Talk:Ancient Macedonian language/Archive 3

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  • "Prodromos" may be a Greek/Latin word but it exists in Slavonic also via a variant

What the hell is a Greek/Latin word? Are you afraid to say "Greek" or something? "Dromos" (ΔΡΟΜΟΣ) is the popular word for "street", and "Dromoi" (ΔΡΟΜΟΙ) is its plural. "Pro" means "before", and it's used as a prefix or on its own. What are you chatting about next?

  • Hetairoi = comrade, fellow soldier; Cheta = military company, group, squad; Although not commonly used, the word "Chetar" could be used to refer to a single member of the "Cheta", however more common would be a "Komita" or "Vojnik". Present in modern Greek as "Heteroia" meaning "Company".

"Hetairoi" (plural of "Hetairos") is a Greek word that's even attested in Homer (meaning comrade), and "Hetairia" is its noun form. What you just said is equivalent to saying "Hetairoi: Macedonian->Friends, Greek ->Friendship, Slavic->Fasiufywer234owski, hence a Slavic cognate". Another example for those who are infamiliar with Greek grammar would be "Philosophos, Philosophoi, Philosophia". Someone has intentionally manipulated the tense of those words in order to bring up a "similarity" instead of stating that it's the same damned word. This is why I didn't want to participate from the start, but obviously the hoax was not as obvious to everybody. As for Macedonian for "death", it is actually "Danos", not "Danom" (or whatever you said), and the Attic-Ionic equivalent is "Thanos" (hence "Thanatos"). Even the word "Macedon" itself is identified as Greek, but the person who compiled that listed conveniently missed it. Nevermind, you can just check Perseus for it (and for all other definitions I gave), it's also attested in Homer. By the way I find the rate of change in your confidence quite interesting. First you give a large list and claim cognates between Macedonian and Slavic Macedonski words, then you realise that we discover that those are in fact simply Slavic words and decide to claim a Slavic-Macedonian linguistic connection. Little by little it is explained to you how none of those words prove anything remotely close to your claims, so the list is eventually reduced to 5 words. I wonder where will this go. In my opinion you should be applying those elimination algorithms before humiliating yourself in public. Miskin 03:44, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Greek/Latin = Greek (slash) Latin = Greek or Latin, clear enough? Miskin, you seem very disturbed and upset,as about your Hetairoi break down, you once again try to twist words, the word in modern Greek means "company" just like in modern Macedonian. How do you know so much about Slavonic again, oh that's right you don't, you just assume you know like for everything else. The information is there to see, wether you agree with it or not I could care less, in fact I don't really value your opinion at all so all the talk directed at me is pointless. And for the record I have not changed my stance on anything, I still believe most of my words are cognates. You on the other hand have done nothing but blabber on, you seem accustomed to it, keep up the good work.Soldier of Macedon 06:05, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Prodromos is a Greek word, period. SoM, you really shouldn't be editing articles on languages, let alone in an aggressive manner, if you lack basic linguistic expertise. This is a friendly reminder to stick to the topics you are familiar with. Nobody here is interested in what you "believe", your personal beliefs go on your userpage, if you want to share them. Provide the references, or let more proficient editors do the job. dab (ᛏ) 14:14, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't remember saying it wasn't. I haven't edited any articles Dab, and what aggresive manner is this that you people here have been talking about since I began posting? Is it my name that concerns you, why have I been insulted since I arrived? I could care less about any of your beliefs either, I just posted ancient words that can be located in Wikipedia and modern Macedonian words that can be located in the official Macedonian-English Dictionary, Dusan Crvenkovski, Kultura Nasa Kniga, 1989. Just because mainstream linguists haven't realized a link yet does not mean it does not exist. I think you and Miskin neede the same antidote.... Soldier of Macedon 00:31, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

no, I think you need a better understanding of "Encyclopedia" -- Just because mainstream linguists haven't realized a link yet does not mean it does not exist, this is eminently possible, but purely a matter of belief, and has no place here. The Internet is big, and you are free to voice your beliefs on a homepage somewhere. On Wikipedia, they are extremely uninteresting, and entirely beside the point. We should only even discuss these things if you could come up with a published linguistic reference. See also WP:NOT dab (ᛏ) 09:17, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Speaking of the list, I still plan on making a list of which words were actually cognates from Soldier's list, and which are unverified. Those that are not cognates won't be listed. I won't take up much space on this talk page when I do this (if I do this), it will be a simple list. I plan on doing this to silence accusations that anyone is ignoring "Slavonic claims". Though in the future, they will probably be ignored (again, not chauvinism or racism; I would "ignore" claims that ancient Macedonian was a Celtic or Albanian language also). Alexander 007 14:39, 14 November 2005 (UTC) (I will not however take up anymore space on this talk page by refuting each word one by one as I did earlier; I'll just post a list when I'm done with it)
One more thing: Theathenae claims that the idea that ancient Macedonian was an independent Indo-European language is a "fringe theory". That is a misconception. It is a legitimate theory. I myself would rather go for the Greco-Macedonian hypothesis (not the Greek dialect hypothesis) out of what one might call mathematical probability. But the article has to be fair to the independent theory (which is totally different from any claim that ancient Macedonian was close to Slavonic, Celtic, Germanic, Albanian, or whatever else one might like). Alexander 007 14:54, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

On Linguistics again!

As I said earlier, linguistics is a highly fallible science and extremely hypothetical. Without hard evidence of some sort of script for Slavic prior to these tribes' migration southward from north of the Danube and their subsequent learning of letters (by Cyril and Methodius), then there can be no certainty as to claims between ancient Macedonian and the Slavic tongues. What can be attested however is the numerous loanwords from Greek to Slavic (as was previously pointed out, drum for dromos = "a road, a path to tread") henceforth giving false cognates. So finding supposedly common linguistic cognates between Slavic and ancient Macedonian is based on pure wishful thinking and on pseudo-linguistics. Ancient Macedonian names have no cognates in old or modern Slavic languages (as pertaining to their meaning) for eg. Philippos = "lover of horses", Drukalos (Drykalos) = "he who is of the wood of the oak" or even "beautiful oak-wood". For the most part the language was Doric or Aeolic and Slavic was not attested until the 7th C of CE so it makes no sense. I can find cognates between ancient Greek and Hawaiin however that doesn't mean that the Hawaiins are actually re-settled Greeks who landed there on some magnificent journey to Hades of the Americas (although some may like to think otherwise - what was that fellow's name?, that American who made "Journey of the g'ds"? I can't remember). Oh and here are some cognates between Hawaiin and Greek thrown in for good measure: The first is Hawaiin, the second is Greek and the third the relative meanings in Hawain then Greek separated by a semi-colon. Aeeto; Aetos (Hawk; Hawk), Heene or Wahine; Gyne (Female person; woman), Nou-nou; Nous (Mind; Thought), Pehea; Pos (How?; How?), Mana'o; Manthano (to think; I learn), Kahiko; Archaikos (old; olden or ancient/first-born one) and inoa; onoma (name; name).

Ok ok the last one is a bit far fetched but you get the idea now don't you? That's all I have to say for now. Shalom l'olam.

You underestimate linguistics. The Slavic sound laws are well known. For one thing, unlike Greek, it is a Satem language. If there was any evidence of Slavic or Satem properties of the XMK lexicon, we would note it. There isn't, however. And why should there be? For all we know, the Slavs only came near Macedonia a full millennium later. This is like looking for Spanish etymologies of Quechua words. So, there is neither evidence, nor any sort of circumstantial likelihood. It is really just wishful fantasy, not worth all the time we spent on it here. dab (ᛏ) 09:21, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Par Excellence Quod est demonstrandum

Therefore why should the modern Macedonian(sic)-slavonic be called Macedonian when it isn't? I prefer the German etymology of "Mezedonien" which is what the Germans call modern Macedonian(sic)-slavonic and not "Makedonien" which only pertains to the ancient Doric/Aeolic Greek spoken in Macedonia. The world has a lot to learn still. Shalom l'olam.

Please remove any references of pictures of weapons on users' webpages on Wikipedia. This is an encyclopaedia and not a shooting ground. I wonder what the policy of wikipedia is on offensive symbols. I have viewed one or two on peoples' homepage. If they are not removed I shall have to enquire through the editors/administrators. Shalom l'olam, ve-ahavtah.

This is beside the point. This article is about the language spoken in the 1st millennium BC. It is a fact that there is a Slavonic language now known as Macedonian language. It is a simple case of disambiguation, and the adequacy of the name is not an issue on this talkpage. I have specifically only this article on my watchlist, but not the Slavonic one, precisely to be spared this kind of discussion. thanks, dab (ᛏ) 14:21, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Wrong

Izela

If anybody out there has spare time and wants to do something constructive for the article, try finding a reference for the etymology of Macedonian izela ("good luck"; in anc. Gk. agathe tuche, I think). I find this word very interesting. If it is from PIE *wesu- (or some such), "good", then cognates would include the Illyrian toponym Veselia, the Gothic word iusila, the Slavonic word veselu, and the ancient Greek word eus (known mostly as a prefix, eu-). If izela is from PIE *wesu-, and if it is native to Macedonian and not a loan from Paionian or Thracian (an Illyrian loan is not as likely , see below why I say this), this one word would have the power to disprove the Greek dialect theory. But there is currently no way to prove whether or not it was a loan, and the etymon may not be PIE *wesu-. So Izela, good luck. Alexander 007 15:59, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

where is it attested? Hesychius? dab (ᛏ) 16:15, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Not sure, but you can find it on Perseus as a Macedonian word. There is also on Perseus izelos, "a sea scorpion" (?), probably with a different etymon. Alexander 007 16:17, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
I see -- both are Hesychius; [1] izela: agathê tuchê (Maced.), Hsch.: izelos: ho thalattios skorpios, Id. (where is our Hesychius list now? Should we make it a subpage? dab (ᛏ) 16:34, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Last time I checked Wiki-source, the content was all but gone (at least, I didn't find it). Archive 2 has some of it. Alexander 007 16:39, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Izela is not likely to be from Illyrian, because Illyrian had the form as Vesel- or Ves- (cf. Veselia, Vescleves), and even if it lost the v when borrowed by Macedonian, it seems to be a big change from Illyrian vesel- to Macedonian izel- (but not impossible, one might say). If it's a loan, I'm going with Paionian, maybe Thracian. I'll see if Thracian has any attested forms possibly from this root. Alexander 007 19:05, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


disambiguation notice

Bomac, what's your point here? Wikipedia articles have disambiguation notices when there are other articles, which could be expected at this title. The article on XMK could be expected on Macedonian language, hence the dab notice. We have it here at *Ancient* Mac. language for unambiguity. The article on the Slavic langauge could not possibly be expected at a title of "Ancient" Mac. language, hence no dab notice is needed. Does that make sense? Then please don't re-insert the notice, thanks. dab (ᛏ) 10:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

His point was that he should by any means necessary try to fool any potentially naive users into believing that there's actually a link between "Ancient" and "Slavic" Macedonian. I think that this was demonstrated when he kept removing the word "unrelated" that I added on his "disambiguation". If he doesn't want the word "unrelated" there, it means he wants to from the readers to believe that it's actually related. In fact he wants to fool them into believing so, as he doesn't even believe it himself. Admire the neutrality of our wikipedia editors. There's should have been an AI system that would permanently block such waste of bandwidth. Miskin 12:41, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

relax, Miskin, this is harmless. Have a look at Talk:Rajput. Having seen this, I am thinking of returning to the "Macedonian" debate to spend some time among civilized and reasonable people. dab (ᛏ) 12:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
The disambiguation in this article is unnecessary and should always be removed if added back. A disambiguation is needed in Macedonian language because Macedonian language may indeed refer to the current Slavic language or to the ancient non-Slavic Macedonian language. But Ancient Macedonian language never refers to the current Macedonian language. Alexander 007 04:58, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Question for dab

The Pella katadesmos, a Doric Greek text found in Pella in 1986, dated to between the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, has been forwarded as an argument that Doric Greek was spoken by the general populace of Macedon in that time.

