as affiliated with TIED.

No contributions, reviews or comments are given or remotely implied (by the professor himself in his site) to TIED. On a side note, I am thinking of contacting the professor himself in order to inform him about this claim and hopefully get any form of input on the matter.

In shorts:

• All links provided in the main article either for the Old Macedonian Glossary or the so called "essays" for Paleo-Balkan languages are the (suspicious at best) works of a 'talented', Mr. Babaev.
  • Analytically the below
  • http://indoeuro.bizland.com/tree/balk/macedonian.html Cyril -Daniil Babaev.
  • http://www.geocities.com/indoeurop/project/glossary/mace.html Cyril D. Babaev
  • http://www.indoeuro.bizland.com/archive/article3.html Cyril D. Babaev

-- Ninio 20:28, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

===Linguist List===

The again, in 'direct' contrast to the brilliance of Mr. Babaev, we have that Linguist-List that is "not highly authoritative" thus not highly regarded amongst linguists and scholars (according to you).

I will not go into a full listing of the credentials of the site, this can be easily checked with a basic search, check of affiliations, academic memphership, citations etc. Instead, I will provide a hint.

The very same (provisional) classification and (draft) ISO 639-3.5 code XMK ( as opposed to the older XMAC), that an editor, out of obvious ignorance, was quick to add in this article, is considered and proposed by the International Standard Organization because of the Linguist List codifying scheme of the ancient-extinct languages and dialects,itself.

The full catalogue of the provisional ISO-DIS 639-3.5 Codes for the representation of names of languages -- Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, can be found here [24]

The above documents are currently in circulation to Universities, scholars, linguists, scientists, regulating bodies, Governmental bodies etc around the world for revisions and possible suggestions, before ACTUAL standardization occurs.

The draft ISO-DIS 639-3.5 can be found for example here [25] and for the ancient languages it proposes the Linguist List classification and coding scheme.Two (out of the total 5) references cited in the bibliography,are regarding the list.([2] Linguist List Codes for Ancient and Extinct Languages [26] -- [3] Linguist List Codes for Constructed Languages. [27]). Just to make it clear, Ref [2] codes, pointing to the “not highly authoritative” list, are suggested to be applied to the ancient-extinct languages and dialects. -- Ninio 20:28, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I realized quite awhile ago that The Indo-European Database is often slanted. I've criticized it before regarding the way it presents info on the Thracian languages, and I've also mentioned on various pages the way cognates are indeed selectively given, and others ignored, not just in the Ancient Macedonian case (see the way Slavic & Baltic cognates are grossly over-represented for Thracian, while other cognates very often ignored, and so on). I knew from my own prior research, for example, that Macedonian kombous (=molar teeth) has a close cognate (in my opinion, its closest cognate) in ancient Greek gomphios (singular), which meant 'a grinder-tooth', 'a molar tooth'. Examples such as that show selectiveness (I'm sure it's not just ignorance). Examples such as that also incline me to view ancient Macedonian as an ancient language that was closest to the Greek dialects, a view which is common among linguists and which in my opinion explains everything we know about ancient Macedon. Decius 02:33, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

TIED's glossary was & is given as a link because there is no other such glossary available on the web that I know about. The TIED essay was also given as link, though it is a sloppy essay and inaccurate in a number of places. Though it's generally ok: it is slanted, it does contain inaccuracies, but it is not quite crank. Though I don't care that it was removed from the article. The glossary though should remain till we find something else. Decius 02:39, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Valentyn Stetsyuk (a TIED contributor) doesn't know what he's doing. If you look on my Talk Page, you can see that he responded to a criticism I made of his work (and I of course won the debate by the fact that he provided no sensible answer). He made a list of "cognates" between Latin and various Turkic languages---without realizing that most of those "cognates" are not cognates at all. For example, he thought abbas (a word that entered Late Latin from biblical Aramaic) was "an old Latin word", and he thought it would thus be a "Latin" cognate for the Turkic word apas. He also made other errors in his list & throughout his work. The fact that TIED has contributors such as him proves that TIED is even less reliable than I expected. Decius 03:05, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't impact the article because nothing in the article depends solely on views presented in TIED. Nor does the article contain any original research from any Wikipedia contributor.Decius 03:12, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Masson

I included the quote from www.macedonian-heritage.gr. Now we know he favours North-Western over Aeolic. I am curious how he argues (and what's in the lacunae omitted by macedonian-heritage.gr). So Ninio and Miskin, if you're serious about wanting to see more "pro-Greek" arguments, here is something very straightforward for you to do. Get hold of Masson's OCD article and quote the part where he argues in favour of North-West vs. Aeolic. That way you'll have a whole section discussing Macedonian as a Greek dialect. Does the OCD even have an entry on the Macedonian language? It would seem that Masson is the author of the article on Ancient Macedon as a whole, historically, not linguistically, and includes a brief paragraph about the language. (That would make sense, since he's a historian). My question is is there a separate article on the language, and if not, what linguistic evidence is discussed in the Macedon article (I do have an OCD, but it's pre-1996). dab (ᛏ) 11:53, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Decius wonders:

Our knowledge of Thracian is also very limited (maybe even more than Macedonian, since not nearly as many Thracian words are known) but enough remains for linguists to say it was separate from Greek (as it was)

Dab replies:

It would seem that Masson is the author of the article on Ancient Macedon as a whole, historically, not linguistically, and includes a brief paragraph about the language. (That would make sense, since he's a historian).

There you go, you managed on your own to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle: History DOES help to draw conclusions about lost cultures and languages. In some cases it's probably more important than a disputable lexicon that dates nearly 1000 after the time for which the argument is about. There's a very few linguistic evidence from both Illyrians and Thracians, and yet we know FOR SURE via the Classical Greek texts that they were distinct from Greek and distinct from each other. Did you actually think that all ethnological and cultural categorisations of antiquity were formed by modern scholars according the linguistic evidence we had? Well, think again a little bit harder. I don't claim to be an expert in liguists either, especially when it concern Indo-European roots, but I do claim to be better than many people is the knowledge of the Classics, which would include ancient Greek history AND language. In other words, I don't think you're in position to so arrogantly draw a line between a thin matter such as "dialect" versus "language", especially with those poor pronunciation examples.

Since we agree that history plays an important role to the "assumptions" we're allowed to make in linguistics, I will point out for the 88th time some very important points you have completely ignored:

• Countless Classic Greek texts referring to Macedonians as Greeks (including Macedonians since the early 5th century BC).

• The thousands of Greek archaeological inscriptions on monuments and coinage (some dating before the 5th century BC).

• The fact that foreign peoples such as Persians (classic), Jews (Bible), Romans (post-classic) would always regard Macedonians as Greeks.

You too have to realize that little things like the above DO matter in this linguistic and ethnic categorisation debate. Since we don't have sufficient linguistic evidence to incline towards one direction, we use a heuristic factor via historical and literary sources. This is how Masson made hist "assumptions". We don't have important linguistic evidence from Classic Sparta either. There's nearly no source about the specific Doric idiom of the region. Spartan society was strict towards education and the few old men who would manage to obtain some knowledge and produce some work after their military service, they wrote in Koine Doric and not in the Spartan idiom. According to your logic, Macedonian literary evidence (such the works of Callisthenes), are assumed to be written in a foreign language. Anyone could assume something similar for the Spartans. There are also classic references that distinct "Spartans and Greeks", but no-body is interested in isolating them and misinterpret their meaning (as in the case of Macedonians). There are specific references of Spartans and Athenians as "separate nations at war" and in general countless examples similar to the "evidence" against the Greekness of Macedon. I hope you see what my point is. If there WAS a modern nationalist conflict about the heritage of ancient Spartans and some land in Peloponnese, some people would definitely try to isolate and misintepret quotes in order to aid their nationalist myth. If you still believe that you're not simply misguided and that there actually exist some classic sources that refer to Macedonians as non-Greeks, then cite them and I will either quote a different passage of the same author that would imply the opposite, or a similar example of racial discrimination within the Greek World.

Anyway as for the reference to Masson, who according to you is just coming up with wild and unsupported assumptions, I found this anglophone version which seems to be his quation: http://www.ucc.ie/staff/jprodr/macedonia/macanclan.html

In my humble opinion Masson is a scholar with a slightly higher status than you two, and hence it would be safe to regard his "assumptions" a little more reliable than yours. Obviously he has read more than you on the topic, obviously he knows more history and liguistics than you in general, and obviously he's entitled to choose a heuristic factor that will aid his decision (or "assumption"). In other words, if it was up to Masson to write this article, he would reverse the procedure, i.e. begin with the theory of Ancient Macedonian as a Western-Greek dialect and finish up with references to opposing schools (pretty much like the article I posted). But I wasn't even asking you to do this. I was only asking you to show a fully neutral character and let the reader draw his conclusions. The fact that you even denied this, proves your biased prespective.

And to finish up, this is the ultimate evidence that you people didn't do your homework well before drawing your conclusions and unsupported ASSUMPTIONS:

• Decius:

This is how it went down for me personally: when I started the initial article, I was not familiar with Olivier Masson and I did not find any counter-argument from the linguistic side of the debate that was worth mentioning (in my opinion, of course), so I went ahead and presented the majority linguistic view (Macedonian a separate language from Greek) as I gathered it (and it is indeed the more prevalent linguistic view, as reference after reference substantiated for me and others)

• Dab:

(i.e. do your work, don't blame us for not doing it for you). Including that idea just because it occurred to you and me would be original research.

Oh... So this is about my work versus yours. Interesting, because you see all this time I thought it was about what is actually true. So you actually both admit that you haven't done a full research; you just came accross something at random, and stated it as a fact until someone with more evidence refutes it. One of you hadn't heard about Masson's theory (which is basically the most important side of the story) and the other has already made up his mind and expects someone of the opposite side to turn it down. That's very intelligent. Really. Last night I read a book (by a man who claims to be a scholar) about the dark side of the moon being inhabited by aliens who make conspiracies against mankind. I'm going to cite this information in the main article of moon until someone who has read more manages to disprove it. To think that this is an "encyclopedia", it is almost laughable. Miskin

Miskin. Your point of view is already represented in the article, and you will never ever succeed in having *only* your point of view in the article, if that is what you want. What I wonder about is why you insist on the Greek ethnicity of the Macedonians. Would you have cared about it if it weren't for Alexander the Great?.--Wiglaf 19:31, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

That's definitely the main factor here. If the Macedonians had not achieved anything glorious and remarkable, modern Greeks in general wouldn't of course care much about "those barbarous Macedonians". There is so much emotion and Hellenism tied up in this issue that it has indeed slowed down the science (and I'm not talking about this Wikipedia article, I'm talking about the state of the scientific debate). Decius 23:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Miskin, your comparison is not accurate: The common scientific view does not in any way support aliens on the dark side of the moon; on the other hand, ancient Macedonian as a separate language is a very common scientific view that (at least as of 2005) is leading the race among linguists. The article right now presents both (and more) views, and the dialect view will be further represented if more good references surface. I agree to be fully neutral in the article, and so should everybody else (including you). The article aside, I have my own opinion (which happens to coincide with the opinion of a large number of linguists). Decius 23:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

And by the way, Masson has already been seriously criticized, and I don't see the general linguistic community running over to his camp (even the Classical Department of Oxford Univ., if you can somehow consider it as a single entity, doesn't necessarily totally agree with what he wrote, though they published his essay in their 1996 third edition and include it in their newer revised editions). I found a website some weeks ago which has excerpts of Borza refuting Hammond and also Masson if I remember right, and he did a good job. I'll "google" for them again. Better would be to find his book/essay. Decius 01:26, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

An interesting comparison would be to see how the current Oxford English Dictionary (comparing to what Masson wrote in his essay in Oxford-Classical-Dictionary 1996) defines the Ancient Macedonian language (remember how current American Heritage Dictionary and current Merriam-Webster do not even mention the Greek dialect view, though they were published well after Masson). This would give us a more realistic view of what "Oxford sponsors". It is naive to believe that Oxford is a single entity that unanimously agrees with a Frenchman named Olivier Masson, whose specialty seems to have been epigraphy as I gather from his works on Cypriot & Anatolian inscriptions, et cetera. I don't know if he was a linguist. And if he was, he represents his own view, which is shared by some others. Decius 01:38, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Wiglaf, everyone agrees here that AT LEAST the Macedonian Royals (that includes Alexander the Great) were definitely of Greek origin, but that's the least that matters here. The history of Greeks starts taking shape after their linguistic unity under the Macedonian hegemony, the Modern Greek Koine language is to the Alexandrian dialect what Modern English is to Shakespearian English and modern Italian to Dante's Italian. It is extremely ironic to claim that Macedonians didn't speak Greek themselves. There are known Greek folk songs on Macedonia and Alexander since the Ottoman period. Most of those people were the christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire who had lost their national consciousness at the Fall of Constantinople. This took place at a period when most of the world (including those who call themselves "Macedonians" today) would be like "Alexander the whaaaa??" I gave you a good reason to care about this, so allow me to reverse the question now. Do you actually think that if it weren't for Alexander the Great, people like Decius or Dab would give a rat's ass about what language Macedonian spoke prior to Philip II's rule? Do you think they would put up such a debate on whether or not Macedon should be categorised as a Greek state and ignore all evidence that disproves a Hellenisation? I really, really, REALLY don't think so... Basically the article has a strictly political character rather than scientific; the irony here is that I'm the only one who realises it. This type of "linguistic" debate rising out of political problems and propaganda in search of a national identity is very common (the question of whether Scots or American English are distinct languages is the proof of this). As it is evident that Greeks have been considering Macedonians as part of their culture since a pre-nationalist era, I think it is evident where the biased side is.

