Ancient Macedonian language

For the unrelated modern Slavic language, see Macedonian language.
Macedonian
Spoken in Macedon
Extinct 4th century BCE
Language family
Indo-European
Language codes
ISO 639-3 xmk
History of the
Greek language
(see also: Greek alphabet)

Proto-Greek (c. 3000–1600 BC)
Mycenaean (c. 1600–1100 BC)
Ancient Greek (c. 800–330 BC)
Dialects:
Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, Attic-Ionic,
Doric, Locrian, Pamphylian,
Homeric Greek,
Macedonian
Koine Greek (c. 330 BC–330)
Medieval Greek (330–1453)
Modern Greek (from 1453)
Dialects:
Calabrian, Cappadocian, Cheimarriotika, Cretan,
Cypriot, Demotic, Griko, Katharevousa,
Pontic, Tsakonian, Maniot, Yevanic

*Dates (beginning with Ancient Greek) from Wallace, D. B. (1996). Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. p. 12. ISBN 0310218950. 

Ancient Macedonian was the language of the ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in the kingdom of Macedon during the 1st millennium BCE and it belongs to the Indo-European group of languages. It gradually fell out of use during the 4th century BCE, marginalized by Koine Greek, the lingua franca of the Hellenistic period.[1]

The volume of the surviving public and private inscriptions indicate that there was no other written language in ancient Macedonia but Greek,[2] and recent epigraphic discoveries suggest that ancient Macedonian was a variety of the Northwestern Greek dialects.[3]

Contents

Classification

Due to the fragmentary attestation various interpretations are possible.[4] Suggested phylogenetic classifications of Macedonian include:[5]

Properties

From the few words that survive, only a little can be said about the language. A notable sound-law is that the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirates (/bʰ, dʰ, gʰ/) appear as voiced stops /b, d, g/, (written β, δ, γ), in contrast to all known Greek dialects, which have unvoiced them to /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/ (φ, θ, χ) with few exceptions.[13]

If γοτάν gotán ('pig') is related to *gwou ('cattle'), this would indicate that the labiovelars were either intact, or merged with the velars, unlike the usual Greek treatment (Attic βοῦς boûs). Such deviations, however, are not unknown in Greek dialects; compare Doric (Spartan) γλεπ- glep- for common Greek βλεπ- blep-, as well as Doric γλάχων gláchōn and Ionic γλήχων glēchōn for common Greek βλήχων blēchōn.[15]

A number of examples suggest that voiced velar stops were devoiced, especially word-initially: κάναδοι kánadoi, 'jaws' (<PIE *genu-); κόμβους kómbous, 'molars' (<PIE *gombh-); within words: ἀρκόν arkón (Attic ἀργός argós); the Macedonian toponym Akesamenai, from the Pierian name Akesamenos (if Akesa- is cognate to Greek agassomai, agamai, "to astonish"; cf. the Thracian name Agassamenos).

In Aristophanes' The Birds, the form κεβλήπυρις keblēpyris ('red-cap bird') is found, showing a Macedonian-style voiced stop in place of a standard Greek unvoiced aspirate: κεβ(α)λή keb(a)lē versus κεφαλή kephalē ('head').

A number of the Macedonian words, particularly in Hesychius' lexicon, are disputed (i.e., some do not consider them actual Macedonian words) and some may have been corrupted in the transmission. Thus abroutes, may be read as abrouwes (αβρουϝες), with tau (Τ) replacing a digamma.[16] If so, this word would perhaps be encompassable within a Greek dialect; however, others (e.g. A. Meillet) see the dental as authentic and think that this specific word would perhaps belong to an Indo-European language different from Greek.

A. Panayotou summarizes some generally identified, through ancient texts and epigraphy, features[17]:

Phonology

Morphology

Onomastics

Anthroponymy

M. Hatzopoulos summarizes the Macedonian anthroponymy (that is names borne by people from Macedonia before the expansion beyond the Axius or people undoubtedly hailing from this area after the expansion) as follows:[18]

Common in the creation of ethnics is the use of -έστης, -εστός especially when derived from sigmatic nouns (ὄρος > Ὀρέστης but also Δῖον > Διασταί).[17]

Toponymy

The toponyms of Macedonia proper are generally Greek, though some of them show a particular Macedonian phonology that might set them apart and a few others are non-Greek.

Calendar

Main article: Ancient Macedonian calendar

The Macedonian names of about half or more of the months of the ancient Macedonian calendar have a clear and generally accepted Greek etymology (e.g. Dios, Apellaios, Artemisios, Loos, Daisios), though some of the remaining ones have sometimes been considered to be Greek but showing a particular Macedonian phonology (e.g. Audunaios has been connected to "Haides" *A-wid and Gorpiaios/Garpiaios to "karpos" fruit).