This sentence implies that the only thing we can derive from the Pella katadesmos is that the Macedonians might have been fluent with Doric. So my question is, why does the scenario of the "Macedonian language" being a dialect of Doric completely crossed out? Masson and even Badian classify Macedonian as North-Western Greek (same branch as Doric), and Herodotus explicitly mentions Macedonians as settlers of the "extremely migratory Dorian nation". So, why on earth is there a POV in the article? Miskin 23:34, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

what do you mean? Doric is mentioned as a possibility. Just Doric cannot account for the full picture, but it may at least be part of the solution. So, no, I wouldn't say "completely crossed out". What we are saying is
The view that Macedonian was merely a Greek dialect is less accepted among current linguists than it once was but the slender evidence is open to different interpretations, so that no definitive answer is really possible.
which I think is fair enough. dab (ᛏ) 00:35, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
oh, wait, do you mean "Doric" in contradistinction to "NW Greek"? The two are virtually the same; NW or Doric, it doesn't matter. Our NW Greek even redirects to Doric Greek. dab (ᛏ) 01:03, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

What I meant was that there's already evidence which supports the view of Macedonian being a dialect of Doric or NWG. The phrasing "an argument that Doric Greek was spoken by the general populace of Macedon in that time" implies that Macedonians might have also had a knowledge of Doric, in the same way that English is spoken by the general populace of Israelis (as a second language). It doesn't state that the Macedonian language might have actually been Doric, which is what the Pella Katadesmos and the related theories actually support. Miskin 01:45, 26 December 2005 (UTC)


The view that Macedonian was merely a Greek dialect is less accepted among current linguists than it once was but the slender evidence is open to different interpretations, so that no definitive answer is really possible.

As it's been awhile that I stopped trusting Decius' neutrality, and as I really doubt that he has actually read and compared every single academic point of view on this topic, I'm seriously questioning the factual accuracy of the above statement. And frankly, the "references" section of the article doesn't imply that anything remotely close to that. To follow standard WP procedure, I'm requesting sources first. I want the quotation from the scholar who has actually performed the related research and concluded the above statement. If there is no such reference, then much of the article falls under the category of original research, which means that it has to be re-written. Miskin 02:58, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

check the archives. We've been through this often enough, I won't repeat the exact same arguments I brought forward a couple of months ago. The statement regarding the katadesmos is all that can be concluded, from the katadesmos. dab (ᛏ) 13:52, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I've been following this discussion closely and there's no such sourcing in the archive. No mention of a scholar who has concluded that the majority of scholars tend to think as Macedonian as a non-Greek dialect. In other words you can't convince anybody that much of the article is not based on original research. Miskin 14:41, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding your last edit summary, I wasn't drawing conclusions for the 5th century from a 3rd century text, I'm stating what Masson and all those others had in mind. I don't understand why you're so fixed on believing that it was not a Greek dialect. I'm continuing this discussion because I randomly keep running into scholars whose views are opposing your own, something which enrages me when I think about the content of this article. I'm gonna ask from Decius to compare credible sources by providing quotations, something we should have done a long time ago. The party which comes up with the greatest number of sources, will have the right to revise the article according to the dominant academic view. Isn't that after all what wp:policy would suggest? Lastly I really don't know why do you continue to regard Decius as an unbiased editor. He has openly admitted that he supports the non-Greek view (despite all lack of evidence), and I would feel silly to think that he has no agenda on the topic. Besides Romanians are involved in the history of modern Macedonia as much as the Slavs, and you see how psychotic the latter can get. Miskin 14:41, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

yes, but the statement you edited was referring to the katadesmos. I am happy to say that some scholars favour the interpretation as a Greek dialect, this is no problem, but it has nothing to do with the katadesmos. The opinion of most linguists is that it is not "Greek as we know it". I realize there is the attempt to extend the definition of "Hellenic" to include XMK by definition, but that's just circular. My reference for this, yes, as discussed earlier, is among others the EIEC, quoted in the article. We are saying that "Greek dialect" is within the range of possibilities, so I don't know what you want. dab (ᛏ) 14:54, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I edited the statement to demonstrate exactly what my observation was about. The general affiliation of Macedonian as a Greek dialect has not much to do with the Katadesmos, as most of it was published before the latter was discovered. The Katadesmos however does back up the much older "Macedonian Doric" theory. The paragraph I edited implies that Doric might have been used as a second language within the Macedonian people (something completely unsourced), it doesn't actually back up the existing theory of the Macedonian language being "Macedonian Doric". So why is that? Miskin 15:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)


The opinion of most linguists is that it is not "Greek as we know it".

I haven't seen an official counter on who thinks what, hence this has yet to be proved. Assuming though that it's 100% accurate, it's far from what the article's content implies. In other words, it is blatant that the article was written by someone who has a POV towards the non-Greek dialect view. Miskin 15:47, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

sigh, we have been through exactly this discussion, months ago. I have no preconceived opinion on the matter (unlike most editors around here, I might add). The simple fact is that there is not enough data, and there is evidence very difficult to reconcile with "Greek". That's it. I have little doubt there were Dorians in Macedonia from 1000 BC at least, but it does not follow that they are identical to the XMK speakers. The Greek "view" has sufficient representation in the article. Nobody is censored. dab (ᛏ) 16:39, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I know you're the only person without a preconceived opinion, hence why the questions were referring to you alone. By the way, don't Bomac's latest borderline-vandalism edits violate WP:3RR? Miskin 17:22, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Two questions: 1) Who is Decius? 2) Why not give the Greek dialect hypothesis a more favorable light? However, to call ancient Macedonian a Doric dialect is kinda weird---if Macedonian was a Greek dialect, it was Macedonian Greek, not Doric Greek, since we've seen features peculiar to Macedonian. The dialect-schoolers should pick up on this soon. Alexander 007 18:20, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Officially it should be "Doric of Macedonia" as opposed to "Doric of Crete|Sicily|Sparta". However terms such as "Spartan|Sicilian Doric" are also in use. Attic was the only dialect to have a common oral structure. All the other dialects varied from location to location and had their distinct features peculiar to the region (Tonnet Henri). In that respect, a Western or Doric classification of Macedonian would not differentiate it that much from Cretan. Miskin 20:05, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Decius was some Dacian guy who used to have fun on this talkpage :P
I don't think the "Greek dialect" hypothesis is under-represented. It is right there in the intro, and it has its proper section. I really don't think we can say much more than is already here, there is simply not enough data. What we lack is a reference discussing explicitly how the voiced aspirates are reconcilable with "Greek dialect": Does the hypothesis (A) posit a soundlaw changing them back, or does it (B) assume that the unvoicing was post-Proto-Greek, or (C) does it dispute the etymologies of the words in question? Supporters of the "Greek view": References please. dab (ᛏ) 18:51, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
That question bothers me also. We haven't seen in detail from a linguistic source how the peculiar features are explained within the Doric dialect hypothesis. Alexander 007 18:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I have two very credibly sources that support the "Greek view", but none of them is strictly linguistic. On the other hand the "Greek dialect view" doesn't necessarily mean "Macedonian Doric" (which is not too under-represented). The very quotation of Masson makes an affiliation with Aeolic, and therefore generalizes XMK classification into Western. Anyway I don't understand why important evidence such as Strattis' "Makedones", and Livy's reference on the 2nd Punic war are only briefly mentioned. I also think that Macedon's ethnic label and XMK's unsure classifications should remain apart. I'll gather more credible sources and divide them according to topic (linguistics and history), for XMK and Macedon respectively. Miskin 20:05, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

well, precisely: this is the linguistic article. Points about ethnicity go on Macedon. Only the linguistic bits here, please. Afaik, Masson opted for NW, not Aeolic? Please realize that the "majority of scholars" bit is from the linguistic perspective, because this is an article about the language. References concerning posited sound-changes by "Greek dialect" supporters would be very welcome (I have no doubt the atter has been discussed, and interpreted favourably to the "Greek view" in Greek adademia). dab (ᛏ) 20:28, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I very much doubt that there is agreement among those who propose that ancient Macedonian was a Greek dialect. They are, it seems, in confusion and disagreement about the affiliation of this hypothetical dialect. See for example this paragraph from Katerina Rhomiopoulou's essay (copyright 1980, Greek Ministry of Culture and Science; translated into English by David Hardy) from The Search for Alexander: An Exhibition, 1980, New York Graphic Society, published by Little, Brown and Company, pg.21 of the First Edition:
"The Macedonians drove another Greek tribe, the Pierian Thracians, out of this area and made themselves masters of the fertile plain that was essential to the survival of a people whose economy was based on agriculture and stock-raising. They expanded initially in the direction of the modern village of Vergina, where Perdiccas founded the capital of the kingdom, Aigai, and thereafter toward the northwest fringes of the plain---the region, that is, between Veroia and Edessa. The Macedonian language was an early dialect of Greek, while the royal house spoke the Doric Greek of that period."
Some things are vague in her paragraph (besides the fact that she refers to the Pierian Thracians as a Greek tribe), but this is quite interesting: "The Macedonian language was an early dialect of Greek, while the royal house spoke the Doric Greek of that period". I'm not sure what exactly she had in mind when she wrote "an early dialect of Greek" (perhaps she was referring to the Greco-Macedonian hypothesis with its view of XMK as a dialect/language akin to Proto-Greek; or maybe she just meant an unclassified dialect of Greek), but what's interesting is that she mentions the idea that I mentioned before: that in ancient Macedon before the Koine period XMK and Doric Greek were in use among the ancient Macedonians. When I presented this idea to Chronographos, he thought it was crazy and I must be "drunk as usual" to believe it. If so, Katerina Rhomiopoulou (whoever she is) was "drunk as usual" when she wrote her essay. However, once again we encounter the vagueness so often found in non-linguistic references on the subject (her essay is a historical summary not a linguistic discussion; sponsored by the Greek Ministry of Culture and Science, 1980) .Alexander 007 21:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Gamma before kappa

In the "Sample glossary", what's the point of transcribing agkalos instead of ankalos? It doesn't really help anyone not already thoroughly familiar with the Greek alphabet understand the probable pronunciation... AnonMoos 01:36, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

That's true. But since some editors of this article are pre-convinced that ancient Macedonain was NOT Greek, I suppose they have to come up with some differences. Miskin 01:45, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

If you're interested in who was responsible for the "agk-" transliteration, check this out:[2]. Chronographos and dab insisted on it, while I favored ank-. Alexander 007 18:19, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I thought we opted for using the Greek alphabet now, anyway? Come on, anyone embarking on the details of this will know the Greek alphabet, or else can be expected to go and look at Greek alphabet first. dab (ᛏ) 20:30, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Doric stuff