I wonder what remarks would Decius make on the "scholars" who have written essays and books in order to prove that American English is a distinct language. I would also advise you to stop citing scholars like Borza, his status makes the discussion look ridiculous. I've read his "answers" to Hammond and his arguments can be outsmarted by a 15 year old. By citing Borza it is proved that you have been considering the scientific parodies written in FYROM nationalist websites, and therefore verifies my theory that you're unintentionally biased. Miskin

Hey, I support the separate language school. That's as biased as I get. You support the dialect view, so that would also make you biased. I've agreed to be neutral in the article, so it doesn't matter. Now, as for would I be interested in the affinity of the ancient Macedonian language if not for Alexander: yes, I would be, just as I'm very interested in the affinity of such obscure ancient and extinct Balkan languages as Paeonian. There is no famous Paeonian figure, but that doesn't detract from my interest. Decius 09:31, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Miskin, Dab, is writing and editing articles on a wide range of dead languages. You are only one in a long line of people who discuss linguistic matters with him, and that Alexander the Great would be part of his motivation in this particular case is extremely unlikely. The fact that Dab is willing to take on discussions like this one is a great asset to Wikipedia. Moreover, this argument is not about the Greek ethnicity of Alexander, it is about the Ancient Macedonian language, which existed long before Alexander the Great.--Wiglaf 10:01, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

And Miskin, you should realize by now that the linguistic debate predates the political dimension that you keep emphasizing. Look at the year that Antoine Meillet passed away on: "the Republic of Macedonia" was in no way a factor in Meillet's time. It's time for you to stop milking the political aspect of this, which you constantly do to deflect the issue. Decius 10:10, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

What Wiglaf said, for the purposes of this article, I don't care a fig for Alexander. Yes he spoke Greek. But he lived 150 years too late to matter here. "Your" work is to provide evidence for the position you care so much about, and which is very thinly supported by evidence. Your job is to back up your claims, or to be silent. I am confident that our present article is fair, and if you disagree, it will not be me who spends days in the library to come up with shreds of evidence that you may have a point. See also Antifinnugor. dab (ᛏ) 10:16, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality disputes

I support the separate language school. That's as biased as I get. You support the dialect view, so that would also make you biased.

Yes I supposed it would. But what makes the difference is that the article is written by you and according to your position, not mine (and therefore supports the separate language view). If I could have my way on this article I would change it in a neutral position, citing all evidence, and let the reader make his own conclusions - now that's something unbiased. I'm not asking you to ephasise my opinion over yours (yet), what I'm asking you is to treat them in equal terms. You said that you're not influenced by modern politics, but by citing Borza and Demosthenes' isolated quotes as arguments against the Greekness of Macedon reveals the opposite. For the 88th time already, there are NO classic texts that regard Macedonians as non-Greeks. It's only isolated quotes (that you have obviously came across on the internet) that are cited by nationalists in order to aid in their propaganda, and this is something I can prove anytime you want. Your article says that "many classical sources regard Macedonians as a separate 'ethnos'", this is a lie you never backed up despite the numerous times I pointed it out. I provoke you to back this up otherwise I'll remove it, and if you revert again, you'll verify once again my suspicions.

For one more time, on the Macedonian dialect vs language: I consider all of your conclusions naive and usupported assumptions. First of all let's bring up the historical evidence, notably the quote of Livy. Your ridiculous answer to his writings "aetolians, macedonians, people of the same language, all greeks waged in an eternal war between each other", you naively responded (and added under his quote in Macedon) that this statement took place at a time that Macedonians were already Hellenised. For your information Livy is quoting a Macedonian embassador from the 3rd century BC, and is not citing his personal opinion neither the opinion of his time. You have completely IGNORED such important historical evidence, alongside Herodotus specific references on the origins of Macedon and how they began participating on the Olympic Games after the 6 century BC (which you interpreted as 'they never participated') Then it's the Persian reference "greeks wearing hats", and many many others. The list can go on forever, but in the meanwhile, you'd better try and find a good and valid explanation to those, otherwise the articles will change. Miskin

we have all these points on Macedon. just the references to the scholars supporting your conclusions, please. dab (ᛏ) 18:31, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I was not at my computer for a couple hours, else I would've responded hours ago. You bring up the Livy quote again. If you look through the history of the Macedon article, you will see that my initial response to the Livy quote was that "it needs to be analyzed" (and it does); better yet, we need to find what current scholars say about this quote. Dbachmann responded to that quote and wrote that Livy wrote at a time when the hellenization was complete. Later, I agreed with that position. But if what you say is true that Livy was quoting a 3rd century source (indirectly, obviously), then the quote takes on a different dimension. About those classical quotes: again, the discussion among scholars about what they seem to imply (the non-Hellenic nature of the ancient Macedonians) predates the political dimension. And I don't rely on internet quotes: before I ever heard of Wikipedia, I bought a book Greek Orations 4th Century B.C. by W.Robert Connor , Waveland Press Inc. that has the full Demosthenes & Isocrates quotes. This book was lost in my stack of books for awhile, but I found it once again about a month ago. Reading the quotes in this book some years ago is where I initially came across those quotes, not on the internet. Decius 23:34, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

If you style the more prevalent view among references as "naive", well then impress us by citing another "unnaive" scholar who demonstrates more than just "as a tentative hypothesis" that the ancient Macedonians spoke a Greek dialect. In face of the evidence so far, it is the dialect-view that strikes more people as naive. Decius 23:40, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

This new revised article can no longer be called "my article" presenting the view that I support (which is the very common view that ancient Macedonian was a separate language pertaining to the Greco-Macedonian branch). It is a group article, revised/rewritten by many people. It now presents Olivier Masson (who so far is the most relevant modern proponent of the dialect view), and also presents the theory supported by Borza & some others that anc. Mak. was on a different Indo-European branch from Greek. Like I said before, the fact that the dialect-view is not mainstream makes it policy to be given less prominence, so if you rewrite the text presenting the dialect view as the foremost idea, it will lead to an edit war in which you will be on the defensive. Decius 23:52, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

You should realize by now that the dialect-view does not have prominence in the mainstream. Leave aside for a moment the as-yet-unanswerable question whether the dialect-view is "true"---we can't verify, we can't even know conclusively, whether it is "true" or not. If, let's say, the current American Heritage Dictionary or the current Merriam-Webster Dictionary said that "ancient Macedonian was a Greek dialect", then it would be ridiculous to emphasize the separate language view. On the other hand, we see that they don't even mention the Greek dialect view. Then, when we review other references, again we see that the dialect-view is not mainstream. The article as it is right now reflects the mainstream much more closely than a version emphasizing the dialect-view would. I suggest for you to create your own website if you want to emphasize the dialect-view above all others. Decius 00:12, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

And I've just reread the article, and I cannot say that it gives the view that I support special prominence: it is listed first under classification: Hellenic (Greco-Macedonian) Group; then the Greek dialect-view; then the independent Balkan language view; the view that I support is listed first, but it is not presented as the only possible correct view. Decius 00:20, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Now let's get down to business: the initial phrase was: From classical references, it is apparent that the Greeks viewed Macedonians as a rather separate ethnos---analyzing this, I see that it does not say "from all classical references"; it says "from classical references", what I should have written explicitly, was: a number of classical references indicate that the Greeks seem to have viewed Macedonians as a separate ethnos---(removing "it is apparent", because what is apparent to some may not be apparent to others, for whatever reason; "apparent" can be challenged, though in a number of cases the challenge is very weak; so I should not have written "apparent"). Now for this sentence: a number of classical references indicate that Greeks seem to have viewed Macedonians as a separate ethnos. There are in fact a number of classical references that indicate that Greeks (or at least some Greeks) seem to have viewed Macedonians as a separate, non-Hellenic people. The present article in any case now says: There are some classical references that indicate that Greeks may have viewed Macedonians as a rather separate ethnos. <Please show me exactly what is untrue about this sentence. I will find those quotes again to show that the sentence is accurate. Decius 01:29, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

There are many scholars who have pointed out those classical sources and have pointed out what they imply or seem to imply, long before "the Republic of Macedonia" issue came on the scene. I will find explicit quotes from modern scholars discussing these references. I have Demosthenes and Isocrates here at hand, and I'll quote them. Decius 01:35, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

If you still think the current phrasing is not accurate, propose here how you want to deal with it. Trust me that you are not going to just magically make those classical references disappear. And it is ridiculous (indeed, delusional) for you to allege that no such classical quotes exist. Decius 01:43, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

And I know that some of these quotes are disputed. People have called attention to Demosthenes' politics, his blatantly anti-Phillipic views, etc., but Isocrates didn't have those motives. I know of no scheme that explains away all of those classic references. Decius 01:52, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

If you want, we can remove all discussion of Classic quotes from this language article---but that will cut both ways, and Strattis will also be removed, because despite what you believe, a scene from an Attic comedy (>an entertaining performance) is not viewed as earth-shaking evidence that Macedonians spoke a Greek dialect. Decius 01:57, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Two more things: how is the present article preventing the reader from making his own judgment? And as for the 'evidence', we all realize that we haven't assembled all the evidence in the article yet, because of the problems of finding all the evidence in the references. Decius 04:30, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

I've now decided to go out of my way and amass an arsenal of references on this subject, just to silence all these wild accusations once and for all & to reveal just how many scholarly sources are against your view. Decius 11:54, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

nice one Decius. Again (as on Finno-Ugric), the trolls ultimately lead to improvement of the article (sure, via the pains of the reasonable editors, but what the hell :) dab (ᛏ) 16:31, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

---

. --------------------------------------

Dbachmann responded to that quote and wrote that Livy wrote at a time when the hellenization was complete. Later, I agreed with that position. But if what you say is true that Livy was quoting a 3rd century source (indirectly, obviously), then the quote takes on a different dimension.

What most contradictory is that you people firstly claimed that the "Macedonian language" survived until the 5th century AD, and then you considered it natural for a Macedonian to refer to Greek as his eternal mother tongue into the Hellenistic era (whether it's 1st or 3rd century AD).

A note on couple of things that need to be examined and you have completely ignored:

• The Persian reference on Macedonians as 'Greeks wearing hats'.

• Explain the Greek language (of unidentified dialectic origin) on archaeological fragments and coinage of Macedonia that date before Phillip II (and the assumed "Hellenisation"). I remind you that the sole Paeonian coinage example dates in the Hellenistic era and is therefore irrelevant.

• The Greek Macedonian names and toponyms since the beginning of its history.

• How Herodotus (fom whom it is said that he didn't speak any languages other than Greek), travelled to Macedonia and wrote a detailed account on the Greek origin of the Macedonian people (even how they got their name).