Epigraphy

Macedonian onomastics: the earliest epigraphical documents attesting substantial numbers of Macedonian proper names are the second Athenian alliance decree with Perdiccas II (~417-413 BC), the decree of Kalindoia,~335-300 BC) and seven curse tablets of the 4th c. BC bearing mostly names.[19][20]

The Pella curse tablet, a text written in a distinct Doric Greek dialect, found in 1986 and dated to between mid to early 4th century BC, has been forwarded as an argument that the ancient Macedonian language was a dialect of North-Western Greek, part of the Doric dialects.[21]

Hesychius Glossary

A body of words has been assembled from ancient sources, mainly from coin inscriptions, and from the 5th century lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria, amounting to about 150 words and 200 proper names, though the number of considered words sometimes differs from scholar to scholar. The majority of these words can be confidently assigned to Greek albeit some words would appear to reflect a dialectal form of Greek. There are, however, a number of words that are not easily identifiable as Greek and reveal, for example, voiced stops where Greek shows voiceless aspirates.[22]

(κἄ, Crasis) kai and,together,simultaneously + anô up (anôchmon hortatory password)

Other Sources

Proposed

A number of Hesychius words are listed orphan; some of them have been proposed as Macedonian[44]

Macedonian in Classical sources

Among the references that have been discussed as possibly bearing some witness to the linguistic situation in Macedonia, there is a sentence from a fragmentary dialogue, apparently between an Athenian and a Macedonian, in an extant fragment of the 5th century BC comedy 'Macedonians' by the Athenian poet Strattis (fr. 28), where a stranger is portrayed as speaking in a rural Greek dialect. His language contains expressions such as ὕμμες ὡττικοί for ὑμείς αττικοί "you Athenians", ὕμμες being also attested in Homer, Sappho (Lesbian) and Theocritus (Doric), while ὡττικοί appears only in "funny country bumpkin" contexts of Attic comedy.[45]

Another text that has been quoted as evidence is a passage from Livy (lived 59 BC-14 AD) in his Ab urbe condita (31.29). Describing political negotiations between Macedonians and Aetolians in the late 3rd century BC, Livy has a Macedonian ambassador argue that Aetolians, Acarnanians and Macedonians were "men of the same language".[46] This has been interpreted as referring to a shared North-West Greek speech (as opposed to Attic Koiné).[47] In another passage, Livy states that an announcement was translated from Latin to Greek for Macedonians to understand.[48]

Quintus Curtius Rufus, Philotas's trial[49] and the statement that the Greek-speaking Branchidae had common language with the Macedonians.[50]

Over time, "Macedonian" (μακεδονικός), when referring to language (and related expressions such as μακεδονίζειν; to speak in the Macedonian fashion) acquired the meaning of Koine Greek.[51]

Contributions to the Koine

Despite the Macedonians' important role in the formation of the Koine, Macedonian itself contributed few elements to the dialect, such as military terminology (διμοιρίτης, ταξίαρχος, ὑπασπισταί etc.) and, possibly, the suffix "-issa" which became productive in Medieval Greek.

Today, the classification of the language and its relation to Ancient Greek is been recruited to the modern Macedonia Naming Dispute. According to Eugene Borza, classification is difficult, as it is known from only a few fragmentary surviving attestations, mainly in glosses and proper names.[52]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The Oxford English Dictionary (1989), Macedonian, Simpson J. A. & Weiner E. S. C. (eds), Oxford: Oxford University Press, Vol. IX, ISBN 0-19-861186-2 (set) ISBN 0-19-861221-4 (vol. IX) p. 153
  2. ^ Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (1976), Macedonian, USA:Merriam-Webster, G. & C. Merriam Co., vol. II (H–R) ISBN 0-87779-101-5