It would help if someone brought references describing how many Doric features have been noted in the actual XMK material, excluding for now the Doricish writings found in Macedon, because as noted by Rhomiopoulou (and others no doubt) Doric Greek may have been a second language/dialect. Considerable differences between Doric and Macedonian on the other hand are readily apparent and already known. Pisani hypothesizes that mageiros entered Doric from Macedonian earlier in the Migration period; Pisani realizes that if mageiros was native to Doric, and if it is indeed from PIE *magh-, it would have to be macheiros or some such (PIE *gh-->ch is the rule in the known Greek dialects, including Doric, unless I'm mistaken). My old Liddel & Scott's has another etymology for mageiros, suggesting a derivation from PIE *mag-, "to knead, fashion", in which case it poses no problem within Greek phonetics and a proposed Macedonian origin would be needless (however, I'm kinda going for a derivation from PIE *magh-, like Pisani proposes). Alexander 007 21:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

By the way, can somebody verify whether agēma (ē=eta) was native to Doric in that form, or whether they had agāma originally? Alexander 007 21:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

New Info from another user not one above In recent years, a wealth in unprecedented numbers (over 5,000) of Greek inscriptions from archaeological excavations in Greek Macedonia, have furnished concrete evidence of the Greek identity of the language of Ancient Macedonia. The most recent authoritative assessment of the Ancient Macedonian dialect is provided by the eminent Emeritus Professor of the University of Paris, Olivier Masson, in the recent edition (1996) of “THE OXFORD CLASSICAL DICTIONARY” 3rd edition, 1996, Oxford U. Press, (Oxford, New York) pp. 905-6: “For a long while Macedonian onomastics, which we know relatively well thanks to history, literary authors, and epigraphy, has played a considerable role in the discussion. In our view the Greek character of most names is obvious and it is difficult to think of a Hellenization due to wholesale borrowing... Macedonian may then be seen as a Greek dialect, characterized by its marginal position and by local pronunciations. Yet in contrast with earlier views which made of it an Aeolic dialect we must by now think of a link with North-West Greek... We must wait for new discoveries, but we may tentatively conclude that Macedonian is a dialect related to North-West Greek (Macedonian Greek)

This text has appeared verbatim in several discussion groups. Was it copied from somewhere? Andreas 00:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I can verify that Doric had the native cognate (h)āgetās (leader) rather than Attic hēgetēs (from the stem hāg-; to lead). I am in some doubt as to whether the Doric would have been aspirated or not. Attic was very conservative as to retaining word-initial aspiration (which is not necesarrily true of Doric). I believe, however, that since the form (h)āgetās was native to Doric, the same can be presumed of (h)āgēma (as it is also derived from the stem hāg-). Druworos 23:46, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Greek language template

Hello! I see that a well-intentioned editor has inserted the Greek language template in this article. While I certainly understand why hu put it in, I must say that because scholars are still not actually certain how close a relationship existed between the ancient Macedonian language and the ancient Greek language, this article is not really an appropriate place for that template. That's not to say that there wasn't a close relationship, just that we don't know. So I shall remove it. Cheers! Babajobu 13:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The idea that ancient Macedonian was not part of the continuum of ancient Greek idioms is a minority view. And, whatever its relationship to Greek, Macedonian is important to the discipline of the history of the Greek language. The template has been restored accordingly.--Theathenae 13:22, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
...not convincing. And to list it, not merely as a descendant of Proto-Greek, but as a dialect of ancient Greek, is unacceptable given that there is no consensus that ancient Macedonian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Alexander 007 13:35, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Can you at least bring several non-Greek references on ancient Greek that list Ancient Macedonian as a Greek dialect, you know, the kind of book on ancient Greek one might find at your average library in the U.S. or UK? Why is Macedonian always missing in the books I've seen? Bring 'em on. You need references to establish your consensus. This goes out to anyone reading this page, whether in Idaho or Afghanistan. Alexander 007 13:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
The only reason anyone other than very specialized scholars cares whether Ancient Macedonian is classified among the Greek dialects or not is the peculiar notion that the affiliation of a language spoken in a certain area 2500 years ago is relevant to current ethnic identities and political disputes. This fallacy is at the root of many edits on both sides of this discussion. So I would suggest making a special effort to avoid any provocations. --Macrakis 21:04, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
There are all types of people across the world more-or-less interested in this debate (thus, they "care"), not specialized scholars or people with ethnic/political motivations. I can imagine a 15-year-old Japanese kid in Tokyo reading this article, and wondering ("caring") what kind of language the ancient Macedonians really spoke. My hypothetical Japanese kid would not be disturbed if the ancient Macedonian language turned out to be a dialect of ancient Greek, he would in fact be relieved to finally know the situation---but he would be irritated (knowing Wikipedia policies, and desiring an objective article) by attempts to place a Greek language template including ancient Macedonian as a dialect of ancient Greek, when there is no such consensus among scholars. There are "multiple sources" that promote the Greek dialect hypothesis (to quote Theathenae), but there is no consensus---there are "multiple sources" for all three of the basic hypotheses. Since there is no consensus, adding ancient Macedonian to a Greek template with the simple note that this is "disputed" creates the false impression that the consensus is that ancient Macedonian was a dialect of ancient Greek, but this is "disputed" by some. Alexander 007 04:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Agree with Alexander. As a non-Greek, non-Macedonian, and as someone with only a passing interest in any of these issues, I would personally be annoyed by a template that suggests that Macedonian was a Greek dialect if, in fact, there is no consensus on this. The debate should be carefully characterized, without sticking a big advertizement for one particular conclusion onto the page. Babajobu 05:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
In response to this edit by Fs (which probably represents the attitude of a number of people), I can only say, "Huh?" The modern linguistic/historical debate dates back to a time when (at least the 19th century, unless I'm mistaken; will verify), according to Greek nationalists, the modern ethnic group known as Macedonians/Macedonian Slavs didn't even exist. Nor is the debate kept alive by the Rep. of Macedonia camp. The debate continues because of the sparsity of the evidence. At the time Fs wrote that comment, the Greek dialect hypothesis (as in the current version of the article) was well-represented. As the article develops, all the valid hypotheses will be further detailed. Alexander 007 04:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I've removed that comment on purpose just after was posted, to avoid starting a flamewar and now you dig it up from the changelog. Ok, since you brought it up, I find it really sad that a page full of ancient greek and greek derived words, from texts easily read by those that can read ancient greek, to not have the greek dialect explanation _at least_ as the primary one. Anyone that knows what's going on here would understand behind all the big talk presented - and the sad fact of pissing the whole science of Linguistics as I just noticed above in this page - that what is hidden is radical nationalism of Greeks and Macedonians. I'm Greek and I'm happy to call you Macedonians here, hope it proves the fact I respect what you want to be called. I've known for long, reasons that may have made some Greeks rush into radical nationalism (it involves local politics of the early nineties that I've posted in Macedonian related articles) and I'm trying hard to ease spirits on both sides of the fence. I'm sorry if you think I'm _de facto_ a radical nationalist to you simply because of the fact I'm Greek because in that case, better not discuss this further. If you don't please try to see beyond, and realize how funny it is a page full of ancient greek to have the ancient greek dialect case in some weird spot in the middle. --Fs 10:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
There is a misunderstanding here. The glossary shows: some words that are plain Greek; many words that are similar to Greek words, but different enough to suggest the Greco-Macedonian hypothesis of Macedonian as a language adjacent to Greek on the Indo-European language tree, but not necessarily a dialect of ancient Greek; other words have no Greek correspondances. Taken together, the evidence does not obviously point to a Greek dialect as the term is understood. The dialect hypothesis can be mentioned first in the order rather than second as it is now, but unless the references for consensus are brought, there is no justification to drastically rewrite the article so that it overemphasizes the dialect hypothesis. Be careful before you make claims of pseudo-science. If anything, taking some Doric inscriptions as the ultimate evidence and ignoring all the other linguistic data is pseudo-science. I have not alluded to you being a nationalist nor have I made an issue of your ethnicity. It appears rather that you are acting on good faith, but you have the impression that the glossary obviously supports the dialect hypothesis. Actually, it suggests even more the language hypothesis. There is no consensus among the scientists, so claims of pseudo-science are completely unfounded. Alexander 007 10:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello Alexander. I believe we can lower the tone with each other. I have a question. How about the grammar of ancient macedonian texts? I'm lost in "scholars haven't decided yet" "arguments". Is it that different from ancient greek? I'd _honestly_ like to find out since I'm not a linguist or anything close to it. --Fs 10:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Virtually nothing is known of ancient Macedonian grammar, because there are no surviving passages that are clearly written in the language. As we've seen, the Doric-like inscriptions are not agreed to represent the ancient Macedonian language. So excluding the Doric texts, the evidence does not obviously suggest a dialect. The article has a summary of some of the evidence, and the various hypotheses present in the scientific community---not the nationalist community. The article, as you may have noticed, does not discuss the idea that Macedonian was a Slavic language, because that is pseudo-science. If the article was written by nationalist Macedonians, wouldn't you expect to see the claim of Macedonian being a Slavic language included? But interestingly...it is not.Alexander 007 10:53, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I see. Well, my non-linguistic common sense tells me now that I haven't heard of a language using the greek alphabet and at the same time not using greek grammar. More certainly I haven't heard of a language with greek words written with the greek alphabet not using greek grammar. I get the notion it's easier to assume another language with the same alphabet and words but with fundamentally different grammar, if one is coming from a Latin alphabet background since it's common there. But I've always felt alone in this world by using this weird greek alphabet</feeling> and I honestly can't find it very possible we are talking of a fundamentally different language here in its grammar. OK, I don't believe I can contribute anything further in this talk since I'm not a linguist or anything close to it. I appreciate your patience. I'm tired of both greek and macedonians radical nationalists flamewaring about the naming issue all over the net, but I believe it's obvious if an article is to talk about what ancient macedonians talked, to assume the greek hypothesis, obviously first. --Fs 11:10, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
The Lucani, who spoke an Oscan language, used the Greek alphabet. There are inscriptions in Thracian (see Thracian language) which were also written in the Greek alphabet, but not in the Greek language. You can't expect each group to invent their own alphabet, when a well-crafted Greek alphabet was already available next door. Alexander 007 11:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
What about words? --Fs 11:17, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Nevermind, I don't see this going further with no more facts presented, on what Macedonians talked and wrote and I don't think I'm the right person to talk about it. --Fs 11:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I see that the evidence does not support the dialect hypothesis. But I find your statement troubling, Alexander, because your wording seems to imply that it does support the language hypothesis, which it also doesn't. You probably had no such intention, I am just pointing out that your wording has that effect. Furthermore, I just feel like I must state two things. First of all, it is perfectly conceivable that Macedonian and Greek could have split together from the rest of their linguistic group, and developed their differences later, although I must admit, I am more likely to admit that Greek split first, and Macedonian lost its aspiration together with the rest of the group, before also splitting. More importantly, I find the language/dialect debate besides the point. What is the criterion for being a language? A language has been famously defined as 'a dialect with an army and a navy'. Mutual inteligibility is no criterion. The dialects of Chinese are not mutually inteligible, yet we call them dialects. Norwegian and Swedish are largely mutually inteligible, yet we call them languages. Historical sources indicate that Macedonian was largely uninteligible to speakers of, say, Attic (while Doric, for instance, was largely inteligible). This however is no reason to call it a separate language. I am inclined to call it a language myself (albeit a very closely related language, if not the one language closest to Greek than any other). However, I trully fail to see the point of lengthy arguments on whether it was a dialect or a language. Much better to state that it was 'a dialect or language, closely related to Greek, which was, however, probably not inteligible to Greeks, based on historical sources' Or that's how I feel about it, at any rate. Druworos 00:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
"A language is a dialect with an army and etc."---I agree. See Ancient Macedonian military. Alexander 007 03:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
The point being that Macedonian is a language because Macedon was independent. I suppose that can be agreed upon, yes. But still, I think it would be more useful to place emphasis on whether it was inteligible by Greeks, not on whether it was a dialect or language. And the evidence seems to suggest that it wasn't inteligible. And I insist upon this, because it would be more meaningful as evidence on the relation of Macedonian and Greek in classical antiquity, than to, somewhat arbitrarily, call it a dialect or a language. Druworos 21:36, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I am sure there are lots of people curious about the affiliation of Ancient Macedonian, like that hypothetical Japanese kid. I was talking about the people who care -- who are invested in the result. And I agree that the Greek language template is out of place here. --Macrakis 17:00, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
'Tis a minor quibble, but I must insist: from the American Heritage Dictionary: care --v. --intr. 1. To have a strong feeling or opinion; be concerned or interested.---My Japanese kid is indeed concerned and interested, therefore he cares, but not the kind of care you had in mind, which however is only one definition of care. I contrast this to Ice Cube, who (I'm just guessing) probably doesn't care in the true sense of the phrase. Alexander 007 17:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
As per my previous comment, my interest roughly approximates that of the Japanese kid, and I think it's fair enough to say that "I care". Babajobu 17:39, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Meillet's death