• What on earth is wrong with the comedy 'Macedonians' by Strattis (which by the way is more prove than all your pseudo-scholars put together).

There are many scholars who have pointed out those classical sources and have pointed out what they imply or seem to imply, long before "the Republic of Macedonia" issue came on the scene.

This is why I don't regard those pure linguists who are ignorant of Classics and Greek history as a reliable source of information. I provoke you to find a classic author who explicitly doesn't regard the Macedonians to be Greeks. I pointed out the word 'author' as opposed to 'quote', because it's the author's opinion that counts, not what is implied by an isolated quote. Having said that, we have to agree on one thing: That none of the ancient scholars contradicted themselves. That means that they would either consider Macedonians as Greeks, or they wouldn't, we can't assume a middle-solution such as "here he considers them Greek but there he doesn't". We have to agree to the objective truth that those people had a specific POV - whether that POV is biased or not is a different story. So far I have noticed that you people don't follow this logic rule. For example, although Herodotus mentions explicitly the Greek origin of the Macedonian people and the Achaean origin of its Royal family, you write in the article "Herodotus didn't consider the Macedonian to be Greeks and said that they could not participated in the Olympics". Knowing that Herodotus has ALREADY and in MANY occasions categorised the Macedonians as Greeks, this statement regarding the Olympics makes a huge and stupid contradiction on Herodotus' POV. The real analysis of what he said, is that he explained HOW Macedonians BEGAN participating in the Olympics and the Pan-Hellenic events (prior to Persian Wars there was no much contact between Macedonian and the Greek city states).

Concerning the linguistics issue:

I will translate and summarise to my best a reference by Nikolaos Andriotis (a prominent and unbiased modern scholar of Greek linguistics) on the ancient Macedonian speech, taken from his research on the ancient Greek dialects:

Macedonian: The form of speech spoken by Macedonians and whether it was Greek or not, had stood as a problem amongst linguists. That is because there hadn't been found any literary evidence from that language before Macedonia imported Attic. Today however, judging by words that have been recorded and reached us via lexicographers such as Hameria (Ameria?) and Hesychius, and even by the names of historical characters of Macedonia, it is certain this Macedonian speech was a dilect of Greek, particularly close to Aeolic and Doric. It possesses all the basic features of proto-Greek, except the middle β,δ,γ as opposed to the graves φ, θ, χ of the other Greek dialcets. Examples: κεβαλά = κεφαλή, αγέρδα = άχερδος, δώραξ = θώραξ (phenetically: kebhala = kephali, agkerda = acherdos, dhorax = thorax) - and I'm adding to this "Βίλιππος = Φίλιππος, Δάνος = Θάνος" (Bhilippos = Philippos, Dhanos = Thanos) -> note that the latter is an example that you ridiculously keep mentioning as a striking difference and "evidence" for a non-Greek dialectic status. The text continues: This difference however, can be explained as either the different evolution of the IE middle grave "bh, dh, gk" in the mouth of Macedonians, or as the the influence of the neighbouring Thraco-Illyrian.

Something procedural on the thin distinction between "dialect" and "same family of languages".

• Most of these are confidently identifiable as Greek, but some of them are not easily reconciled with Greek phonology.

I still don't get how out of this your scholars managed to identify this language as a 'separate but related to Greek'. Up until now everyone knew of an ancient Greek language that was composed by several different dialects. Suddenly you tell us that there's also another language, which is neither a dialect nor a separate language, therefore we have to re-consider our 2000 year old theories about ancient Greek. I hope you realise how ridiculous this sounds. Cornerning what I quoted above: Image to choose 700 words at random from the Romanian language (which as far as I know has some 25% Slavic vocabulary. That means that some 25% of those 700 words will be of Slavic origin. Then the rest 70% will be related to the Romance languages. Assume that we have no further knowledge of Romanian grammar and its heritage from Latin. How tentively hypothetical would it be to conclude that Romanian is just a distant relative of Latin, and a mixture between Romance and Slavic languages. According to our little initial piece of information (and your logic) it would be safe to assume that. But would it be close to the truth? No. I hope you see my point. And to think that this small percentage of Macedonian vocabulary (which is smaller than 25%, close, but not quite Greek) we don't even know whether it was taken at random of not. Miskin

Again (as on Finno-Ugric), the trolls ultimately lead to improvement of the article (sure, via the pains of the reasonable editors, but what the hell :)

For crying out loud, stop comparing different things and force people to state the obvious for you.

this wasn't even addressed at you. Miskin, I'm not even reading your diatribes anymore, you repeat the same arguments over and over. Just bring up the citations, please? You know, like, from a library? (I'm asking for about the fifth time myself, I know) dab (ᛏ) 17:31, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Miskin, I wasn't just quoting classical sources without taking heed of how scholars have interpreted them: reading many books over the years, I have seen how many scholars (including Classicists, the gods among scholars according to you) interpret them. Now what I'm going to do is backtrack, do a reconaissance, & gather all those scholarly opinions. Already from the books I own I have at least (haven't checked all my books) W. Robert Connor of Princeton University (editor of Greek Orations of 4th Century BC) who interprets those quotes in that manner by the fact that he presents that (very common) view in his Introduction to the orations. I will quote him later on today, but I don't feel like typing too much just right now. Decius 01:48, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

You seem to have been under the impression that Classicists & historical-minded scholars all view Macedonian as a Greek dialect, so they could never have been Hellenized. I will show you today & in the coming days that this perception was very wrong. Decius 02:41, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

First, review these websites which demonstrate that W.Robert Connor was Chairman of the Classics Department of Princeton University during the 1980's: [28] & [29]. The first link shows that he succeeded Samuel Atkins as Chairman of the Classics Department of Princeton University. In the second link, he personally highlights his career, and delivers a speech before the U.S. House of Representatives. I found this info on W. Robert Connor on my first simple google search. I note that I can find no such info on the status of the "great" Olivier Masson, the obscure French epigraphist. Decius 04:22, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

You "provoked" me to find (though I already clearly stated before your "provocation" that I would find) a single Classic author who does not consider ancient Macedonians as a Hellenic tribe, but rather as a people that became Hellenized. Without even stepping out my door I found W. Robert Connor, Chairman of the Classics Department of Princteon University, who is also an author on Classical subjects. He is indeed a Classic author, and a current one (not from the 19th century or something). He considers that the Macedonians became Hellenized, and were thus not Hellenic already (since you agree it makes no sense for a Hellenic people to later become Hellenized---not merely "atticized" which is not what he is saying). So you already lost your first boast (not counting all the others you lost during these months). I'll quote him later today. In the coming weeks, I will do the unthinkable and actually systematically go to local public libraries & university libraries to add to the list. Note also that W. Robert Connor is not proposing a thesis: he matter-of-factly presents his view, which shows yet again that it is a commonplace view that doesn't raise eyebrows in any Classic department, unlike the scenario that you fantasized about where the gray-old Classical scholars "steadfastly and unanimously" uphold the dialect-view (perhaps you pictured them wearing togas also). Decius 04:45, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Some business just came up: I'll quote Connor tomorrow. Try to refrain from wild accusations & spurious edits while I'm gone. Thanks. Decius 04:55, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

By 'classic authors', I meant 'ancient authors of the Classic era', not Classicists. Obviously there are modern scholars (even Classicists) who believe in the Hellenisation theory, but that's not what they teach in universities, therefore not an established opinion. Miskin

Wrong: all Classic courses around the world do not teach the same thing; I'm sure that most discuss the hellenized/or hellenic debate, and I'm sure plenty teach that they were most likely Hellenized. I'll try to prove that many Universities teach this, though in reality you should prove the opposite before you make such a claim. And the view that the Macedonians became Hellenized rather than being Hellenic is an established opinion, and is even more established than the view that they were Hellenic. You have a habit of making such hollow claims, and it is getting annoying. Decius 00:30, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

One Classic Author

Okay, you redefined (or clarified) your boast. No problem. I'm going to quote a fuller passage of Demosthenes in a few minutes (afterwards, I'll quote Connor's Introduction). Decius 00:33, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Demosthenes (a Classic author), Third Philipic (30-31):

"And further, you must surely realize that all the wrongs that the Hellenes suffered at the hands of the Spartans or ourselves they at least suffered at the hands of true-born sons of Hellas; and (one might conceive) it was as though a lawful son, born to a great estate, managed his affairs in some wrong or improper way;--his conduct would in itself deserve blame and denunciation, but at least it could not be said that he was not one of the familiy, or was not the heir to the property. But had it been a slave or supposititious son that was thus ruining and spoiling an inheritance to which he had no title, why, good Heavens! how infinitely more scandalous and reprehensible all would have declared it to be. And yet they show no such feeling in regard to Philip, although not only is he no Hellene, not only has he no kinship with the Hellenes, but he is not even a barbarian from a country that one could acknowledge with credit;--he is a pestilent Macedonian, from whose country it used not to be possible to buy even a slave of value."

---Demosthenes by implication viewed the Macedonians as a non-Hellenic tribe, and I assure you that practically all Classical scholars would agree that this is how Demosthenes viewed them. W. Robert Connor also explicitly indicates that Demosthenes viewed Macedon as a barbarian (non-Hellenic) power that threatened Hellas (=Greece). Even Hammond, though he would disagree with what Demosthenes is implying, would not deny that Demosthenes had such a view. I don't think any classical scholar maintains that Demosthenes considered the Macedonians as Hellenes (Greeks). We also see from the quote that Spartans (=Dorians) are not of the same tribe as Macedonians (as Herodotus implied apparently that Dorians & Macedonians shared a common ancestry, basing this on a legend---though it is not clear whether there actually was such a legend or whether this was an invention of Herodotus). The Spartans are viewed by Demosthenes as true sons of Hellas, but by implication, the Macedonians are not. Decius 01:04, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

As for why Demosthenes and other authors weren't even more explicit: why would they need to state the obvious that they already knew as part of their daily lives? The Greeks didn't need to write that "the Macedonians are not Hellenes" since they already knew this. They wouldn't need to clarify the obvious. The medieval French didn't need to clarify that the Italians are not French. On the other hand, if an Italian ruler of partly French-blood (or claiming French blood) was making political moves on France, and his partly French-blood was one his assets, you would see critics pointing out that the ruler in question was "no frenchman" as claimed, but a "pestilent Italian" from Italy. The situation between Hellenes and Macedonians may have been even more tangled because probably the Greeks & Macedonians had more in common than French & Italians. These comparisons aren't precise, but you get the picture. Decius 01:21, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

To me, it would be more suspicious if we did find such explicit comments as "the Macedonians are not Hellenes"---if this was already a clear & known fact, why would any writer need to point out the obvious?---unless he was trying to slander people who were regarded by some as perhaps being Hellenes, so he would have to emphasize that they are not. But Demosthenes didn't approach it from that angle, he merely pointed out that Philip was a Macedonian, thus by implication a barbarian & not a Hellene (in other words, merely by pointing out that Philip was a Macedonian was enough said, and no elaboration needed, since his audience knew what that implied). He didn't go into a long argument to prove that Macedonians were not Hellenes, because he didn't need to. What he did need to do was to attack the claim that Philip could be considered 'Greek' (because of his Royal status, the descent from Heracles claim, etc.). Anyway, I'm going to quote Connor next. Decius 01:54, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

The book is Greek Orations 4th Century B.C. edited with an introduction by W. Robert Connor, Chairman (for much of the 1980's) of the Classics Department at Princeton University, now a Professor Emeritus. You won't find a mighty expository thesis in this introduction, because that is not the aim of the work. He just matter-of-factly and as a commonplace implies that Macedon was Hellenized, not Hellenic to begin with. As I said, there was no need for an exposition, because this view is very well established (more than the dialect view) in Classical studies (at least, outside of Greece, I'm sorry to say, no disrespect to the Greek scholars). Decius 03:15, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Connor, Introduction, pg. 4--5:

"What Isocrates had clearly recognized Demosthenes too had glimpsed. Isocrates had compliments; Demosthenes insults; but both use the same means. The fulsome old-fashioned mythic genealogies that trace Philip's ancestry back to Heracles, that survey the services of his ancestors to the Greek world, that enjoin on Philip a similar philhellenic policy are but the expressions of Isocrates' realization that Philip wanted, demanded to be a Greek. Demosthenes' famous vulgarity (Philipic III.31) stung in the same way that Isocrates flattered. Philip was not content to be a barbarian; he wanted to be a Greek. The man who as a hostage spent several years of his youth watching Epaminondas and Pelopidas in Thebes, who once in power called the leading Greek intellectuals of the day to his court, who invited Aristotle to tutor his son, whose chancery conducted his foreign correspondence with the fictions of Greek diplomacy and with the rhetoric of Greek oratory was not a man unmoved by the attractions of Hellenism. After full consideration is given to the political, economic, strategic reasons behind the invasion of Asia, this factor retains its importance: Philip wanted to be a Greek, and the leadership of a Greek expedition against the ancestral enemy of Hellas was the visible expression and fulfillment of this desire."

pg. 6:

"It was precisely this philhellenism that made Philip dangerous."