References

  1. ^ Eugene N. Borza (1992) In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon, p. 94 (citing Hammond); G. Horrocks, Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers (1993), ch.4.1.
  2. ^ Lewis, D. M.; Boardman, John (2000). The Cambridge ancient history, 3rd edition, Volume VI. Cambridge University Press. p. 730. ISBN 9780521233484. http://books.google.com/books?id=vx251bK988gC&pg=RA7-PA831&dq=ancient+cavalry+macedonian+cavalry&lr=&client=firefox-a#PRA6-PA750,M1. 
  3. ^ Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture, Oxford University Press, 2008, p.289
  4. ^ a b B. Joseph (2001): "Ancient Greek". In: J. Garry et al. (eds.) Facts about the world's major languages: an encyclopedia of the world's major languages, past and present. Online paper
  5. ^ Mallory, J.P. (1997). Mallory, J.P. and Adams, D.Q. (eds.). ed. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Chicago-London: Fitzroy Dearborn. pp. 361. ISBN 1-884964-98-2. 
  6. ^ A. Meillet [1913] 1965, Aperçu d'une histoire de la langue grecque, 7th ed., Paris, p. 61. I. Russu 1938, in Ephemeris Dacoromana 8, 105-232. Quoted after Brixhe/Panayotou 1994: 209.
  7. ^ a b Masson, Olivier (2003) [1996]. "[Ancient] Macedonian language". In Hornblower, S. and Spawforth A. (eds.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (revised 3rd ed. ed.). USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 905–906. ISBN 0-19-860641-9. 
  8. ^ Hammond, N.G.L (1993) [1989]. The Macedonian State. Origins, Institutions and History (reprint ed. ed.). USA: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-814927-1. 
  9. ^ Michael Meier-Brügger, Indo-European linguistics, Walter de Gruyter, 2003, p.28,on Google books
  10. ^ Ahrens, F. H. L. (1843), De Graecae linguae dialectis, Göttingen, 1839–1843 ; Hoffmann, O. Die Makedonen. Ihre Sprache und ihr Volkstum, Göttingen, 1906.
  11. ^ Vladimir Georgiev - The Genesis of the Balkan Peoples, The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 44, No. 103 (Jul., 1966), pp. 285-297
    ancient Macedonian is closely related to Greek, and Macedonian and Greek are descended from a common Greek-Macedonian idiom that was spoken till about the second half of the third millennium B.C
  12. ^ The Linguist List is classifying ancient Macedonian with Greek (all known ancient and modern dialects) under a Hellenic supertree.
  13. ^ Exceptions to the rule:
  14. ^ Greek Questions 292e – Question 9 – Why do Delphians call one of their months Bysios [1].
  15. ^ a b Albrecht von Blumenthal, Hesychstudien, Stuttgart, 1930, 21.
  16. ^ Olivier Masson, "Sur la notation occasionnelle du digamma grec par d'autres consonnes et la glose macédonienne abroutes", Bulletin de la Société de linguistique de Paris, 90 (1995) 231–239. Also proposed by O. Hoffmann and J. Kalleris.
  17. ^ a b A history of ancient Greek: from the beginnings to late antiquity, Maria Chritē, Maria Arapopoulou, Cambridge University Press (2007), p. 439–441
  18. ^ Greek Personal Names: Their Value as Evidence, Elaine Matthews, Simon Hornblower, Peter Marshall Fraser, British Academy, Oxford University Press (2000), p. 103
  19. ^ Athens, bottom-IG I³ 89 – Kalindoia-Meletemata 11 K31 – Pydna-SEG 52:617,I (6) till SEG 52:617,VI – Mygdonia-SEG 49:750
  20. ^ Greek Personal Names: Their Value as Evidence [2] by Simon Hornblower, Elaine Matthews
  21. ^ O. Masson (1996).
  22. ^ J. P. Mallory & D.Q Adams - Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture, Chicago-London: Fitzroy Dearborn. pp. 361. ISBN 1-884964-98-2
  23. ^ Les anciens Macedoniens. Etude linguistique et historique by J. N. Kalleris
  24. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary
  25. ^ ARAE: Greek goddesses or spirits of curses; mythology: ARAI
  26. ^ Pokorny
  27. ^ Poetae scenici graeci, accedunt perditarum fabularum fragmenta
  28. ^ Pokorny Query madh
  29. ^ Pokorny's Dictionary
  30. ^ (Izela) Die Makedonen, Ihre Sprache und Ihr Volkstum [3] by Otto Hoffmann
  31. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary
  32. ^ Deipnosophists 14.663-4 (pp. 1059–1062)
  33. ^ Kalleris, p. 238–240
  34. ^ Kalleris, p. 108
  35. ^ Athenaeus Deipnosophists 3.114b.
  36. ^ Deipnosophists 10.455e.
  37. ^ Pokorny [4], Gerhard Köbler [5]
  38. ^ Kalleris, p. 172–179, 242
  39. ^ Pokorny,Pudna
  40. ^ Zeitschrift der Deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft
  41. ^ The Dorians in Archaeology by Theodore Cressy Skeat
  42. ^ Poetics (Aristotle)-XXI [6]
  43. ^ Kalleris, p. 274
  44. ^ Otto Hoffmann, p. 270 (bottom)
  45. ^ Steven Colvin, Dialect in Aristophanes and the politics of language in Ancient Greek, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 279.
  46. ^ Livy, The History of Rome, 31.29.15, on Perseus
  47. ^ A. Panayotou: The position of the Macedonian dialect. In: Maria Arapopoulou, Maria Chritē, Anastasios-Phoivos Christides (eds.), A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 433–458 (Google Books).
  48. ^ Livy, The History of Rome, 45.29, on Perseus
  49. ^ E. Kapetanopoulos. "Alexander’s Patrius Sermo in the Philotas Affair", The Ancient World 30 (1999), pp. 117–128. (PDF or HTM)
  50. ^ Quintus Curtius Rufus, Historiae Alexandri Magni, VII.5.33, (Loeb edition, Latin)
  51. ^ C. Brixhe, A. Panayotou, 1994, «Le Macédonien» in Langues indo-européennes, p. 208
  52. ^ Michael G. Clyne, Sandra Kipp (2006). Tiles in a multilingual mosaic: Macedonian, Filipino and Somali in Melbourne. Pacific Linguistics. p. 21. ISBN 9780858835696. http://books.google.com/books?id=oEdiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22ancient+macedonian+language%22&dq=%22ancient+macedonian+language%22&lr=. 

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