...suggested by I. I. Russu (1938) and A. Meillet (1965)

Antoine Meillet died in 1936. :-) bogdan 12:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

References

Although the article mentions the schollars (although not all) that support the "Ancient Greek dialect" hypothesis and mentions Antoine Meillet supporting "Graeco-Macedonian Group" there is no mention of those supporting the "Independent Palaeo-Balkan language" hypothesis. Can somebody please add them together with references? Furthermore it would be good if one can add links from the article text to the references so that we know which author supports which hypothesis.

{{ref}} and {{note}} are very good for things like this; One can link directly to a bibliography. Septentrionalis 18:33, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Some of their names can already be found. One example: if someone proposes that Macedonian was "an Illyrian dialect mixed with Greek" (in other words, suggesting that it may have been an Illyrian language with Greek later superimposed on it), then that scholar is of the "independent Paleo-Balkan language" school, since Illyrian is rarely grouped with Greek. See also Russu and Meillet, Borza, Julius Pokorny, etc.Alexander 007 23:37, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Ancient Macedonian, a dialect of Greek

see: [3] --84.164.224.237 15:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't view the Java app on that page. Could you give a sketch what their tree actually looks like? - That said, whatever they say, it won't radically change the situation. The fact that one group of scholars opt for this or that view won't change the fact that it's disputed and that everybody is aware there's extremely little hard evidence either way. Lukas (T.|@) 17:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
they classify Greek and Macedonian as "Hellenic". This possibility is mentioned in the article. It is well discussed, and discussed again, in the talk archives. Nothing to see here. dab (ᛏ) 17:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
This is old news. In fact, this is some of the oldest news we've discussed in the article. That tree does not present Macedonian as a dialect of Greek, rather it shows two languages---Greek and Macedonian---branching out from Proto-Greek. See also below, under ==Liste==. It's too bad some fellas (IP address 84. 164 etc.) can't even interpret a language tree :-) Alexander 007 18:16, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
if you call it "Greek" or "Hellenic" is pretty much a matter of terminology. The question is, "what is Hellenic" by this definition. By some hypotheses, it's Proto-Greek. By others, it's Proto-Indo-European. An intermediate position would be, "Proto-Graeco-Armenian". I tend towards this latter view, i.e. if Macedonian is genetically "Hellenic", so is Phrygian and Armenian. But as Alex says, Old News. Read it up in the talk archives. dab (ᛏ) 19:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
A language is "genetically Hellenic"? What do genetics have to do with the structure of a language? Dbachmann should start a new article on the Genetics of Language and point out, of course, how it is an hypothesis. Can we create a Wikijoker site where he can keep such 'pearls' comming thick and fast? Politis 20:16, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
as I said in a recent edit summary, don't bother if you don't have a clue. I appreciate sarcasm but I'm afraid in this case you have really sunk yourself, especially considering the "native" templates you have on your userpage. My, my, "native" knowledge of both the English and the Greek tongue. Still, as a free hint, genetic is, correctly, a disambiguation page. dab (ᛏ) 20:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Keep them coming! Great fun! I followed the link you freely offered and ended up with 'proto-language' and guess what? there was no mention of genetic. But just in case you are being serious (it is difficlt to guess on anonymous sites where you could really be a gardner at the Taj Mahal and me a bee-keeper in Sardinia) then please take no notice of my comments but a bit of research might be useful. Politis 20:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Μην τρίβεις αλάτι στην πληγή - let it go... a bit o' googling reveals that university websites use the phrase "genetically related language", so we can conclude that the word "genetic" is widely used that way in high circles. --Latinus 21:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Also, anyone can make mistakes - look at this edit summary :p --Latinus 21:01, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Dbachmann is absolutely correct in his use of the term "genetic". In linguistics it means derived from a parent language through regular language transmission, not more and not less. Politis, please be a bit more careful in judging things you have obviously no expert knowledge about. Lukas (T.|@) 22:07, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Lieber Lukas, der Dbachmann ist ein propagandist (so wie der Alexander 007 auch), es tut mir leid, aber so sieht die Wahrheit aus!

Die untere liste haben Profesoren geschrieben und nicht ich, die haben mehr im Kopf wie der Dbachmann und Alexander 007. --84.164.241.167 22:24, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia muss alle bedeutenden Ansichten darstellen. Leider denken einige Professoren dass alter Makedonisch nicht Griechisch war. Sehest du diese Seite... --Latinus 22:30, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Careful now, 84.164..., you are already beyond WP:3RR, and I'm not going to tolerate disruptive ranting on talk pages for long when it's combined with revert warring. Take a break. By the way, if your reason for using German is to exclude dab from the discussion, that's probably not a very smart idea. Lukas (T.|@) 22:50, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Lieber Asteraki, resorting to calling Dbachmann und Alexander 007 "propagandists" is a sign of desperation on your part. Latinus is correct in realizing that it is a matter of caution and NPOV: ancient Macedonian being an independent descendant of Proto-Greek is one (rather widely held) theory. Other serious theories are that it may have been simply a Greek dialect or that it did not even descend from Proto-Greek. Alexander 007 22:44, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I think the anon is disputing mentioning the Greco-Armenian theory. I must say, googling for it in the .edu namespace yields only one result and it does not mention Ancient Macedonian. I'm sure that Dbachmann did have sources when he wrote the article, but I think it'd be better to link mentioning this theory to a footnote with the actual source, so that we can say so-and-so says that - it's not propaganda as we're not presenting it as a statement of fact. I'm certain that this anon will not be the last person to object to mentioning it (as much as I love the sound of this theory - it may mean that the Greeks are no longer an "έθνος ανάδελφο"). --Latinus 22:54, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
That's some good it has, at least. :-) Yes, as my last edit to the article shows, I'd for the moment agree that the Greco-Armenian idea should not be particularly emphasized. The rest of the edit conflict was about the wording of the disambig notice on the top, and I'd very much insist on keeping that as neutral as possible; there's absolutely no need to mention any of the specific theories anywhere near there. Lukas (T.|@) 23:30, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
  • yes, we do not usually mention hypothetical or controversial genetic classifications in the language boxes. My offer was that if we mention Greek as a possible classification, we will also mention the other two possibilities. Either IE->XMK, or IE->(Paleo-Balkan, or Graeco-Arm., or Greek)->XMK.
  • You are right Latinus, I wrote Graeco-Armenian off the top of my head yesterday, an "unreferenced" tag is in order, sources are upcoming. I agree that the idea should not be emphasized here.
  • I am tired of arguing these things with people with no knowledge of historical linguistics. It is one thing to show interest in a field that you are not familiar with, by polite inquiry on Wikipedia talkpages. It is another thing to reveal your ignorance using what you intend to be scathing sarcasm. User Politis asks me to "do a little bit of research" because he couldn't find my usage of 'genetic' within two clicks on Wikipedia. His anonymous sidekick switches to German for some random insults. Be aware: I made a good faith attempt to explain the situation, using current terminology, even though you can read it all up, both in literature, and in the talk archives. If you do not understand the terminology, you may politely ask for clarification, of course, but nobody is obliged to take you by the hand and tutor you. However, since Wikipedia is for absolutely everyone, Politis violates no policy by making an utter fool of himself instead, but he has obviously disqualified himself from being in a position of contributing anything useful here.

dab (ᛏ) 08:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

It is only natural that contributors exchanging views, often experience problems of communicating the register and the tone of their communications - especially on anonymous sites where anyone around the world can contribute (and that is great). So it is best to ask questions. My question to Dbachmann is, what did you mean by stating above: "User Politis [...] His anonymous sidekick switches to German for some random insults". What do you mean by 'his anonymous sidekick' and who is beiing 'insulting'? I think that is a fair question (forwarded to dab's talk page). Perhaps you can also translate the German so that we may all understand... Politis 16:05, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
By your "sidekick" he obviously meant User:84.164.241.167. Nothing about yourself. "Sidekick" in the sense of "a close companion or comrade" (American Heritage Dict.), or also "someone who pops up whenever he's needed to support you". Cool down, man. The German statements aren't really worth much attention. Lukas (T.|@) 16:21, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


Liste

--84.164.224.237 17:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that Griko should be in the Doric section as well. --Latinus 22:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I fully agree.Druworos 16:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

XMK origin

Reading your comments and the article, I understand (I think) that there are five options for the 'genetic' origin of XMK:

  • IE->Ancient Greek->XMK
  • IE->Paleo-Balkan->XMK,
  • IE->Graeco-Armenian->XMK,
  • IE->Proto-Greek->XMK and
  • IE->XMK.

My questions are the following:

  1. Is it possible under any of these five options for XMK to have been influenced or to have originated by any Slavic language?
  2. What are the probabilities (or how many are the professional linguist supporters) for each of the options?
  3. Is it NPOV to include the answers on the questions above in the article?