"A Macedon that thought herself part of Greece, however, was a greater menace. Such a country would be likely to meddle in Hellenic affairs, would disarm opposition by professing friendship, and would insist on a voice in the assemblies of the Greeks. It would not be content with anything less than full Hellenism, and would not, therefore, be excluded from the original Hellenic organization, the Delphic Amphictyony. Admiring Hellenism it would be drawn into Hellas, disrupting, displacing, disarraying the world it esteemed so highly."

Alright, that's enough from Professor Emeritus W. Robert Connor one-time Chairman of the Classics department of Princeton University for now. Next I'll go to libraries and assemble works that deal specifically with the issue (Connor, remember, was just writing an Introduction to the orations & giving a summary/background). Your previous claims that "all Classical scholars" support the Greek-dialect view will look very childish once I'm through (whether you were lying or just didn't realize the scholarly views outside of Greece, I don't know). Decius 03:50, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Decius I was expecting something more original than the Philippics but I suppose my expectations were too high. Since you chose him then it's fine by me. This is a passage that's analysed by many modern scholars, most of which agreed that Demosthenes was using the word "barbarian" and "non-greek" against Philip as an insult, and without considering whether Macedonians or Philip were ethnic Greek (in terms of language and culture) or not. Demosthenes was himself only half-Greek, ("From his mother, [Demosthenes] is a Scythian nomad, a Greek-speaking barbarian", Aeschines Against Ctesiphon, 172) so he was the last person to speak about Greek ethnic purity, that piece of information alone is sufficient to refute your claims. Secondly as I've mentioned earlier, Demosthenes speaks of the Spartans as 'true born sons of Greece' because that's what they were. The Peloponnese was the southern edge of the peninsula of Greece, in which Macedonia didn't belong prior to Alexander the Great. Sicily and Asia Minor not geographically located in Greece either, but their status as members of the Greek world is undisputed. What gave prestige to the region of Hellas (Greece) was the fact that it was the motherland of all Greeks (except the Dorians) prior to the Dorian invasion and colonisations. Besides the detailed account on the Dorian origin of Macedonians is given by Herodotus. Demosthenes points out the political and cultural superiority of the city-states of Greece, something that Macedon never belonged to. More on this later, I have to go. Miskin

Your counter-argument would be wonderful if not for the simple fact that Demosthenes, when he wanted to make a barbarian out of Philip, pointed out that Philip was a Macedonian. He didn't point to what you are talking about. Many prominent Greeks were only half-Greek or had much non-Greek blood. If I remember right, Thucydides' mother was a Thracian. For more about Thracians, see [30]. Thrace was also Hellenized (it was not really Romanized south of the Haemus range), and Macedon was Hellenized even sooner & quicker due to its location, due to philhellenic Macedonian rulers, & due to the fact that Macedonian was closer to Greek than Thracian was to Greek. Decius 00:36, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

"Secondly," I never questioned whether the Spartans/Dorians were 'true sons of Hellas' or not: the quote shows (except to people like you) that Macedonians are not likely to have been Dorians. Decius 03:48, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

The argument here should focus on the article and on what it says at the present moment. I will gather more & more references to further substantiate the article. And the Macedon article as well. What substantiates them is that they follow general scholarly practice by not assuming that the Macedonians were already Hellenic, thus were not Hellenized. I do not want to keep debating the issue, which is already being debated by scholars who can devote their full time to the debate. Decius 02:42, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

It is very annoying debating with you because of your dishonest or delusional habits. Example, above where you say "sufficient to refute your claims"---as if I am the only man on earth who has interpreted those passages in that manner; as if a very large number of scholars do not also view them in that manner. It is an established opinion. Half the time I have to address these wild accusations. Decius 04:03, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Demosthenes pointed that out because prior to Philip II Macedon was never powerful enough to meddle with the affairs of Athens and the powerful Greek city-states (As for the fact, then, that Philip rose to greatness from small and humble beginnings, that the Greek states are mutually disloyal and factious, and that the increase of Philip's power in the past was a far greater miracle than the completion of his conquests now that he has already gained so much, these and all such topics on which I might expatiate, I will pass over in silence 3rd Philippic, 9.21). The fact that Macedon was not even a polis made things more irritating. I don't think Thucydides was half-Thracian because he was an Athenian citizen, and as it is known the Athenian citizenship could be inherited only by blood. He was an Athenian general assigned in Thrace at a period where Athens was at the peak of its power. But I never denied that there might have been scholars who were only half Greek, I just pointed out that in the case of Demosthenes, talking about Greek "racial" superiority in an Athenian society (where even non-Athenians have lower social status) is just an oxymoron since he was not even fully Greek himself. Anyway you said that Macedon was Hellenised quicker than Thrace due to the fact that it was closer to Greek city-states. I don't think that's true, as Macedon was only on the North of Thessaly which was semi-barbaric compared to the South-central Greeks. Thrace on the other hand was close to Byzantium and many other Greek colonies. Even when we know that Southern Thrace is Hellenised, nobody referred or confused Thracians with Greeks, as it happens in all ancient literary evidence with Macedon. Yet we have archaeological evidence (including coinage) where we can identify Thracian names as non-Greek and be sure that they spoke a different language (even if they sometimes used the Greek alphabet). Don't you think that this is somehow weird? Thrace was pretty much Hellenised after Macedon's rule, isn't it ironic for two barbarian nations to Hellenise each other? By the way, I'm still waiting for your responses on the points I pointed out earlier, so please try not to ignore them again. I hope your scholars have a good explanation for all of them, otherwise it means that they never considered them.

Anyway in the speeches of Demosthenes it is constantly implied that Macedon is a Greek state trying to force Hegemony over Greece and not a foreign invader. All you have to do with read the whole thing and not the isolated quotes that restort the meaning (and define the word 'propaganda'). I'll bring up some examples for you:

• Yet your hegemony in Greece lasted seventy-five years, that of Sparta twenty-nine, and in these later times Thebes too gained some sort of authority after the battle of Leuctra. But neither to you nor to the Thebans nor to the Lacedaemonians did the Greeks ever yet, men of Athens, concede the right of unrestricted action, or anything like it... Yet all the faults committed by the Lacedaemonians in those thirty years, and by our ancestors in their seventy years of supremacy, are fewer, men of Athens, than the wrongs which Philip has done to the Greeks in the thirteen incomplete years in which he has been coming to the top--or rather, they are not a fraction of them.(3rd Philippic, 9.23).

Here Demosthenes admits that Macedonian rule is a hegemony of a Greek state over the others and compares it to the previous hegemonies of Athens, Sparta and Thebes. His arguments are that Macedonian hegemony is the worst of all, and therefore has to be fought. This is proves what I've been explaining to you so far, i.e. that Demosthenes' speeches have purely a political intention. I hope you admit that at least in this case, it is proved that Demosthenes did not view Macedon as a foreign ruler. If you don't see that, I would advise you to look up the word hegemony and its meaning in ancient Greek politics.

Just right after you quotation against Philip 'not being Greek, nor related to Greeks', the 3rd Philippic reads:

Yet what is wanting to crown his insolence? Not content with the destruction of cities, is he not organizing the Pythian games, the common festival of the Greeks, and if he cannot be present in person, sending his menials to act as stewards? [Is he not master of Thermopylae and the passes into Greece, holding those places with his garrisons and his mercenaries? Has he not the right of precedence at the Oracle, ousting us and the Thessalians and the Dorians and the rest of the Amphictyons from a privilege which not even all Greek states can claim?

As you see Macedon was part of the pan-Hellenic events before Philip II, what is Philip specifically accused for, is forcing his state into a league that is not open for all Greeks. Do you think that when Darius and Xerxes tried to invade Athens, orators like Demosthenes had to convince Athenians to fight against them because they're foreign rulers? Or do you think that anyone would ever accuse a barbarian nation for not respecting the Pan-Hellenic rules? If he's a barbarian (non-Greek), then why should he give a crap about what Greeks do with each other? I hope I'm making some things clearer to you.

I can bring up countless of similar examples that show clearly what Demosthenes really believes, and whether he's saying that Philip's rule is a foreign occupation or a Greek hegemony (that himself renounces). But do I really need to continue?? For a moment stop trying looking for the opinions of random scholars and answer me with your own logic and judgement. Miskin

I'll address more of your points later. For now, I'm pointing out that you're wrong about Thracians not allowed to become Athenian citizens: Sadokos, son of Sitalkes, became an Athenian citizen. I'm not sure about Thucydides being half-Thracian (I read it somewhere), but I'll check up on this. Decius 08:41, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you confuse him with Themistocles (who didn't have a citizenship anyway). In the Classic period, Athenian citizenship was inherited only by blood, id est both parents had to be citizens of Athens (not just Greeks or residents of the city). The sole exception to this law had been the son of Pericles, who was granted the citizenship eventhough he was born to a non-Athenian mother. In the Hellenistic Age (which you're probably thinking of) this law became more flexible and even women managed to acquire the citizenship (before it was restricted to men). Miskin

There's no confusion about Sadokos. The Sadokos case is before the Hellenistic period (he was son of Sitalkes, the Thracian king who attacked the kingdom of Perdiccas the II). But like I said, I'm not sure about Thucydides. Decius 12:55, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

It's pretty much irrelevant anyway. The point here is that I've proved how Demosthenes did not consider Philip nor Macedonia to be non-Greeks in the way we define Greekness at the time (language&culture). His speech is a political propaganda in which the terms 'non-Greek' and 'barbarian' are used as insults. Thucydides frequently referred to Greeks of Thessaly and North-Western Greece as barbarians who led semi-tribal lives, carried weapons, ate raw meat and spoke unintelligible dialects. Of course Macedonians were nowhere near that level, but this reference shows that even from the Classic period, the word 'barbarian' had started obtaining the metaphorical meaning that it has today (and was used as an insult among Greeks). Miskin

No, it's not irrelevant, because it shows once again your inaccuracies in this debate. For Sadokos becoming an Athenian citizen, see Thucydides, book II, part 29: "Coming to Athens, Nymphodoros concluded the alliance with Sitalkes and made his son Sadokos an Athenian citizen...". In his book, The Thracians, Ralph F. Hoddinott mentions this case: "Ambitious and extremely able, Sitalkes was courted by Athens and became her ally in the Peloponnesian War. His son, Sadokos, became an Athenian citizen and Nymphodoros was appointed delegate to Sitalkes...". Decius 13:24, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Your interpretation of Demosthenes is idiosyncratic, and I see no need to refute what is not established. Decius 13:24, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

There are no inaccuracies in what I say. The fact that one or two (or even 10) people managed to break the Athenian law (I've already mentioned one of the examples), is irrelevant to the argument i.e: whether or Athenian citizenship was inherited by blood (according to the law). I'm not even going to examine the reliability of your sources, I just take your word for granted. But to use this exception as a proof that Athenian citizenship did not require TWO Athenian parents, it's exactly as naive as to say that the Olympic Games were open to women because Kallipatera managed to enter disguised as a man. This debate started because you wanted to back up your erroneous claim of Thucydides being half-Thracian and an Athenian citizen at the same time. So the only inaccuracy is found on your false statements. Miskin

Your interpretation of Demosthenes is idiosyncratic, and I see no need to refute what is not established.

