User:Alcaios/Macedonian

"Regarding the language of Macedonia, scholars have in modern times suggested several divergent theories: from a non-Greek language to several Greek dialects."

A important series of glosses has been compiled by ancient writers (mostly by Hesychius), and one verse possibly written in Macedonian has been reproduced by the Athenian poet Strattis (4th c. BCE).

"Both the economic situation in Macedonia (agricultural and pastoral activities, often nomadism) and the political regime were at first unfavorable for the issuing of epigraphic documents, public or private, and when a Macedonian epigraphy finally emerges (late 5th−early 4th century BCE), it uses Attic Greek, which is in the process of becoming the Greek Koine. (...) These documents written in Koine are interesting for our inquiry owing to the dialectal traces and features which they preserve and owing to the countless anthroponyms and toponyms which they transmit."

Some dialectal texts have been found in the last decades, although only two of them are really pertinent: two defixiones, one from Pella (380−350 BCE) and the other from Arethousa (late 4th–early 3rd c. BCE). In these texts, features appear which are common to Thessalian and North-West Greek: apocope, contraction of a: + o: to a: and an indication of the spirantization of aspirates.

"The overwhelming majority of anthroponyms and most of the toponyms, divine epithets, and names of months can be interpreted through Greek."