NikoSilver 09:55, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

It is not possible for the ancient Macedonian language to be the ancestor of any Slavic language, and if you find a historical linguist who says that it is possible, that would be quite a find. All Slavic languages descend directly from the Proto-Slavic language, and there is no evidence of direct ancient Macedonian influence on any Slavic language that I know of. By the way, "Paleo-Balkan languages" is not a real language family, just a convenient geographical/historical grouping. There is no evidence of an actual Paleo-Balkan language branch; there is no strong evidence for even a Thraco-Illyrian branch. Alexander 007 10:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Some people have different ideas... --Latinus 10:08, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I see... Thanks 007 and Latinus. Now, what about my other 2 questions? NikoSilver 10:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Your list of five is trimmed down to 4 (because no serious linguist proposes that ancient Macedonian descends from a language not included in the Paleo-Balkan languages, so IE>XMK is repetitive).
Ancient Greek>XMK;
Proto-Greek>XMK;
Graeco-Armenian>XMK;
IE>Undetermined Paleo-Balkan>XMK.
To that, one can add
IE>Thraco-Illyrian>XMK, etc.
No one AFAIK has counted every linguist in support of each theory or published the official "probabilities". Alexander 007 10:33, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Greek itself is considered Paleo-Balkan, and Graeco-Armenian would also be, if it existed. The options are thus:

  1. IE>Paleo-Balkan>XMK
  2. IE>Paleo-Balkan>Graeco-Armenian>XMK
  3. IE>Paleo-Balkan>"Hellenic" (Graeco-Macedonian)>XMK
  4. IE>Paleo-Balkan>[optional Gr-Arm]>Proto-Greek>XMK

nobody claims XMK is descended from any attested Greek dialect, and nobody (reasonably) claims Slavic connections. You'll note that all four possibilities include "Paleo-Balkan", but that is not a single language but rather a sprachbund and would be left out in 'genetic' classification ("Thraco-Illyrian" for all we know is pretty much another term for "Paleo Balkan"). That's exactly the point of insisting on 'genetic', since nobody would dispute Greek influence on XMK by sprachbund or superstratum phenomena. Much like the influence of French on English: English is heavily influenced by French, but it is not genetically related to French (except via PIE). dab (ᛏ) 10:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I started a Thraco-Illyrian article which explains the usage (s) and the hypothesis a bit. Alexander 007 10:55, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
So you mean that apart from option #1 above, all other three options relate XMK in a very high degree with relatives of Greek (or Graeco-Armenian or Graeco-Macedonian or Proto-Greek). If this is true, can't we make a google search or smthng to see how many are the supporters of the first option? And when we do that and find what I suspect (that it is a minuscule portion of the linguists worldwide), wouldn't it be fair to include the following intro sentence?:
It is as yet undetermined whether the language was a separate yet sibling language which was most closely related to Greek, a dialect of Greek or an independent Indo-European language not especially close to Greek. However, the vast majority of linguists relate Ancient Macedonian very closely to Greek.
Wouldn't that clear things out for the rest of us ignorants, or do you think a phrase like that can be considered POV? NikoSilver 12:33, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
No, the option "Undetermined Paleo-Balkan" doesn't imply any particular closeness to Greek, at least not genetic closeness, as dab rightly said. I don't see why we should need to push the assessment of the comparative merits and weights of the different hypotheses ever more towards the top paragraph. It's all adequately dealt with further down in the body of the article. All the top paragraph has to state is that there is uncertainty. Terms like "very close" (highly suggestive but at the same time incredibly vague!) have no place there. And the proportion of linguists who don't see XMK particularly close to Greek is certainly not a "minuscule portion" either. Lukas (T.|@) 12:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
and needless to say, a google search is worthless for establishing academic communis opinio, even for topics without interest to nationalists of all couleurs competing for online dominance. The present version of the article is the result of lengthy debate and consultation of literature, and is exactly adequate. All we have been doing on the talk page for the past months is explain why it is adequate to people who are unwilling to do their own research. dab (ᛏ) 13:05, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the response, Lukas and dab. I was not aware that the proportion is not minuscule. Furthermore, I suggested a google search or smthng. I am not in a position to assess if it is possible to provide portions of scientific references, since I am not the expert here. I specifically noted that I am merely ASKING questions. dab, if you meant to include me in the above group then I hope we will have the chance in the future for you to see that it just isn't so. And, yes, I am unwilling to do my own research, since I am not exactly qualified for that. Questions is all I ask, just to clear things on my mind as you educated specialists mostly have. So here goes (and nobody is obliged to answer ofcourse): What do you personally feel? Is XMK closely related to Greek (3 out of 4 options) -OR- is it not (option 1 with hypothetical(?) Paleo-Balkan language)? Sorry for being a pain in the ass, I just want to know what I should believe, and I don't get it out of the article or discussion texts. That being settled, I will move on with my attempts for online dominance in other articles.:-) NikoSilver 14:58, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
By the way, I also rved the changes of 84.164.204.90 in Paleo-Balkan languages.NikoSilver 17:25, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, let's hope this will set a signal of moderation here too. - I'll try to answer your question too. I personally really don't know enough about the topic. My impression of what I've seen from the specialised literature is that at least a rather deep-seated skepticism about XMK-Gr closeness is very common. As for what I can see of the evidence, the Macedonian words in the glossary don't look particularly close to their supposed Greek cognates, certainly not the kind of closeness one would expect between dialects (there's much more that distinguishes them from each other than just a single sound change or so.) On the other hand, the well-known proper name examples of the type Pherenike-Berenike etc. seem to suggest that there were parts of the language system that were pretty close except for some fairly transparent sound relationships. - That said, one possible scenario that I've sometimes had in mind would be something similar to High German - Low German. You know, L.G. is historically-genetically really quite far away from H.G., because there were some rather radical sound shifts that moved H.G. away about 1.5 millenia ago, and L.G. has remained more akin to Dutch or even English on those sound-change criteria. But still, L.G. is today counted by its own speakers as a dialect of German, owing to the last few centuries of parallel development and social convergence. So, I wouldn't be too surprised if some degree of this type of "secondary" closeness had obtained between XMK and Greek. But that's just idle speculation on my part. Lukas (T.|@) 17:43, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for tolerating my ignorance Luke. Ofcourse it is just a speculation since we do not have facts (taking into account the LG/HG example etc). Maybe dab and 007 could bother to enlighten me with their views too. NikoSilver 17:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
our views are all over the talk archives. Do you have a specific question? The case is really very simple, it's a fragmentarily attested language that was in close contact with Attic/Ionic from the onset of historical tradition. There are many cases like that, we could just pile on the similes. This is only a "special case" because Greek and Slavic Macedonian nationalists have elected to make it their pet subject. Linguistically, it's a language of fragmentary attestation and uncertain genetic affilation. period. dab (ᛏ) 11:36, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

"Attic"

what is it with all the "Attic" tags in the glossary? Hesychius doesn't etymologize, he gives translations into "Attic" (Koine). We have to distinguish between merely quoting Hesychius' translation, and making a claim (Wikipedia's) of the XMK and the Attic term being cognate. "Attic" should only apply to the latter case. dab (ᛏ) 13:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The default dialect of Greek at the time was Attic. It was the defacto literary language until well in the middle ages. Miskin 17:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

my point exactly, what do you mean? dab (ᛏ) 11:31, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

XMK has to be compared to Attic and not to Koine Greek, as the latter didn't exist when XMK was alive. Hesychius doesn't explicitely say so, but it's blatant that he's using Attic as a point of comparison. For example 'Pherenike', which is standard Greek to Hesychius, would most likely be 'Pherenika' in Doric. Hence 'Pherenike', common Greek during the time of Hesychius, was not at all common during the time that XMK was spoken. It's imprecise to refer to Attic as 'common Greek' at a time that it was almost restricted to Attica. Miskin 12:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Koine Greek and XMK co-existed for a time. It's very unrealistic to think that a week or a month or even a year before or after Koine Greek was instituted, XMK vanished in a puff of air. The beginning of Koine Greek is dated back to ca 330--300 BC, and I don't think you will find an appreciable number of scholars who will dogmatically say that XMK went extinct in 340 BC, 330 BC, 301 BC, 290 BC, 280 BC, 270 BC or thereabouts. Alexander 007 20:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Miskin, Hesychius was not choosing Attic for linguistic reasons. He was just giving meanings in his standard language, as we would do in English. Did anyone get my original point? We need to say "Att." when we make a linguistic comparison, and we shouldn't say "Att." when we're merely quoting Hesychius. dab (ᛏ) 21:34, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I misunderstood your observation, see my comment below. Miskin 17:59, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Extinction

What do the references say on when ancient Macedonian became extinct? Do the references agree within a certain window of time (ca 100 AD), or is it very spread out as if they have no clue (180 BC---300AD even)? I mean the extinction of the language, not necessarily the ethnicity, because I know of many cases where ethnic groups outlive the extinction of their original language for awhile (see for example the Manchu of China). By the way, try to respond with references and citations, not guesses and inferences. I would guess that XMK could have went extinct as early as 50 BC or earlier — or centuries later — but I have no citations besides Linguist List and its broad "early first millenium AD" quote. Alexander 007 00:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Judging by Livy and Strabo, the individual ethnic feeling of the Macedonians (assuming that one ever existed), had already perished by the 2nd or 3rd century BC (you know of those references already). Judging by Philip's epistle's to the Athenians, no such feeling had ever existed. IMO, by the 6th century AD the Macedonians had been past the stage of regarding themselves as "Hellenes", and would regard themselves "Romans", just like all Christian Greek-speakers did at the time. I don't think that the cultural influence of the Chinese civilisation can be compared to the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman ones. I don't think that you can find medieval or late Antiquity reference on a non-Greek, non-Slavic Macedonian ethnic group. You'd first have to find a reference from Antiquity, because despite what the Greeks wrote, there's no evidence from the Macedonians that they regarded themselves separate. Miskin 09:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Glossary

What is the source of the Glossary section? Miskin

The first version was at http://www.geocities.com/indoeurop/project/glossary/mace.html originally uploaded by Dbachmann[4], the link has now moved to http://language.babaev.net/index.html. (select Словари, then Древнемакедонский словарь) Andreas 18:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Here are his sources:
  • 1. Нерознак В., Палеобалканские языки. М., 1978.
  • 2. Фасмер М. Этимологический словарь русского языка. М., 1986.
  • 3. Katicic, R. Ancient Languages of the Balkans. The Hague, 1976. Andreas 16:32, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

No doubt he used sources Andreas, but what I'm trying to understand here is the scholarly interpretation of Hesychius' Greek dictionary as a source on the Macedonian language. After having seen the dictionary myself and read about Hesychius' work, I haven't been able to understand where the implication of a Macedonian language lies. The glossary has entries of Laconian and Cypriot words which are no more recognisable as Greek than the Macedonian ones. This is why I'm asking for enlightnenment from someone who might have read those sources on his own. Miskin 16:47, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how credible this site can be, but Hesychius' glossary contains much more Macedonian words than the ones we have gathered. Secondly, unlike what most editors here tend to believe, Hesychius never compiled a glossary of the "Macedonian language" as most editors believe. In fact the term "Macedonian language" was alien to him, let alone compiling a work under that name. I think the recent debates on this subject have lead some editors into misinterpreting the nature of Hesychius' work. According to the sources, Hesychius compiled a dictionary of the Greek language, where he made sure to include all rare words of various Greek dialects (including non-Greek words assimilated into Greek). Hesychius' sources are of course earlier lexicographers, including the Macedonian Amerias. His dictionary entries are not much different than a modern dictionary's, except the definition is much shorter. They are of the form "<word>: <translation>, (used in <region>[if available]). Maybe that's something worth-mentioning in the article. I'd like to see a citation of a source where it is claimed that Hesychius' glossary can be used to draw conclusions on the Macedonian language. After having seen the glossary myself, many other forms of Greek (presented by Hesychius as Greek dialects) can be given the status of separate language. The dictionary's aim is to gather rare words, a large majority of which are not recognisable as Greek. Others, are simpy loan words. Miskin 18:11, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, according to Pokorny, Hesychius also glossed Thracian and Phrygian words, besides Macedonian; anyone can find them if they look through Pokorny's Indo-European etymological dictionary online. Pokorny, like many linguists, uses the Macedonian, Phrygian and Thracian glosses to — draw conclusions — about the Macedonian, Phrygian, or Thracian languages. I will link one example, you folk can find the rest [5]. Alexander 007 20:00, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