This is something that I should be saying to you, however it proves that your quoation has been refuted. Go to the "Musée du Louvre" in Paris, you'll come across "Roman" and "Greek" antiquities. Within the Greek archaeological findings you'll find everything that comes from or concern ancient Macedon. In the little historical information you'll find all Macedonian history categorised in the timeline of ancient Greece, with no distinction whatsoever. According to you, either the archaelogists and historians of the greatest museum in the world are mateurs (or just lazy), or a common academic opinion in the subject has already been established and you're hiding behind your finger. Miskin

Miskin, this is OFF TOPIC. Please continue this discussion on Hellenes :).--Wiglaf 15:30, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

This article is about Hellenes Wiglaf; this is what I'm trying to make you realise.

Miskin, in Wikipedia ethnic articles and linguistic articles are kept separate. This is a linguistic article.--Wiglaf 16:19, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't be so sure that the way the Louvre organizes the antiquities represents their views on the matter. For instance, in ancient Dacia, besides Dacians, there were also Celts & Scythians & Greeks on the coast, and museums would not hesitate to class all these antiquities under the section: ancient Dacia. And while I may have been wrong about Thucydides' mother being half-Thracian (I indicated I wasn't sure & I'm still checking up on this), the Athenian 'rule' had so many exceptions that it was not much of a rule. In any case, it is generally accepted that Thucydides had Thracian blood going further back beyond his parents, whether or not he was half-Thracian. But enough about this topic. I found another quote from Thucydides that again shows him separating Hellenes from Macedonians, and I will quote it later, though there is no need to. Decius 01:56, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

reverts

sure, Decius. This has gone on long enough. This is the language article, and classical authors are only of interest if they are pertinent to the linguistic classification. Edits off this topic have no place here, and if they are not argued and compromised upon, we'll just revert them. The topic of this article is a language Miskin, not bloody "Hellenic blood", why is this so difficult to understand? dab (ᛏ) 21:19, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

• sigh* You're being contradictory (again). The debate started with your vandalism on the article Macedon. Decius' excuse for this vandalism was that language is the most important factor that defines ethnicity, therefore since according to his personal opinion, Macedonian speech was not Greek enough, we shouldn't let Macedon imply that they were (and hide all evidence that does). Then you dab, in person, invited me to the discussion of the Macedonian Language, implying that the ethnic status of ancient Macedonians in any article, depends on this one. I happen to agree with Decius about language defining ethnicity. It's because of the fact that I do not believe in race and blood that I'm wasting my time with your nonsense. I also have to remind you that you do NOT own any of those articles, and neither of you has the right to tell me to back off because you don't agree with me. You have failed to find scholarly opinion that can explain all the evidence that is presented and refutes your theories. You have in several occasions shown that you have never research both sides of the story. You have shown an overall prejudiced and biased behaviour, you just can't accept being corrected event when it's been proved that you are wrong. For those and many more reasons, I don't intend to ever let you have your ways by vandalising foreign heritage. I don't agree that ethnicity is separate to language as you now chose to suggest (in order to find an excuse to get rid of me). However, I'm offering terms. If we both pretend that language and ethnicities are two independent notions, it means that the context of the article Macedon becomes independent of the article ancient Macedonian Language. That means that each article will be based on different criteria. Naturally, the article 'Macedon' should be written according to historical sources and Classics, while the article 'ancient Macedonian language' will be written according to your POV linguistics. This means that no non-historical sources will affect article 'Macedon' and no non-linguistics sources will affect article 'ancient Macedonian language'. This is the fairest compromise I can think of. Miskin

I have to remind you Miskin, that you do not own these articles either. What you suggest sounds like a working compromise. It is a good idea to keep language and ethnicity apart, even if they usually correlate. I am quite certain that Irishmen consider themselves to be "Irish" whether they are speaking Irish or English, and that the same goes for Scotsmen (whether they speak Scots English, standard English or Gaelic) and Welshmen (whether they speak Welsh or English). There are many ethnicities where the members speak different languages, and we should not try to categorize the ancient Macedonian language as Greek or not depending on various quotes about the ethnicity of the ancient Macedonians, which AFAIK, was not uncontroversial.--Wiglaf 13:59, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wiglaf now you're confusing the modern notion of nationality with the concept of ethnicity of antiquity. For obvious reasons your example is out of context. If we take for granted the ethnicity to be defined by the individuals ethnic feelings, then we know for certain that Macedonians considered themselves Greek (quotations from Alexander I, Philip II, Alexander III can easily verify this). As you see, professor Decius and Dab have totally ignored this little detail. For them what defines ethnicity it varies according to the circumstances, for example when I was trying to revert their vandalism in Macedon, they told me to settle the debate in the discussion page of the 'ancient macedonian language' (because at that point they considered language a definite factor of ehtnicity), and after they were tired of not being able to answer so many historical oxymora which proved them wrong, they said that this is a "linguistics" article wich has no ethnic context. So if that's what they believe right now, I suppose they won't have a problem with the edits I'm about to do in Macedon, since they'll be based solely on historical sources and ancient quations rather than POV linguistics (and then of course they will change their minds to what suits them best). I never considered myself the owner of any article, and I think that's shown by my long contribution in the discussion pages. Those sarcastic terms aim to verify that Dab and Decius put no logic on their arguments, they just have an opinion fixed in their heads (Macedonians != Greeks) and they are prejudiced against everything that proves the opposite, even if that comes from the mouth of Alexander the Great himself. Miskin

No, you've extrapolated what I've said on earlier occasions. In the case of the ancient Balkanic peoples especially, where differences in phenotypes were not that marked (though differences did exist to a degree) among different peoples (Hellenes, Pelasgians, Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians, etc.) native language was more the thing that defined "ethnos" (<read that definition). I was not extending that notion to modern peoples, who are extremely mixed across the globe. The evidence as it is now does not demonstrate that the original Macedonians spoke Greek as Greek is traditionally defined (the accepted ancient Greek dialects). Macedonian has not been accepted as a Greek dialect due to lack of evidence: some scholars believe that it was a Greek dialect, more scholars, however, do not. Decius 16:43, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

While the parameters are clear in this article, in the case of the Macedon article it gets stickier. Because: Macedonian rulers such as Alexander I of Macedon identified himself as a Greek (see Herodotus), and Herodotus specifically tackled this claim, and accepted that the Macedonian Royals were Greeks. If you read Herodotus Book Five, 20-22, in context, you will see that Herodotus addressed this issue specifically because it seemed strange to a Greek that a Macedonian should say he is a Greek, so Herodotus explained the claim and vouched for it in the case of the royal lineage. This is how the majority of classicists and historians interpret that Herodotus passage, not how "Borza" interprets it. Borza wasn't even born when that conclusion was reached and generally accepted. Decius 17:40, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Like I said, it gets more complicated in the Macedon article, because if at least the Classical rulers of Macedon thought of themselves as Greeks or Greek-Macedonians, then one can argue that Macedon was "a Greek state". This is a very contentious issue, but most scholarly references that I've seen here in the U.S. describe Macedon as a Macedonian state, though I guess Nicholas Hammond and others like him would consider it a Greek state---though since the general populace was Macedonian, it should be viewed as Macedo-Greek at least, not Greek, and like I said, most sources do not characterize it as Greek. A survey of the opinions of classical historians and other scholars is what will settle the Macedon debate, so don't jump on the article and call it "a Greek state" yet. This is Wikipedia, not your personal website. Decius 17:46, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

First of all the term phenotype is completely irrelevant to the topic as it refers to something racial rather than cultural. If you think so blindly that more scholars do not believe in Macedonian being a Greek dialect, then how do you explain that in all academic institutions around the world, Macedonian rule over central Greece is described as a "Macedonian hegemony" and a pan-hellenic alliance against Persia? Why does almost every institution accepts (or takes for granted) that Macedonians were Greeks? Why are your scholars ignored? If you think that the group of scholars that supports your POV are so reliable, then how come you've been unable to find references to the points I noted earlier? Maybe your scholars are not so renounced in the academic circles after all, logical as they have missed some chapters of history.

and Herodotus specifically tackled this claim, and accepted that the Macedonian Royals were Greeks. If you read Herodotus Book Five, 20-22, in context, you will see that Herodotus addressed this issue specifically because it seemed strange to a Greek that a Macedonian should say he is a Greek, so Herodotus explained the claim and vouched for it in the case of the royal lineage.

I simply don't believe that this is how the majority of scholars interpret it. Herodotus mentioned explicitly mentionted that the name "Macedonians" was applied to Dorian people, he constantly subcategorises Macedonians under the word "Greek", and he refers to numerous Persian quotations who consider the occupation of Macedonia as a rule over Northern Greeks! After knowing this information, an unbiased person would have to be at least mentally disabled to believe that Herodotus is agnostic on the ethnic origin of the Macedonian people, and therefore reach the above conclusion about his passage on Alexander I. Herodotus didn't speak any language other than Greek, and as he had personally travelled to Macedon (and many other places), it would be impossible for him to be confused on the ethnic origin of the Macedonian people, let alone the language they spoke. Even if 90% of what Herodotus said was wrong, there are some things which cannot be simply put that way (right-wrong). If Herodotus after travelling to Macedonia was unable to realise that Macedonians were not Greeks who didn't speak Greek, and yet insists on considering them Greeks, then he's either a liar or just mentally ill. You can't categorise this under his possible historical inaccuracies. Alexander I was the ruler of a Kingdom that was under Persian occupation. He later presented himself in Athens as the satrap of a Persian region who wants risks his life in order to help the Athenians and provide them with confidential information on the Persian plans. Have you ever considered that because of this detail, Alexander's personal ethnic origin might have been a crucial factor to the Athenian decision? Whether Athenians considered him reliable or not, had a crucial role to their decision and the outcome of the war. This is for an example an explanation which doesn't contradict neither the meaning of Herodotus' writings, nor the historical information known on Herodotus, nor the vast majority of Classical sources.

---though since the general populace was Macedonian, it should be viewed as Macedo-Greek at least.

The term "Macedo-Greek" is unknown to academic institutions, I'm sorry but the POVs of your scholars are not representative of what is commonly accepted. Your above statement would be correct if we took for granted that Macedonians were an ethnic group distinct of Greeks. I think the whole debate revolves around that question, and I think it's merely ironic that besides your incapability of covering so many of my points (Greek plays of the 5th centuries, archaeological inscriptions of th 5th centuries from Greece and Persia etc, etc), you have the nerve to take your POV for granted. The only good thing that comes out of this is that you keep proving me right at every single account. You have your own POV fixed in your mind, you have found all scholars who support it, and present your one-sided view as the commonly accepted opinion (being ignorant of all other scholars who support the opposite). You believe in what you and your scholars support because that's what you want to believe, you're biased and prejudiced to all the things that refute you (this is why you ignored them). The terms "Macedo-Greek" or "Greco-Macedonian" will not stand unless we explicitly prove and agree that the Macedonian people were ethnically different from Greeks (and believed so themselves). To prove this you'd have to cover all points I've been bringing up all this time. It is mutually agreed that the Macedonian royals were accepted by themselves and by all others as Greeks. It is agreed that the Macedonian royals considered Macedonia to be a part of Greece. It is not agreed yet whether Macedonian people spoke Greek or not, and therefore whether they could be regarded as Greeks. It's agreed that the ethnic feelings of the Macedonian royals were representatives of the ethnic feelings of the Macedonian people - this is also proved by Philip's and Alexander's successful military careers. After gathering all those fact, I'm sure that you agree that Macedon can be described as nothing other than a "Greek Kingdom". The terms "Greco-Macedonian" or "Macedo-Greek" stand scientifically incorrect as they consider a POV, unsupported assumption as common knowledge (Macedonians being different to Greeks). Having said this, I agree on a survey on the opinions of Classical historians and Hellenistic scholars. Miskin