So according to you or Pokorny, what kind of dictionary is Hesychius trying to create by mixing random words from random languages? The Britannica article said that Hesychius' dictionary is one on the Greek language, where it includes many rare words from many dialects. It does however include words which were by his time assimilated into Greek from other languages. I don't see how this can be the case with Macedonian, as he takes the glossary directly from Amerias. Apart form that, the lexicon has over 80 Macedonian words, whereas entries on Thracian, Armenian and Roman loan words are extremely fewer. Unfortunately I don't own and glossary and it won't be easy for me to paste it here, or send it to someone via email. I could only copy the entries by hand but that would take forever. Miskin 16:25, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Contrary to what you apparently assume, neither I nor Dbachmann "tended to believe" that Hesychius wrote a specific manuscript compiling Macedonian words. Hesychius' compilation is a Greek compilation primarily, as the Hesychius of Alexandria article states (BTW, through that article, you can go to Hesychius on Wikisource, where it's been since dab posted it there last year); besides Greek words, Hesychius mentions Macedonian (disputed classification at present) words, and sometimes Thracian, Phrygian etc. (according to Pokorny etc.), so I would not assume that Macedonian was a Greek dialect because Hesychius glosses Macedonian often. Neither do many linguists etc. In any case, in the case of kálithos---from what language would it be a loan? It's not attested in Illyrian; the Greek cognate is different; and the Thracian cognate shows a satemization, so it's not Thracian. So taking into account words like these (kalithos is not the only example), one is still left with a distinct language-area (possibly dialect, but a rather different dialect) corresponding to Macedonian. Alexander 007 17:00, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not trying to prove that Macedonian was a Greek dialect because Hesychius grouped it as such. Many Greco-Roman scholars would also classify Latin as a Greek dialect, that doesn't mean they were right. I'm just pointing out that Hesychius, at least in his own mind, was compiling a dictionary of the Greek language. There's a surviving epistle in which Hesychius explains the purpose of his work and provides some of his sources, if you read it you'd get my point, but I'm not sure it can be found on the internet. You claim that many linguists who support the separate language theory, cite Hesychius as their primary source. Did those linguists read the glossary and pick out its Macedonian words, or were they given the list directly. Honestly I'm not doubting, I'm only trying to understand. Miskin 17:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Myshkinska, you can try asking Benutzer:Decius himself. Alexander 007 17:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

"what kind of dictionary is Hesychius trying to create"? Miskin, how naive are you, exactly? The man lived in the 5th century, that's at the inception of the "Dark Ages" for chrissake. Linguistics as a science was non-existent. Not to mention genetic classification of languages. It is astounding that Hesychius showed the interest he did in collecting dialectal words in the first place, you make it sound like he was the head of a linguistic research project or something. Look at articles on Wikipedia like ghillie, kohl, ghee etc. These are words that are in use in English. If we made an English glossary, we would say
  • ghillie "boy servant" (from the Gaelic)
  • kohl "eye makeup" (from the Arabic)
  • ghee "melted butter" (from the Sanskrit/Hindi)
and that's just what Hesychius did, too. dab (ᛏ) 17:23, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Dbachmann you're about to begin a big debate now. I think you overestimate the intellectual level of antiquity. The Greco-Roman World was intellectually much more advanced than Medieval Europe 800-1000 later. In fact it was the re-discovery of Classical scholarship which enlightened Europe's science and art during the Italian renaissance. Columbus used Strabo as his primary source, doctors applied the discoveries of Galen, and lawyers studied the Roman law. Alexandria had direct access to all Greek scholarship since the days of Homer, which was some thousands times greater in size of what survives today. You can't simply go "it was the 5th century, what did they know?". So my question stands, according to Decius' sources, what kind of glossary is Hesychius trying to compile. Again, my purpose is not to refute but to understand. Miskin 17:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Just FYI, it's on the Greek Wikisource: [6].
If I read the prologue correctly, it sounds as if he and his predecessors were collecting rare words that had shown up somewhere in the written literature ("πάσας τὰς σποράδην παρὰ πᾶσι κειμένας λέξεις συναγαγών") - and that might have included rare dialect words, loan words, foreign words that some Greek author had been quoting for whatever reason, exotic names, just anything. Just whatever happened to occur in some text. Lukas (T.|@) 17:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
that's the text I uploaded last year. I wonder why they keep it at a title as nondescript as "Γλῶσσαι". I made wikisource:el:Ἡσύχιος Ἀλεξανδρεὺς a redirect at least. dab (ᛏ) 17:40, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Lucas, I personally was not aware of this article, it seems to be complete. From the articles I've read, Hesychius compiled a lexicon on Greek. I'll rephrase my question dab, I'm trying to understand how the separate language theory can be implied through Hesychius Macedonian entries. As far as I'm concerned, Hesychius provides some 80 Macedonian words as part of the Greek language. Assuming that the roots of those 80 words are completely alien to Greek, why are we under the assumption that the rest 99.999999% of the Macedonian vocabulary is not provided by Hesychius because it was lost? Is it completely irrational to assume that Hesychius provided only the Macedonian glossary which was different from common Greek? That it way, Macedonian entries would fall under the "rare vocabulary" that Britannica talks about. I assume that linguistics much have already answered that question. Miskin 18:00, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
I'll make it short: Did you read our article? I mean this one, Ancient Macedonian language? You should. See the part about the voiced aspirates and things? That's the main point. I don't get your point at all. Are we also to assume that Thracian was identical to Greek except for the words glossed by Hes.? Lukas just told you, Hes. made a glossary of the foreign words he encountered in Greek literature, he didn't travel to Macedonia and did field research or wrote grammars of the natives' idioms. dab (ᛏ) 18:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Due all the respect but now I'm convinced that you're the one who has missed some episodes. According to Britannica, the vast majority of the glossary is attributed by Hesychius to other Hellenistic lexicographers (which we know by name). Hesychius' original research was mainly on the Homeric dialect. Much of this is summarised in his epistle, which unfortunately lacks an english translation on the greek server. Linguists attribute the Macedonian glossary of Hesychius to the Classical Macedonian Lexicographer Amerias. As a native to the language, he probably did travel his country and did field research on the natives' idioms. The status of Thracian can by not means be cited as an equivalent example. Miskin 18:24, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore it's almost impossible that Hesychius personally extracted the Macedonian glossary from Greek literary works. Many of the Macedonian definitions are "<word>: <synonym>, <as it is called in Macedonia>". At some specific point there's a reference on a "Macedonian speech" (phone). I'm not sure whether in this context it can be interpreted as "glossa". Miskin 18:34, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Your Amerias might account for the comparatively large number of Macedonian words not otherwise attested anywhere in Greek literature. The specific reference to a Macedonian phone is interesting (which gloss is that?), but we are of course agreed, aren't we, that the current language in Macedonia at the time was Attic anyway, and the words glossed by Amerias/Hesychius would at best be XMK loans into the local variants of Attic (much like the occasional Gaelic loan into Scots English, but just because a word is "in use in Macedonia[n Attic]" doesn't automatically make it an XMK loan). If XMK was still alive in the 5th c., it would have been spoken by remote mountain hillbillies well beyond the reach of Greek literacy. dab (ᛏ) 13:10, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

It's under M, <ματτύης>· ἡ μὲν φωνὴ Μακεδονική, ὄρνις. {en: '(in) the macedonian "voice", bird'}
There's another interesting entry in B:
<βηματίζει> {Attic: 'to walk'}, τὸ τοῖς ποσὶ μετρεῖν. ἔστι δέ πως ἡ λέξις Μακεδονική {en: 'the measurement of quantities; is most likely a Macedonian word'}. Miskin 13:55, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Judging from the following entry, <βηνῶσα>· ἡ φωνὴ τῶν προβάτων - {en: 'voice of sheep'}, 'phone' has its standard meaning of 'voice'. It probably can also take the meaning of "form of speech". Miskin 14:04, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Amerias is a red link. Alexander 007 14:05, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

And? Miskin 14:09, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

If you have information on Amerias, start the article with references indicated. Alexander 007 14:11, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's enough surviving information to start an article. It will be more like a dictionary entry. He's known through other people's references. Miskin 14:59, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

And if there is so little known of him, I don't expect too much is known about how Amerias compiled or collected those Macedonian words. Alexander 007 15:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Obviously not, and I hope you didn't take all that stuff about "travelling to Macedonia and making field research" literally. The point is that our glossary is most likely part of his original research. Miskin 15:06, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

There's hardly any references on the internet. Apart maybe from this:
"The same observations apply to lexical material. Relatively few words of the Macedonian dialect have been preserved: about 153 and they are recorded by Athenaeus and in the Lexicon of Hesychios, who drew them mainly from the work of the Macedonian lexicographer Amerias53."[7] Miskin 15:07, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

so, any idea for an etymology of mattues "bird"? no s or voiced stops, unfortunately. dab (ᛏ) 20:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

See also this entry. Alexander 007 22:51, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Aspirates before liquids/nasals

I am not a linguist but isn't weird that the φ to β, θ to δ, and χ to γ, happen to Modern Greek dialects like Cypriot Greek, especially when they are followed by liquids. For example: άδρωπος (human), γρουσός (golden), έβριξα (I freaked out), εγρίστηκα (I am smothered, comes from anointed). Compare it to κεβλιπύρης, Β(ί)λιππος, Β(ε)ρενίκη, Βρύγες. --Kupirijo 03:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposed merge

The article Ancient Macedonian dialect asserts that the tongue was the Greek dialect, but it obviously talks about the same issue. (Maybe it originated as result of ongoing Greco-Macedonian naming dispute, but it's being used as a tool in it anyway). In any case, they should be merged and PoVs sufficiently toned down. As a result of (foreseen) compromise, this article could maybe also be moved to Ancient Macedonian so to avoid language/dialect dispute. Duja 16:33, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm of the same opinion. The first half is almost identical, with exactly the same ample citation by Masson. As for the second paragraph, it doesn't even speak of Ancient Macedonian but of the present Macedonian language.--Aldux 19:16, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree in principle (merge/move). I too disagree with the tone of the dialect article. However, I think that the language article is indeed too toned down. I would appreciate if it could be relatively emphasized that the vast majority of linguists, based on the little evidence that have unfortunately been discovered, assume that XMK is a daughter or a sister language of Ancient Greek. Of course there are those that state that it could be an independent Indo-European language not especially close to Greek. But, the wording of the article is unfair towards the other probability/acceptance by linguists (I thought I'd never have to use that again: WP:NPOV#Undue weight).  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 21:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge. However, this doesn't even require a vote, and I hope this doesn't turn into a poll. Alexander 007 04:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I've turned it into a redirect as a blatant pov fork. dab (ᛏ) 08:41, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

dab notice to Old Church Slavonic?