You really have no idea do you. I have here two recent (one current, one from late 1990's) University history text books used in American universities that once again show that the prevalent view is to describe Macedon as a Macedonian state, not Greek. I'll quote them later today or tomorrow. I know the term Macedo-Greek doesn't exist, I wasn't saying it should be used in Wikipedia. What I meant is that to call Macedon a Greek state is unacceptable given the state of the evidence; to call it Macedo-Greek in the classical period can be argued for, but this term is not in usage. The majority of scholarly works at present refer to it as the Macedonian state. I don't know what you were thinking of, but you were off. Decius 19:50, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

And you're wrong about phenotypes, smart guy. They are not used in anthropology to define race or racial characteristics. Anthropologists currently do not categorize race according to a set of phenotypes, and in fact anthropologists steer clear from defining race among human beings. A phenotype is basically any outwardly noticeable physical feature that distinguishes one organism from another, or one group of organisms from another. For example, according to Xenophon, there was a difference between Greek and Thracian phenotypes when taken together (though he didn't state it in these terms, that's what he implies). There were differences in pheonotype proportions even among those Balkanic groups that I mentioned, but we can both agree here (I assume) that language defined ethnicity more than anything else in the ancient Balkans, which is the time & place that concerns us here. Nevertheless, it is incorrect to say that phenotypes are an irrelevant issue, because we don't know exactly the differences among phenotypes in those ancient groups. But language, as I said, was the bigger issue. Decius 20:07, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You keep talking about "academic institutions", but the majority of academic institutions do not support your view. Unless you refer only to those in Greece. Decius 20:39, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Do most academic institutions refer to ancient Macedon as a Greek state?---Most definitely do not. This is true in the United States and elsewhere, where they refer to it as Macedonian. I was thinking about those lesser number of scholars (who are the majority in Greece) who refer to it as "Greek"---judging from current references (which is what we should judge from in an internet encyclopedia/reference work) most scholars would agree it is not to be referred to as Greek. "Macedo-Greek" though could be applied to the state of the Argive Macedonian Kings; but that's an issue that's not in Wikipedia's jurisdiction. Most references refer to it as a Macedonian state, and that is how this public internet reference will refer to it. Let's take this discussion to Talk:Macedon. Better yet, it's time to just quote references exactly and end all this back & forth arguing. That's what I recommend for all sides of this debate, and I'm collecting more references to further back up what is said in the articles . Decius 00:16, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

the katadesmos

well, Chronographos, I do not doubt that the text was discovered in 1986, and published in 1993 (although I can find no reference to it), but who says it's Macedonian, or has any relation to the language described here? As far as I can see, it's just a Dorian text like any other? for example, tithemai is just plain Greek. Without the devoicing, it would need to be didemai. You are essentially saying that the whole "dialectal variants" Miskin has been arguing for so long do not exist at all, that all our glosses are either wrong, or loanwords, and there never was an Ancient Macedonian language other than plain Dorian. dab (ᛏ) 19:25, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

genestai for genesthai may indicate that they mixed up aspiration, but I'm afraid that also here, it would have to be genesdai to qualify as Macedonian. dab (ᛏ) 19:58, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

well, Dbachmann, it was found in Pella, and is written in a unique form of Dorian, and yes, it could have been written by an immigrant, but as complete texts go that's all there is. Which is why I scanned and posted it: so that people versed in Ancient Greek may read it and draw their own conclusions. Comment is free, fact is sacred. I am not suggesting anything other than what I wrote: that the text is in a form of Dorian with strong northwestern elements, which would qualify it as of a singular variety. I am surprised that you think that "mixed up aspiration" is universal in Macedonian. It is not. There is Berenice for Pherenike, but there is Bilippos as well as Philippos, and there is no Bilotas, just Philotas. Trust me, if all t's and th's turned to d's and all p's and ph's turned to b's, Alexander would have perished, for when he sounded the attack ("epithesis"), his soldiers would have thought he needed a band-aid ("epidesis"). "Genestai" is an attested form, whereas your "genesdai" is an impossible form: it would then be written "genezai". Hellenic Dialectology journal is not online, unfortunately, but you can find references to it if you Google in Greek. Can't you? User:Chronographos

Alexander the Great spoke Attic Greek also, so that's no problem. Decius 20:51, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

it was a joke, Decius, but if you're willing to take it at face value, then I would argue that he may have spoken Attic to Aristotle, but not to his veterans. Anyway I have no objection either to Dbachmann's transfer of the katadesmos to a separate entry, nor indeed to the whole Ancient Macedonian Language or Macedon entries. None whatsoever. Dearth of fact leads to an abundance of comment, so any fact (like the katadesmos text) is invaluable. If comment is required of me, I will put on my physician's white coat and offer the old clinical maxim: "If you hear hoofbeats, it's horses, not zebras"  :)

I agree, the katadesmos is a valuable addition. Anyway, saying there is Bilippos as well as Philippos, so the aspiration was not treated uniformly is like saying there is English Tuesday as well as divine, so the German sound shift was inconsistent! :o) thanks for your addition, though. I think we should transcribe your image, though, and replace the Modern Greek text with an English translation. You cannot expect readers of the English Wikipedia to read explanations in Greek. regards, dab (ᛏ) 21:12, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

no problem, but why do you write "as early as during the reign of Philip ..."? That's a judgement call (and it's not good English either). You could have written "as late as ..." and it would have been equally arbitrary! User:Chronographos

I admit that it is a judgement call, inadvertently so, sorry. I maintain the English is alright, though. dab (ᛏ) 09:47, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That was very low of you grapho (that remark to dab). You won't do good for your case by being a prick. But you can try that angle and see for yourself. Decius 21:56, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

what was "low", Decius? If I were to follow your ad hominem example, I would say that you are sucking up to him. But I won't. I insist that "as early" is as arbitrary a judgement call as "as late" would have been. And I don't have any "case" to defend, as you so very charmingly put it. The only scientifically valid statement would be "during the reign of Philip II". It seems to me that Dbachmann can participate in a scientific argument without attributing useless motives and using foul language. Unlike you.

If you want to participate in the argument, get your facts together tighter. I consider Dab an ally here, so I back him up against individuals who are attempting to be smug while making needless errors in the process. I don't need to suck up to any contributor, but some cheapshots just have to be addressed. Decius 22:10, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Ally", "enemy" ... science is not like that, decius. I'm surprised you didn't know that. Or am I? User:Chronographos

Science IS like that, all too often.--Wiglaf 07:05, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Science often is like that. It's been documented many times. Decius 22:20, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, it's self-appointed scientists who are often like that. You managed to call me a "prick", "smug", "low" and a "cheapshot" without offering a single argument of fact. No, wait, you did say that I made "needless errors". Could you name some, pretty please? User:Chronographos

The argument that the name Philotas presupposes inconsistency in the aspiration of 'ph/b' is one error that sticks out---you do realize that that name could have been simply borrowed at a later date? Decius 22:32, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good golly, an argument instead of expletives! How refreshing ... I'll take this as proof of reformed behavior, skip your lack of apologies for your namecalling and concentrate on your Philotas argument. The essence of it is: what is the earliest dated instance of retained aspiration on Macedonian inscriptions? And the answer, sir, is???

That's a question I've thought about before, because one can say it developed later. I don't know when the first instance was recorded. I encourage you to find out. Round two is on you. I think we're both big enough to put aside prior events and focus on the issues. You had to go in that direction though, so don't blame me. Decius 22:47, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I salute your new-found civility. Let's hope it'll last. I am afraid your apparent lack of scientific training, and the fact that you do not know Ancient Greek, puts you at a definite disadvantage. There is no "Round Two" on me. I claim that there is no evidence that the aspiration issue was universally observed during classical times. And now you want me to find evidence when I claim there is none! Sorry, but that's a non sequitur. It's not me that has a preconceived notion as to what Macedonian language really was. Is it you? I observe what evidence is there. It's not for me to make judgement calls on such a highly disputed controversy. But apparently academics from the world's most prominent departments of classics have increasingly gravitated towards the "Northwestern Dorian" theory, as the "Ancient Macedonian language" article points out. Since the Pella katadesmos was the only significant recent finding in Macedonian epigraphology, and one that is unique in its completeness, maybe it had something to do with it.

Ah, you see: once again you have revealed the weasel that you are with that comment of yours. I don't give a fuck about "training". I don't get trained. I do what I want to do when I please, and studying ancient Greek is about as dear to me as urinating out of a window. It's not my desire to prove anything concerning the Ancient Macedonian language---I am reporting. I have seen no indication that "most classicists" have shifted toward the Greek dialect view. Decius 23:15, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A "weasel" too? To quote the Church Lady, "well, isn't that special?" It must be so frustrating for you, trying to discuss scientifically on a matter for which you lack any qualification whatsoever. Be that as it may. What is truly inexcusable is your blatant misquoting of my words ("most classicists" indeed!). I would be inclined to believe it was a bona fide error, but my response was right there before your eyes ("academics from the world's most prominent departments of classics"). One would be tempted to ascribe malevolence, even malfeasance, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt: where and what have you studied in your life, my dear? User:Chronographos

I've already discussed what needed to be discussed, and demonstrated your assumption. So what other points have you raised that you want to discuss pertaining to your recent edits to the article? And what are your qualifications on this topic? In this forum, qualifications are in what one puts in the article. It seems that you are trying to mask your scientific errors by deflecting the issue with weasel-remarks. Decius 23:35, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Decius, I am giving up on you. I was imagining that there was at least a thin patina of civilization on top of you, but it just isn't there. You constantly refuse to answer pertinent questions and to respond to critical scrutiny: the part and parcel of scientific procedure. Indeed it seems to me that "urinating out of a window" is probably what you do best. That and "bait-and-switch". Bye-bye, Decius User:Chronographos

Dbachmann, can we inject a token modicum of proper debate into this discussion? That Decius person obviously thinks that the editor of the Oxford Classical Dictionary does not express the scholarly consensus that exists within Oxford University, but rather writes on a whim. He is probably not acquainted with the way Western Universities function User:Chronographos

hey!

Chronographos, I feel I have to apologize for Decius (no need to call him a "prick" on my behalf Decius, I wasn't even offended). You need to understand that Decius is a bit sick of the topic, having been forced through a prolongued hostile and unscholarly mudslinging with Miskin (see the rest of this page). But Decius, Chronographos is not Miskin, here we finally have someone to argue with on an acceptable level. It was an unhappy start, can we just clean the slate and start over with discussing the katadesmos, no hard feelings, yes? dab (ᛏ) 09:47, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Dbachmann, I am not in the least surprised by your civil and composed response. Maybe Decius' English is no better than his Ancient Greek. Certainly his seething rage is unjistified, and highly indicative of a person with an agenda, and in denial. I will read the rest of the talk page at my leisure, because it is quite lengthy. As for the katadesmos, what is there to discuss? I already provided a translation in English - would you like me to expand on the Grammar used? It's interesting that you ask that the slate be cleaned. I see nothing on my slate. If Decius wishes to, he can start by offering apologies for calling me all these horrible insults, and most especially the "weasel" part, which came even after his olive branch (the hypocrisy of it!). He should apologize earnestly, unreservedly and abjectly. Unless he does so, I will have every right to be calling him "the Window Urinator" (his words, not mine). In the meantime I would like to ask you to take a look at this article-featured external link: http://www.geocities.com/indoeurop/project/glossary/mace.html and comment on it. I think it's pathetically amateurish.

sure, sure, I just meant that I would like to drop the topic. The katadesmos is quite alright, no problem, everybody agrees its Doric Greek, and I see no reason to doubt that it was found in Pella, or that it dates to the 4th century. So you see, we don't have any problems, content-wise, at all. dab (ᛏ) 12:08, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That geocites article was written by Cyril Babaev (who maintains T.I.E.D.) unless I'm mistaken. It is sloppy and questionable. What was used from it were only the more common views---except for the statement that 's' was preserved in Macedonian, which I took only from that site but later agreed to remove it immediately from the article till verified by other sources. The Indo-European Data Base (T.I.E.D.) is full of that type of material. Decius 12:16, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't care who Cyril Babaev is or what he does for a living. Anyone who writes that "klinotrokhos" (a bed with wheels? a gurney wheel? a slanted wheel?) is somehow related with the Bulgarian word for ... maple (!) is obviously an idiot. That's like saying that PataGONIA is related to orthoGONAL triangles. Did you urinate out of a window today, Decius? Them flowerpots a-needin' their nitrogen, ya know ... [ User:Chronographos, striking out by User:Dbachmann ].