Since it was me who originally put that in: my reason was that Old Church Slavonic is sometimes, also called "Old Macedonian", according to that article, and "Ancient Macedonian" and "Old Macedonian" might be confusable to the occasional reader. Not that I'd find it extremely important, though. Lukas (T.|@) 17:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

sorry, I didn't realize this (because I never heard OCS being referred to as "Old Macedonian", although I suppose that OCS being the 9th c. dialect of Thessaloniki, it does make some sense) -- by all means feel free to add it back. dab (ᛏ) 17:51, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually 'Old Macedonian', 'Old Bulgarian' and 'Old Church Slavonic' means exactly the same thing. The only difference is that the first term is exclusively used by Macedonian Slavs, the second mainly by Bulgarians, and the third by "others". Miskin 18:01, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Additions of Slavic cognates

Moved here from anon's talk page, as the IP's have been changing Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, anon, I don't think your additions make much sense there. Some of them seem to be just loanwords into Slavic from Greek (kreveti), others are trivial cognates (obrve; we could just as well add English brow, which is no more and no less related.) I'm not saying that these words are wrong, but they are irrelevant as long as you can't show a reputable linguistic reference that actually argues that these words can be used as an argument for a closer Slavic-XMK connection. Otherwise, to present them to the uninformed reader as if they could be the basis for such an argument (which clearly seems what you want to suggest) is wrong. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey, before you go on making your additions, would you care to answer me here on talk please? Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I'll revert for the moment - I don't want to edit-war, so please feel free to add it back in for the time being, if and when you will discuss your changes here, okay? Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
So Fut.Perf@Sunrise, I guess what you're stating here, is that the anon is just stuffing WP:BEANS up his nose, for illustrating how influenced his language is by Greek too. Right? (I was told by a German friend, your name is a joke, but I guess I'll never find out why...) NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 19:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
How? You got somebody to tell you this much, but he wouldn't explain more? How cruel of him. Well, he's actually right, but don't expect too much haha. More later. :-) Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Extinction 2

At present the article says the following:

[XMK] is believed to have survived until early in the Common Era, possibly as late as the 5th century AD.

Is there a source for this, because Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition, ISBN 1593392362, volume 7, page 620 asserts that:

By the 5th century BC the Macedonians had adopted the Greek language and had forged a unified kingdom.

Opinions? If the first quote is unsourced, then I think it should be replaced with Britannica's. --Telex 18:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I have considerable doubts regarding the first statement, but almost certainly the Macedonian dialect/language was still spoken to a level at the time of Alexander the Great, or else it would be hard to understand certain statements present in some of our original sources.--Aldux 19:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

No there's no source, that was just Decius' POV-pushing. You've seen Livius' account, it implies that Macedonians were already completely Hellenized by the 5th century (assuming they had not been Greek in the first place). Miskin 19:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think "Hellenize" is the appropriate word here. How about Atticize? The same Britannica article I'm quoting above refers to a people of unknown ethnic origins who called themselves Macedonians. So, for all we know, they could have been ethnically Greek. It is the view of some that they spoke Doric Greek (if so, then Griko and Tsakonian are the closest surviving relatives of XMK), so they were already ethnically Greek. If they were ethnically Greek, then it would be easier for them to adjust to Attic Greek, which may explain how smoothly their distinct language/dialect became extinct. --Telex 20:05, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Really Livy only tells us that at the start of the 2nd century BC Macedonians spoke Greek. He certainly never speaks of 5th century BC Macedonia.--Aldux 21:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Ahemm, just for the record, boys and girls, I didn't introduce the 5th century figure, I was just taking it over from Politis. Maybe I should have double-checked at the time. Honestly, I'm now too lazy to dive into the edit history to find out if it had been there earlier. I certainly don't feel any particular attachment to that figure. Lukas (T.|@) 21:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Somebody's got to explain how the Macedonian dialect, if it is such, extinguished in the 5th century when the pella katadesmos is from the 4th or 3rd century BC.--Aldux 22:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I know it wasn't you Lucas, this is why I removed the anon's edit along with his insult. I know who it is though and I know it's a POV. Telex I've been using the word "Hellenized" metaphorically, in order to be politically correct towards the people who might not want to see the obvious. Anyway nobody suggested that the Macedonian dialect died in the 5th cenutry BC, that has no basis. Miskin 22:29, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
The material was added accidentally by User:LukasPietsch, when he altered an edit by User:Politis. Check edit history for March 2006. 69.111.76.199 22:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The 5th century AD date is based on Hesychius compiling an XMK glossary at that time. If the language had been completely dead, Hesychius would have had no informers. XMK was marginalized in the 5th century BC. It is very common for marginalized languages to linger on in remote areas for several centuries, case in point, Etruscan was marginalized in the 5th century BC, and lingered on until the 1st century AD. Full nine centuries of such 'lingering' seems like a long time, I admit, but the 5th c. AD date is intended as the latest possible period for the last speaker. I should say that there were likely scattered XMK speakers at least until the 1st c. BC/AD, and possibly until as late as the 5th c. AD. dab (ᛏ) 21:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Hesychius' entries on Macedonian words were taken directly from the 5th c. BC lexicographer Amerias, whose work 'glossai' was most likely to be found in the library of Alexandria. Hence Decius' assumption becomes moot. Miskin 13:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
fair enough. Can you establish the 5th c. date for Amerias (his entry is unaware of his lifetime), and can you establish that all XMK in Hesychius are from Amerias? Or, if there are any other, later sources for XMK entries in Hes.? I do suppose extinction of XMK was much earlier than the 5th c. AD, but I am still open to the possibility that it lingered on until the 1st c. BC or so (since language death usually takes a couple of centuries). dab (ᛏ) 15:29, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

"All we have is a set of about 150 words that were recognized as Macedonian in Antiquity, many of which are derived from a Macedonian-to-Greek dictionary by a man named Amerias."[8]. It's impossible to know which or what exact proportion of words (if not all of them) were taken from Amerias, but it's unlikely that Hesychius made an original research. As he claims himself, his works are based on Diogenianus of Heraclea (2nd c. AD) [9], and I remember reading somewhere that Hesychius had access to Amerias' glossary through his. I'll try to look for this source which also mentions the 5th century date. Miskin 11:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Seriously though, you can delete this comment if you want, but Decius apparently was not the one who brought up the glosses of Hesychius as indications of a late Macedonian survival. It was in fact Dbachmann: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Ancient_Macedonian_language&diff=next&oldid=11907894 . Nor do I recall Decius or Alexander 007 ever arguing that those Hesychius glosses prove a late survival; and from what I remember about Decius and Alex, they really did not give a shit how late the language survived, since neither Decius or Alex would have anything to gain from a late survival, since neither Decius or Alex were Macedonian Slavs. It is annoying to see monkeys attributing arguments and "points" to Decius or Alex which he never advanced. At least, link incidents where we see those users arguing such points, otherwise don't misrepresent people on the internet. 68.126.251.215 16:46, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
what, pray, would Macedonian Slavs 'gain' from late XMK survival? And what would I, being a non-Macedonian non-Slav, 'gain' from that? I may have made a mistake there, judging XMK survival from the date of Hesychius, that is precisely why I am inquiring about Hesychius' sources: Who is this Amerias and what portion of Hesychius is due to him? dab (ᛏ) 16:54, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
If that anon vandal is in fact Decius/Alexander_007, I'll roll on the floor laughing. Miskin 11:03, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
You just proved that you're not Decius/Alexander_007; not because you broke all retardedness records, but because your last pathetic rambling showed that you don't know things that he did. I love this rebel internet-gangsta attitude; if you notice my contributions you'll find out I've been quite bored lately, so please keep it coming. Miskin 23:06, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Wording

It was me that made the change here [10]. The article says: "Others contend that Doric Greek was a second or third dialect spoken in ancient Macedon." If by "others" is meant to be Romiopoulou (1980) then how is it possible to contend something that was discovered in 1986, published in 1993, discussed by Masson in 1996 and others between 1994 - 2005 (i.e. Brixhe-Panayotou, O'Neil)? Is it C. Brixhe and A. Panayotou (1994)? If so, where that "second or third dialect" comes from? Ninio 21:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Tags

I have added two tags: 'Contradict' and 'Confusing', cause this article, in many cases, contradicts itself, by presenting a minority opinion as important and valid as the majority opinion and because there it is rather confusing for the reader, who in the end will have gained nothing, regarding the classification of Ancient Macedonian language and its relation with Greek or other languages. The lead is also confusing, contradicting all the sections of the article, favouring only the minority opinion poorly presented in sections 2.1 and 2.3. --Hectorian 23:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

  • There is absolutely nothing self-contraditory or confusing about presenting several legitimate scholarly opinions side by side, which is exactly what the article does. And your assessment that the one is an insignificant minority position (it was held by Antoine Meillet, for Chrissake!) is amateurish and baseless. Sorry for sounding harsh. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:10, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I did not say that Antoine Meillet's position is insignificant, but that this is a minority position, and this is evident by the references and sources on this article. self-contraditory or confusing is to present several legitimate scholarly opinions as if they all are equally accepted and as if they all are in the 'mainstream academic sphere'. only a minority of modern scholars (and no ancient or medieval scholars) hold the position that ancient Macedonian was not a Greek dialect. however, this position has lead to a misleading first paragraph, and to a really sad template which says:

Language family: Indo-European Paleo-Balkan languages (genetic affiliation uncertain)

the majority opinion, which would be

Language family: Indo-European Greek language (genetic affiliation uncertain)

is 'surprisingly' missing... --Hectorian 23:32, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Hey, I really like to know why that had to happen. Also, I know that the prominence of each of the scholars may well be more important than their number, but just for the sake of the argument, since I am not a linguist and the article is kinda blurry on that, can someone please tell me how many refs are there for each of the hypothesies (sister/daughter/alien of Greek)? •NikoSilver• 00:05, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
In the lead of classification section (where all theories are presented) there are: 7 scholars who say it was a greek dialect, 2 that say it was an illyrian and 2 saying it was an independent Indo-European language. later on i found one more saying it was greek (Ahrens, F. H. L. in the references section) and 1 (A. Garrett) saying that it was part of a balkan dialectal continuum (including greek). i think it is evident which is the majority opinion (once more: ancient and medieval sources excluded!). The info-box that i said before, is only one of the things on which the position of minority has been imposed over the majority's. in the section 'Independent Palaeo-Balkan language' and in the Thraco-Illyrian article, the very existance of Thraco-Illyrian is disputed... however, in this article it is presented as a prominent theory! id est "the speculation of a speculation" or else "the theory of a theory"... Jesus! Hectorian 00:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Where has that bizarre idea sprung up suddenly that scholarly consensus is a vote and that Wikipedia should weigh competing opinions by (perceived) numerical majorities? Apart from the fact that the truly prevailing majority opinion is probably one of complete agnosticism. For all I can see, no linguist worth his mettle (except Greek nationalists) proposes identification as Greek with any amount of certainty. Just read that short summary by Masson ([11]): He sums up the state of the art as being exactly the way this article presents it, as a situation of competing "schools of thought". Fine, he then proceeds to give his own opinion on the matter, which comes down "tentatively" on the one side. That doesn't mean he would dare to marginalise the other side, being the serious scholar that he is. Live with it: the matter is uncertain and will remain so forever unless a miracle happens and we find actual texts. The competing opinions, which are basically all just guesses, are qualitatively on a par. The only case where Wikipedia would be justified to clearly promote one over the other would be if one was truly fringy and held by an insignificant minority. This is most definitely not the case here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:18, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm removing one of the tags again, for now. If you find the article "confusing", that's okay; but you have made no case at all for it being "self-contradictory". Inappropriate weighing of opinions, as you assert there is, is not the same thing as self-contradiction. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
what FP just said. This has all been settled and beaten to death, several times over, months ago. Feel free to review the archives. dab (ᛏ) 08:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Huh? does this article sums up the state of the art as being exactly the way Masson presents it? compare the leadings, the conclusion, the validity he gives to the majority opinion, pls. Not that Mason's opinion should be the one to 'conquer' the article, as u mentioned this as well. i never said that the issue is not disputed! i said that it is unscientific and unencyclopedic to give to opposing opinions the same validity, space, 'promotion', despite the long history, numerical strength among scholars, archaeological findings, etc that only one of them has. as i have said before, almost all wikipedia articles (especially those related to ethno-linguistics) have disputes. however, i have not come across another article to be so equally "balanced" and to favour so much the minority opinion; cause like it or not, the view that ancient Macedonian was not a greek dialect is a minority opinion (and saying this, does not make me a nationalist, but just realistic...). feel free to remove the other tag as well (i do not want to be seen as the 'stupid' one in here who cannot understand an article! i perfectly understand it!). however, i would invite (and insist on that) all the users who prefer this article to be in the current form, to provide more references and examples for the opposing theories: there are whole lists of words in this article showing the relation between this language and greek. so, i challenge everyone to present at least as many illyrian or thracian or (?) words related to ancient macedonian. pick them up from any scholar's work, if u find any... lastly, i see that the infobox has not changed... isn't this an impose of the minority opinion over the majority? in addition, there have been some requests for citations that have never been provided... i am not going to re-add the tags. maybe it would be interesting to list Greek language as descending from Indo-European->Graeco-Armenian (i know, it is a minority opinion, but who cares? afterall, even Meillet supports this!). Regards... Hectorian 11:06, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I modified the infobox. You know what to do if you disagree...•NikoSilver• 12:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Heavens, Niko: [12]. Talk about this article being confusing. This is far too much for an infobox. It would take even me half an hour to figure out what the differences between all the different options are, and then think of an unprepared reader. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:48, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
(in a humourous way) the diffs link is identical to the article's positions: messy... Hectorian 12:52, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Ha! My intentions were not WP:POINTy at all. I just copied in the infobox all the theories listed in the article. It's not my fault if the article is messy! :-) You said: "It would take even me half an hour to figure out what the differences between all the different options are", I say: How long does it take you to see that every alternative contains Ancient Greek one way or another? Isn't it kinda WP:POV to exclude any reference of the only common relation that all those theories have? Please work with me to find a way on how we can stick in those two forbidden(?) words: "Ancient Greek"! •NikoSilver• 13:03, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Ahem, you misunderstand the purpose of language trees. Being "related" is fine and all, but we don't normally stick second cousins twice removed together as if one was the father of the other. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