Now I must chide you, Chronographos, for taunting. If you must taunt, do it on people's talk pages, this page is for public on-topic discussion. Decius agreed with you that the TIED source is not a state-of-the-art resource. It is left over from an early stage of this article, and once our article contains all facts given in the TIED one, we can remove the link. Also, please sign, typing ~~~~, it makes it much easier to follow discussions. Also, I wouldn't be too quick to refute the "maple" etymology. "bed with wheels" isn't much better, and it wasn't Babaev's idea. You are saying Julius Pokorny is an idiot, for saying

kleno- "maple" (z. T. mit noch ungeklärtem i, ei) Maked. klinotrokhon (s. G. Meyer IF. 1, 325 f.) `Ahornart', gr. gleinon (Lw.); mnd. lönenholt `Ahornholz'; ndd. löne, läne in pomm.-rüg. lön usw. `Ahorn' (*hluni-z; aus dem Nd. nhd. Lehne, Lenne `Spitzahorn') = aisl. hlynr (hlunr), dän. lœn, schwed. lönn `Ahorn', ags. hlyn ds. (wohl besser als hli:n); daneben ahd. mhd. li:n-, li:m-boum, nhd.Leim-, Lein-baum, -ahorn; lit. (mit ganz unklarem v) kle~vas `Ahorn'; russ. kle'nù `Ahorn', serb. kleùn und kljeùn `Feldahorn', ku:n (*klùnù) `Art Baum' usw.

(IEW, p. 603). Don't just see red because you read "Bulgarian". This isn't about Bulgarian at all, but about a PIE word kleno-. dab (ᛏ) 12:30, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Until he finds it in himself to do what he requests of others (be "big enough", in his own words), I will continue to do so. I will only be using his own words and manner of behavior. Some people learn this way only, Dbachmann. As for the "Bulgarian red" remark, please, I don't do racism. Please offer your reading of the klinotrokhon word. Surely it is something to do with wheels, right? Let's take it from there. User:Chronographos

Thanks for this quote from Pokorny Dab. I felt a bit confused by Chronographos assertion. The connection seems quite obvious, IMO.--Wiglaf 12:45, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have never even heard the word befor, 'graphos. But I just gave you a reference, the etymology is from G. Meyer Indogermanische Forschungen 1, 325 f., and in 1959 Pokorny still thought it valid. Did you check where it occurs? I mean, maybe it's Hesychius, saying "a tree", and then the wheels would be out of the picture. I prefer to do some research before saying an opinion is idiotic. dab (ᛏ) 12:50, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"The wheels out of the picture"?!? It's deja-vu all over again. Here you have a word staring at you (trokhon) and instead of trying to include it in the picture, you choose the other way. If Hesychius refers to trees with wheels, what does he mean? Ents? Was he reading Tolkien? Come on, answer my question: what do you make of "klinotrokhon"?User:Chronographos

ok, 'graphos. I checked. The word is from Theophrastus who says that the maple is called klinotrokhon in Stageira. Meyer in 1892 argued that the word is related to gleinon, and apparently that is still accepted. Meyer doesn't have an explanation for the -trokhon part. But if you want to argue that the idea is idiotic, you will now need to find a reference with on opposing view. Are you a linguist? Do publish your view of the word somewhere, and we'll refer to it here. Kindly review Wikipedia:No original research. My opinion is irrelevant, as long as I cannot back it up with published sources. dab (ᛏ) 12:59, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

in fact, maybe there were Ents, or maples on wheels, in Stageira, or this was a private joke between Theophrastus and Aristotle. In any case, wheels or no wheels, it seems very obvious that the klino- part is the maple word, and not from "slanted". This is interesting, since here we have a devoicing in Macedonian, while Greek has voiced gamma. But the Greek word is considered a loanword, so that is inconclusive. dab (ᛏ) 13:04, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you, dab! Now we are getting somewhere. What we need is to find out in what sense Theophrastus says this. In the unlikely case you didn't know, Stagirites were the butt of jokes in the ancient world, because of their perceived stupidity (Aristotle notwithstanding). The most famous tale of Stagiritic stupidity was the "περί όνου σκιάς" tale: i.e. whether selling a donkey entails selling the donkey's shadow as well! I would not put it past any ancient writer to write on Stagirites just to ridicule them. Who knows if Pokorny, a Celtic expert, knew about all this ... User:Chronographos

Theophrastus was writing a botanical dictionary. Actually, he said that there is a different kind of maple, called klinotrokhon (or -os?), in Stageira. I don't think it was a joke on Th.'s side, but we could reconstruct another Stagirite joke. This is a tangent, however, we don't even discuss the word in the article, we are just discussing this because you claimed Babaev was an idiot for saying klinotrokhos is related to other words for maple. dab (ᛏ) 13:13, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

how about:

"The Stagirite lumberjack returns from town in the middle of the night, his mule wearily dragging the car, of which the wheels are missing. Cries his wife: 'what on earth happened to you? Have you been robbed? Or have you gone gambling again?' — replies he, innocently, 'but, dear, didn't you ask me to go to the market and sell the klinotrokhoi?'" dab (ᛏ) 13:33, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Excellent! I'll go one better: the cart was donkey-, not mule-drawn, and the lumberjack couldn't rest in the donkey's shadow because he hadn't expressly bought it when he bought the donkey proper! And let's call the lumberjack Dionysophon, and make his wife Thetima a real witch!  :) :) Anyhow, I find it hard to believe that Theophrastus would describe a tree by using what might be a valid PIE-derived word and adding the word for "wheel" to it. Now an "άρμα κλινότροχον" for example (a chariot with wheels made of maplewood) would be perfectly ok, but a tree ... Ancient writers cannot always be taken at face value (nor can modern ones, for that matter). Plato himself discusses etymology in one of his dialogues and the interpretations he offers are nothing short of childish and ridiculous. Theophrastus could not have telephoned the Stageira Botanical Garden, nor indeed all the respective Botanical Gardens of the places he wrote about (joke alert, joke alert!). Much of it had to be hearsay. That's the way information flowed at the time. So take it with a pinch of salt User:Chronographos

I think you should tell that to people who insist on proving the hellenicity of the Makedonians on grounds that the Persians called them "Greeks with funny hats". I don't know about maplewood chariots, but it seems established that the klino- is cognate to gleinon.

Why bother with chauvinists? And speaking about pinches of salt, I intend to have a mouthful: it's a sunny Sunday here, the beach is only a couple of blocks away, so I'll go swimming in ten minutes :) User:Chronographos

glossary

I imported the TIED glossary. It can be added to and commented. I changed ahrounoi to arounoi since I don't know what to make of the former, but it should be checked. Similarly, I changed hetairoi to etairoi, since we have no way of knowing which it was (the Byzantines would have added the spirant mechanically, and if it's from an inscription, there is no spirant anyway). It seems clear that etairoi is just standard Greek anyway, and I wonder why it is featured in the list at all. dab (ᛏ) 13:59, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm wondering about that also. It is standard, pretty much. Decius 14:01, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What puzzles me, dab, is the agema entry. Why is it specifically Macedonian? An agema (from άγω) is an impromptu military formation, and the word is used to this day with the exact same meaning. The closest English (rather, American, as in the Far West) translation would be a posse User:Chronographos

if we don't find out why the words are specifically Macedonian, we can remove them. This is why I copied the list. But we have to check. Probably some author somewhere says the word is of Macedonian origin.

I added stuff from Pokorny. i don't understand the kikerroi gloss. The Adriatic link was just my momentary idea. Can somebody check the suggested etymologies for adriatic? Would that be a similar naming motive to pontos euxeinos? dab (ᛏ) 14:17, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I assume Babaev did not mean to exclude the Macedonian words that are equivalent to known Greek forms. Agema poses no problem in the context of Greek, but I'm about 99.99% certain it was recorded as a Macedonian term, so it should stay on the list. We shouldn't remove Macedonian words that are identical to Greek---we can however note that some of these words may (or may not) have been later borrowings from Greek, as has been noted. Though I have a feeling agema was native to Macedonian also. Decius 14:27, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

of course, but ideally for each word we should find out the context in which it is attested, just like I did for the maple. But that's not urgent, I guess references will just slowly aggregate over time as people show up and dispute things, that's the driving force of WP after all :) dab (ᛏ) 14:38, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agema was probably native to Macedonian. Besides ancient Greek equivalents, it has native Latin equivalents, formed from Latin ago. Agmen in Latin meant 'a troop, an army', and as a verb could mean 'to march forward'. Common PIE *ag, 'to drive'. Decius 14:52, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm guessing Macedonian adis (>hearth) is from PIE *aidh. Decius 15:24, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Adriatic seems to be connected to the Roman names Adria and Hadria according to my references, so I don't go for a connection there, but who knows. Decius 15:13, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also connected to the ancient city Atria, it seems, and with PIE *ater, 'black, burned'. References: American Heritage Dicitonary, and www.etymonline.com. Decius 15:16, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

that's better. let's remove the link! dab (ᛏ) 15:40, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Three questions, dab:

1. What is the source of the Glossary words? I would like to see them first-hand (if they are online).

2. What is the point of including e.g. Pydna unless there is some etymology for it?

3. Are you interested in a list of Attic cognates of the Glossary words?

Finally, the LSJ entry for άγημα:

ἄγημα , τό, (from ἄγω, or perh. Dor. for ἥγημα; Boeot. ἄγειμα , BCH18.534 (Thisbe))

     A. anything led, division, corps of an army, of the Lacedaemonians, X.Lac.11.9, 13.6: in the Macedonian army, the Guard, Plb.5.65.2, Arr.An.1.1.11; τῶν ἱππέων τὸ ἄ. ib.4.24.1; τῶν πεζῶν τὸ ἄ. 2.8.3; τῶν ἐλεφάντων Phylarch.1 : in the armies of the Ptolemies, etc., PPetr.3p.22 (iii B. C.), Plu.Eum.7, App.Syr.32, cf. Ael.Dion.Fr.8; Βασιλικὸν ἄ. Plb.5.82.4 . 

           II. name of a district in the Heracleopolite nome, PHib.101.3, PTeb.3.38.4.

'Nuff said! User:Chronographos

I don't know about anybody else, but I have a Scott & Liddel's and it's no news to me that agema was also found in standard Greek dialects. It may be that the form was common to both languages, just as in Latin the term agmen (id.) is found (the Latin word is not from Greek). It's inconclusive. Decius 20:42, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

All cognates---Attic cognates, Doric cognates, Swedish cognates, Albanian cognates---can be considered relevant and can be listed. Decius 20:42, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Pudna is here because Pokorny has an etymology for it. If we can give the PIE form, there is no need to list Albanian, Hittite or what not, I think. Yes, we should check each word in the list (most is from Babaev's list, and the references he gives I have merged into our references section). Feel free to start with the words that most interest you, I cannot do them all. dab (ᛏ) 16:30, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I will, I will, no rush! And who is this Babaev fella anyways? Chronographos 17:34, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

WTF?!

The Pella katadesmos, a 4th century BC Doric Greek text found in Pella in 1986, has been forwarded as an argument that Doric Greek was spoken by the general populace in Macedon during the reign of Philip II.

Is that really the most NPOV addition you can come up with after learning about a 4th century genuine Macedonian text? I don't believe it. Has it ever crossed anyone's little head that the Pella katadesmos dialect might actually be the infamous ancient Macedonian "language"? Oh, so it hasn't. I suppose to say this would be another "wild hypothesis" (à la Masson). Of course according to Decius the entire French nation is "bought" in order to support Greek ultra-nationalist propaganda. According to this neutral logic of this article however, Macedonians were fluent with Attic, Doric, Illyrian, Thracian, (and the list can go on) and yet we're 110% convinced that they spoke a DISTINCT Indo-European language. Miskin 13:49, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As a reminder to the experts in here: The North Western family of dialects, among others it includes Doric and Aeolic. The "others", are simply a set of lost and less significant dialects (e.g. ancient Macedonian) that were spoken by a part of the hundreds of Greek states. Having that in mind, the number of ancient Greek idioms was well into the hundreds, and was not restricted to the major dialects that have reached us today. For example Pindar's Doric, is not the same as the Spartan Doric, which in turn is not the same as the Sicilian Doric. There was a common (koine) form for every kind of dialect (including Doric) that was probably differed to all local forms. So to say that the well-known particularities in the pronunciation of Macedonian is different to ALL KNOWN Greek dialects, is just something simply retarded. Do I have to remind you of your own quotation of Thucydides, where he mentions about Greek people who speak unintelligible tongues? Doesn't that contradict your own theories? Ironically enough the first common Greek dialect was created by the Macedonians and promoted by Alexander the Great. Macedonia lies North of Thessaly and East of Epirus, the former being Aeolic and the latter Doric speakers. This is why Masson and the Oxford university have "assumed" Macedonian being a dialect of North-Western Greek. You still haven't told us why some people have assumed other things, neither how those people explain the comedy of Strattis, quotations of Herodotus, Livy, Persian monuments, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc... Miskin 13:49, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Calm down, Miskin, won't you? As I said before, a text is a text is a text, especially if it's the only one of its kind. People with critical ability may read the facts and draw their own conclusions. I was the first to point out that, for all we know, the katadesmos may have been written by an immigrant from another city. The fact that Decius professes to report non-judgementally, while preferring "urinating out of a window" to the study of Ancient Greek, should be enough to characterize the scholarly standards he chooses to adhere to. It is also quite illuminating that he refers to the "Slavic Republic of Macedonia" in the very first line of this page (a flagrant disregard for that country's sizeable Albanian population). My understanding is that Wikipedia articles should concentrate on the facts, and people who make unwarranted judgements will be eventually flushed out. I happen to agree with you in principle regarding the "Northwesten Dorian" hypothesis, and was gratified to find out that no less of an authority than the "Oxford Classical Dictionary" does too. Still, observe how Professor Masson qualifies his opinion with caveats: this is how science is conducted. I happen to be Popperian in outlook, and therefore trust only in the certainty of disproofs, not proofs. This (along with my not inconsiderable training in psychiatry) does not preclude me from having private fun at Decius Maximus ' predicament. On an altogether different note, I made some headway into locating the Hellenic Dialectology issue where the katadesmos was published. If I am to get it however, I will have to go to Kaniggos Square in downtown Athens, which is a long distance from Vouliagmeni. No promises, therefore. I need however to go to the Athens Medical Association sometime soon, to pay my yearly dues, and this is on Themistokleous Street. Should I get my hands on it, I will ask Dbachmann how best he thinks it can be utilized in the Wikipedia context. Unless, that is, you live closer to Kaniggos Square than I do (hint, hint!  :) Chronographos 14:41, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What is my predicament, Chronographos? I'm wondering. Anyway, readers should note that I haven't said a word directly against the Pella katadesmos (scroll up, I don't think I did) and I did not lift a finger against it in the article (see edit history). What happened between me and 'graphos was just one of those things that happens sometimes. I don't take Wikipedia too seriously anyway---Wikipedia is first of all entertainment for me. But, I do take it seriously enough that I keep a close watch on the info presented. Decius 14:55, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If Miskin wants to emphasize more strongly the importance of that Pellas magic spell in the article, it's fine by me. It is an important find, no doubt about it---but it is inconclusive, and it also leaves us with some unexplained questions. Decius 15:05, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If we want to get into psychology, then I think it would be obvious that Miskin is using me as a scapegoat, accusing me of everything anyone has ever said against the idea that ancient Macedonian was a Greek dialect. Decius 15:12, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Dbachmann did all the editing in this Pella case, but of course we must redirect the blame on Decius. Decius 15:36, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

wtf? We have always admitted Greek was spoken in Macedon from the 4th century. If you want to call NW Greek "Macedonian", well, you can do so all day long, but this is not the language that produced "Berenice", and not the language we are writing about here any more than the Macedonian language who just happens to have the name in common. You are obviously not able to distinguish terminology from content. The Dorian invasion must have come from somewhere, and maybe parts of the area of Macedon was settled by Dorians (we just don't know, ffs, that's not my fault), but that would still belong on the Doric Greek article, while the language we label "Macedonian" is different. Why is this so difficult to understand? Miskin, you should be grateful that finally a Greek editor has shown up who knows what he is talking about, and you should just lean back and learn something. dab (ᛏ) 16:00, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

btw, can we say if the katadesmos is NW Greek or Doric Greek? Or somewhere in between? I suppose it can be of importance for Greek dialectology. Unfortunately, just not for the so-called Macedonian language, alas, no didemi. dab (ᛏ) 16:17, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why does there have to be a classification into either "Dorian" or "NW"? Surely the jury is still out on this one, and after all it's only a single text, isn't it? BTW you are jumping into conclusions - it's not at all certain that the Dorians actually invaded (in the USA-Iraq sense of the word), maybe they just sauntered through, twisting their ears when they heard ημέρη instead of αμέρα! Just whoopin' your ass, dab, don't take it seriously :PP The scholar that comments on the katadesmos (Prof. Marianna Margariti-Ronga, of the Dept. of Linguistics, Aristotle University) says that its morphology is unique, therefore it may point to a unique dialect (Macedonian?) but she appropriately qualifies her opinion, just like Professor Masson does. I did think of giving her a call up in Thessaloniki, but then I thought I might be imposing on her time and courtesy Chronographos 17:02, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) (I keep forgetting to sign my damn notes!)

ok, I'd be interested in her conclusions. As for the Dorians, I think the Greek Dark Ages must have had some cause. A glance at a dialect map will show you that the poor Arcadocypriots were just overrun. Linguistically, of course, we cannot prove any bloodshed because people adopted a different language. But if you look at the defense measures the Mycenaean palaces took on the eve of their destruction... you do get some sort of mental picture :) dab (ᛏ) 16:57, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I do:

Arcadocyprian Alice: "Καλήν ημέρην!"

Dorian Queen of Hearts: "Καλάν Αμέραν! Off with your head!'"

:) Chronographos 17:12, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It would be better not to overemphasize the Pella tablet, at least until we find out what type of "splash" it made in the field of Macedonian studies. Decius 16:21, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ancient Macedonian- Greek language

If the Macedonian language was recognized as Greek, and understood by Greeks, you would expect that this was the language used by the great Macedonian kings in a formal or legal context. But it was not.

We know with some certainty that Attic Greek, which came from much farther suth (around the Athens area) and was being used in other parts of the world as a trade language, was used more and more as the language of state and was used also in Alexander's multi-cultural army. No linguist accepts that this language was the original Macedonia.

Many scholars have concluded that the ancient Macedonian language was not a Greek dialect and that it was more or less related to the languages of Macedonian's northern neighbors, the Illyrians and the Thracians.

Philologists have studied words which have been cited as "Macedonian" in ancient lexica and glossaries, and they have come to no certain conclusion; for some of the words are clearly Greek, and some are clearly not Greek. That is not surprising; for as the territory of the Macedonians expanded, they overlaid and lived with peoples who spoke Greek, Illyrian, Paeonian, Thracian and Phrygian, and they certainly borrowed words from them which excited the authors of lexica and glossaries.

--Albanau 16:53, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Albanau, what book are you quoting again? :) Decius 16:59, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

yes, what is your point, Albanau? You are more or less summarizing the article here. dab (ᛏ) 17:00, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Albanau, your arguments are specious. Attic's prestige was immense by the time Philip II entered "world politics", and the fun Athenians made of regional accents (Ionic excepted, of course!) was withering. As a matter of fact we still do  :) To this day, it takes a rather tough person to dare speak regionally in Athenian company, or a complete simpleton for that matter! My best bet as to the degree of Hellenicity of Macedonian would be first personal names. We Greeks have (from time immemorial, and to this day) an extremely rigid tradition of naming sons after their grandfathers and daughters after their grandmothers. I will not go into whether paternal or maternal grandparents get first pick though, or my sister will kill me!  :))))) A list of primary Macedonian names would be invaluable. I know some exist, but where are they? dab , you fool, work for me! :PPPP Chronographos 17:29, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Funny how many Balkanians have maintained their myths that have been coined by politics for political purpose during Balkan's tumult history in the begning of 1800- 1900 century. We have many problem in the Balkans with objectivity, we have also a high degree of paranoia. I've meet a few paranoid balkanians here in Wikipedia, we have Theathenae how claim that Arvanites are not the descendants of settlers of Albanian ancestry, and that the Arvanitic language is a separated language to the Albanian language, [31], [32], Miskin claim that Skanderbeg was at least half Serb, [33], we have Albanians people so well inside Wikipedia and outside who claim 'pure' descendant of the Pelasgians and the Illyrians, Greeks argue that the Macedonian nation is a very recent artificial creation of the master politican Tito, and so on. The purpose with my message was to tell others that the ancient Macedonian language is not Greek, it's just Greek nationalist that have come forward with this claim that the ancient Macedonian language was Greek. Linguists infact cannot even determine wheather Macedonian was an archaic dialect of Greek or another language altogether.

User dab It's irelevant to mention the Macedonian kings who had Greek names since all the Persian kings had Greek names. --Albanau 19:37, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Albanau, you are verklempt. Xerxes' name was Greek? Why, everybody knows it was Italian! His real name was "Serse" and Haendel wrote a whole opera about it! So was Figaro, and both Rossini and Mozart placed their operas in Spain just to confuse you. Sneaky devils ... Chronographos 20:15, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

not to mention Nabucco! Why, the Persians must have learned Italian from the Babylonians. Heck, even in India, their chief grammarian was called Panini, and the Chinese were eating Spaghetti for ages. Omg, it's an Italian world conspiracy, this sheds an entirely new light on the role of User:Rienzo on European toilet paper holder! dab (ᛏ) 21:31, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A conspiracy indeed! And you know who's behind all this, don't you? Ping, Pang and Pong, the devious Italians who passed as mandarins and subdued all of China. Not to mention that they invented ping pong Chronographos 21:57, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Albanau I told you so many times already, wikipedia is "just not for people like you". Take my advice and join an Albanian nationalist forum, I'm sure there you'll find many people of your educational level to share you ideas with. Don't worry about him Decius, he's obviously clueless on the topic. He just follows me around because I pointed out that Skanderbeg's mother was a Serbian princess. It's sad how some people just cant't take the truth. Miskin 09:07, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

you two seem to be in the same boat then :) Compared to some of the stuff that went down on the Pelasgian page, you are actually a very reasonable person, Miskin dab (ᛏ)

I'm glad you finally noticed. What I don't understand is why on earth would someone want to claim heritage from the Pelasgians?? Miskin 09:55, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hmmmm, separation anxiety? Chronographos 10:35, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is simple, many nationalists want to claim as ancient a heritage as possible, and don't hesitate to appropriate the history of lost nations (e.g. Hungary and Sumer, Hindutva and Indus Valley Civilisation). By appropriating the Pelasgians they can claim to have been in the Balkans before the Greeks (I am sorry if I am stating the obvious).--Wiglaf 10:39, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ohhhh, I see, you mean like Decius Maximus and his illusions of Roman grandeur?  ;) Chronographos 10:51, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please Chronographos, try to bury the hatchet.--Wiglaf 10:54, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes :P Chronographos 11:21, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Miskin, can't you see how wrong you are and what a big Serbian nationalist you are. I can't find any neutral sources that claim Skanderbeg was Serb or Greek, this is typhical balkanian dogmatic paraonia. For the record, Vojsava (Skanderbeg's mother) was the name of the daughter to the Albanian prince Prenku of Mirdita who married the Albanian prince Gjon Kastrioti that strength the relation between the two Albanian tribes, mirditas and kastriotes. Albanau 19:56, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Albanau, you don't know what you 're talking about. First of all, Skanderberg is a Swedish truck manufacturer. Miskin is a Croat and his brother is basketball player Stojan Vrancovic. Now for the good news. Your own personal ancestry is indeed extremely ancient and glorious: it goes back to the dawn of time, and it's right here on Wikipedia! Congratulations! Chronographos 21:33, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)