How about stating somewhere above the theories in the article that:

What do you think? •NikoSilver• 13:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

You know what? It's kinda frustrating that nobody answers unless you actually modify the article, so I went WP:BOLD! •NikoSilver• 14:18, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Hey, I can't sit in front of my computer all day, I sometimes have other things to do! Don't be impatient! Will be back about this shortly. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Μην μυγιάζεσαι! :-) •NikoSilver• 21:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm very far from convinced about the "identical with" bit; and the "loosely connected" comprises "about as loosely as Phrygian or Thracian", i.e. basically not radically more closely than Latin or Celtic or whatever. The most "pro-Greek" formulation I've seen so far would be "highly aberrant form of Greek" or some such. More in half an hour. I need a glass of red wine to prepare myself for what comes now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree on this. saying "identical with" is a rather strong wording... (everyone accepts that it was different from the other greek dialects, and that the other greek dialects were different from each other). but the "loosely connected" i think it's good: it represents the view that it belonged to a group of languages of the "Hellenic branch" (though this is also disputed). and according to this theory, on which the whole theory of A.Mac. been a "sister language" of Greek is based here, it was at least as close as Thracian and Phrygian (i think this one is not disputed to having been very close to Greek-from the time when Plato pointed out the similarities). and definately, closer than Latin or Celtic, that belong to another branch(es) of IE. Hectorian 05:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Request for clarification

Can anybody check the accuracy of this summary:

"As to Macedonian β, δ, γ = Greek φ, θ, χ, Claude Brixhe[1] suggests that it is a later development: The letters do not designate voiced stops, i.e. [b, d, g], but voiced fricatives, i.e. [β, δ, γ], due to a devoicing of the voiceless fricatives [φ, θ, x] (= Classical Attic [ph, th, kh])."

It does not seem to agree with what the same author writes two years earlier on the same topic, in Brixhe/Panayiotou (1994: 218f.). If I understand them correctly, they say that words like "Berenika" are in fact authentic representatives from a language that had been separate from Greek since a time when they still had the inherited *bh, *dh, *gh, but that later Macedonian Greek might have acquired some new instances of /b,d,g/ corresponding to Greek /ph,th,kh/ by way of analogy, and after Greek /b,d,g,ph,th,kh/ had shifted to /v,δ,γ,f,θ,x/. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

According to my knowledge, this summary is accurate. I am not in a position to know if the the specific author had written something else before. But these differences do not justify Macedonian been a separate language from Greece. Similar developments can be seen in Aeolic Greek as well. In addition, the pronouncation of 'β' as 'φ' alone, would not be a distinctive characteristic of a separate language, even if we did not similar cases in other languages/dialects. u said: later Macedonian Greek might have acquired some new instances of /b,d,g/ corresponding to Greek /ph,th,kh/ by way of analogy, and after Greek /b,d,g,ph,th,kh/ had shifted to /v,δ,γ,f,θ,x/: i am not sure if i can understand this. Greek /b,d,g,ph,th,kh/ shifted to /v,δ,γ,f,θ,x/ during the hellenistic age (always according to Erasmus). so, at that time, the Macedonian language had already long ago stopped been spoken and so, such new instances could not had been acquired by an already extinct language/dialect. according to what we know, even before the reign of Philip II of Macedon the ancient Macedonians were speaking Attic (unless someone finally provides those "legendary" citations that A.Mac. continued to be spoken by the early centuries of the Common Era and may at the end have survived only among a few individuals and fell out of favor and became relegated to the remote inland areas-this last request for citation will be added right away). Hectorian 04:57, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Checked sources

Okay, I went and checked the literature. Here's the result:

  • The current section on the various interpretations is very closely based on the state-of-the-art report in Brixhe/Panayiotou (1994). (We should clarify that a bit in the text). This, in turn, heavily draws upon the earlier state-of-the-art report by Katicic (1976), apparently the standard work on the topic. This is where the "agnostic" view comes from. We can safely take that as the mainstream.
  • Brixhe/Panayiotou themselves then go on cautiously arguing in favour of a rather complex and sophisticated language mixture scenario, where however the upshot is that Macedonia had become predominantly Greek-speaking by classical times. They raise the question, however, whether that Greek dialect is really what we should refer to as "Ancient Macedonian". Basically, what the later Greek collectors of "glossai" called Macedonian may not in fact have been a unified linguistic entity at all. I'm not yet sure how to incorporate this in the article (and I must admit my French is not too good.)
  • I then went on checking the secondary/tertiary literature to see what the "consensus" or "majority" was in the wider field: general histories of Greek, compendia and specialist encyclopedias of ancient languages, and so on. I've seen:
    • A. Meillet & M. Cohen (1952), Les langues du monde;
    • A. Klose (1987), Languages of the world: a multi-lingual concordance of languages;
    • J.P. Mallory / D.Q.Adams (1997), Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture;
    • G. Horrocks (1997), Greek: A history of the language and its speakers
    • A. Dalby (1998), Dictionary of languages;
    • B. Joseph (2001), "Ancient Greek", in Facts about the world's major languages: an encyclopedia of the world's major languages, past and present;
    • H. Haarmann (2002), Lexikon der untergegangenen Sprachen ['Dictionary of extinct languages']
    • O. Masson (2003), in Oxford Classical Dictionary
    • R. Woodard (2004), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages;
  • Result: with the exception of Masson, all these works firmly maintain the "agnostic" view, agreeing that the question about the exact nature of Macedonian isn't decided and probably can't be decided at all. All of the more recent works seem to come to this conclusion based on the standard references of Brixhe/Panayiotou and Katicic - these are invariably the principal sources cited.
  • So, there is no doubt that there is a very strong consensus in the wider field of Greek and Indo-Europeanist studies, until today, that the issue is undecided and all the existing older theories must be taken seriously on an equal basis. However, after reading Brixhe/Panayiotou and that short cautious summary by Masson, I come away with the impression that there might (!) be a trend (!) among a smaller circle of experts that goes cautiously towards a more "Greek" view.
  • I'm not yet at all certain about this latter finding. I believe the main emphasis of the article should still follow the established consensus-about-no-consensus as embodied in the standard reference handbooks. What's good enough for the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages (2004) is good enough for us. However, it might be feasible, after clearly presenting this "agnostic" state-of-the-art summary, to then go on and present Brixhe/Panayiotou and Masson in a bit mmore detail, sort of assuming they represent more of the cutting edge. Maybe that Garrett guy too. But I would only be prepared to do that in collaboration with one or two other competent linguists. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Congratulations for your work. I will help as much as I can, but I am not a linguist, let alone a competent one! •NikoSilver• 21:28, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Absorbed vs assimilated

If we are talking about a seperate language, then it got assimilated. but if we are talking about a dialect, i think that the word 'absorbed' is the most suitable. a dialect preserving many characteristics with the standard form of the language, can loose them, and become identical to that standard form. The dialect continues to exist, without its basic characteristics. but if we say assimilated, we mean that the Ancient Mac. language ceased to exists and was replaced by Koene. the most commonly accepted theory is that the ancient greek dialects changed somehow during the hellenistic era; changed their characteristics they did not share with koene. thus, they did not got assimilated, since they lost only the characteristics they did not share with Koene (and those characteristics were few compared to those they preserved). not very important revert, but i think that the previous wording was better. Hectorian 04:35, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Unrelated?

The note above the lead directing users to modern (Slavic) Macedonian begins: "For the modern, unrelated, Slavic language..." In fact, these are both Indo-European languages. They are related. Can we find better wording? Jd2718 00:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Good work, old chum. I suspect that numerous editors---besides you---noticed that months ago, and indeed probably when it was first added into the article by whoever added it (User:Theathenae? who knows). But they willfully ignored it. It appears that you have stumbled upon a form of silent, organized corruption at the highest levels in Wikipedia. Don't dig too deep. You might not like what you find. 69.106.205.63 11:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia is really run by the Elders of Zion. Our agents are at present hunting down and terminating user 69.106.205.63. It is true that Slavic and XMK are related via PIE, of course. The point is that their sharing the same name is not due to any relationship but merely to a geographical coincidence. We might indeed try to find a better wording for this. dab (ᛏ) 12:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
We could try: "For the modern, Slavic language..." or "For the modern Slavic language called Macedonian..." or "For the more distantly related Slavic language..." or "...also called Macedonian..." I'd vote for the first, but many things might work here. And there could be other ideas. But as we know that the languages are related, they should not be called unrelated. Jd2718 20:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
You forgot to mention the Epsilons! •NikoSilver• 12:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
No, Dbachmann was right. It is the Elders of Zion. I am Agent Židovský. My address is Na Jezerce 4, Nusle | Praha 4, 6121-2043. For you slow-minded people, that means I am in Prague, where I last saw 007 packing his Meerschaum. I am appalled that the complaints of Jd2718 continue to be ignored on this page. I know 007 only ignored it because he was an asshole on his high horse, and he wanted somebody else to do it. Just like he wants someone to archive this talk page already. 69.106.107.162 03:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  1. ^ Claude Brixhe, "Un «nouveau» champ de la dialectologie grecque: le macédonien", in: A. C. Cassio (ed.), Katà diálekton. Atti del III Colloquio Internazionale di Dialettologia Greca (A.I.O.N., XIX), Napoli 1996, 35-71.
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