Did Ancient Macedonians speak a language, unknown to the Ancient Greeks?

Question

Please answer this question after reading this article, written by the ancient historian Badian. What do you think about this article? http://www.gate.net/~mango/Badian.htm

So John says "bullshid" to a wellknown historic researcher.

This writer is called "Macedonian specialist" and this article is easier to read:http://faq.macedonia.org/history/ancient.macedonia/borza.html
Please try to read the articles and tell me what do you think about these two historians? (Badian and Borza)

To ragzeus: I know two people from Greece who don't agree with you, but they unfortunately have a policy not to be involved in this type of discussions. Anyway the John Shea's book says that 80% of the population in Thessalonika at the beggining of the last century was Jewish. His book is based on a research of many academic sources and written easy to read for us uneducated in this field.

Answer 1

Nice question from Karolina and actually with arguments! The only problem is that it is based in only a few passages out of context!(please read my entire answer)
Every historian agrees that ancient Macedonians were Greeks and they were speaking a Greek dialect. (Not to confuse ancient Greek Macedonia with modern Slavic/Albanian-Macedonia)
The most important historian about Macedonia is Nicholas G. L. Hammond
{Nicholas G.L. Hammond was one of the most important professors of Cambridge University and he was a major stakeholder in the production of the second edition of The Cambridge Ancient History (CAH); and he was editor of the second edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD).}
Nicholas G.L Hammond clearly states that ancient Macedonians were Greeks and that they were speaking a Greek dialect!
“"Philip was born a Greek of the most aristocratic, indeed of divine, descent... Philip was both a Greek and a Macedonian, even as Demosthenes was a Greek and an Athenian...The Macedonians over whom Philip was to rule were an outlying family member of the GREEK-SPEAKING peoples."
"As subjects of the king the Upper Macedonians were henceforth on the same footing as the original Macedonians, in that they could qualify for service in the King's Forces and thereby obtain the elite citizenship. At one bound the territory, the population and wealth of the kingdom were doubled. Moreover since the great majority of the new subjects were speakers of the West Greek dialect, the enlarged army was Greek-speaking throughout."
Nicholas G. L. Hammond, ‘Philip of Macedon’
Duckworth Publishing, February 1998
N. G. L. Hammond states:
“What language did these `Macedones' speak? The name itself is Greek in root and in ethnic termination. It probably means `highlanders', and it is comparable to Greek tribal names such as `Orestai' and `Oreitai', meaning 'mountain-men'. A reputedly earlier variant, `Maketai', has the same root, which means `high', as in the Greek adjective makednos or the noun mekos. The genealogy of eponymous ancestors which Hesiod recorded […] has a bearing on the question of Greek speech. First, Hesiod made Macedon a brother of Magnes; as we know from inscriptions that the Magnetes spoke the Aeolic dialect of the Greek language, we have a predisposition to suppose that the Macedones spoke the Aeolic dialect. Secondly, Hesiod made Macedon and Magnes first cousins of Hellen's three sons - Dorus, Xouthus, and Aeolus-who were the founders of three dialects of Greek speech, namely Doric, Ionic, and Aeolic. Hesiod would not have recorded this relationship, unless he had believed, probably in the seventh century that the Macedones were a Greek speaking people. The next evidence comes from Persia. At the turn of the sixth century the Persians described the tribute-paying peoples of their province in Europe, and one of them was the `yauna takabara', which meant `Greeks wearing the hat'. There were Greeks in Greek city-states here and there in the province, but they were of various origins and not distinguished by a common hat. However, the Macedonians wore a distinctive hat, the kausia. We conclude that the Persians believed the Macedonians to be speakers of Greek. Finally, in the latter part of the fifth century a Greek historian, Hellanicus, visited Macedonia and modified Hesiod's genealogy by making Macedon not a cousin, but a son of Aeolus, thus bringing Macedon and his descendants firmly into the Aeolic branch of the Greek-speaking family. Hesiod, Persia, and Hellanicus had no motive for making a false statement about the language of the Macedonians, who were then an obscure and not a powerful people. Their independent testimonies should be accepted as conclusive (N.G.L. Hammond, The Macedonian State, p.12-13)
But it is not only Hammond! You mention Borza and I have provided before a passage from his latest book. It is true that Borza was skeptical and at a point he disagreed that Ancient Macedonians spoke Greek. (He supported that the Ancient Macedonians had become Greek (Hellenized) before Philip’s time mainly because the royal family was Greek!) Since the site you mention has only few passages which happen to be out of content! Allow me to give you the full passage about Ancient Macedonia from Borza!
Eugene N. Borza, ‘Makedonika’
Regina Books, Claremont CA
"Our understanding of the Macedonians' emergence into history is confounded by two events: the establishment of the Macedonians as an identifiable ethnic group, and the foundation of their ruling house. The "HIGHLANDERS" or "MAKEDONES" of the mountainous regions of western Macedonia are derived from NORTHWEST GREEK STOCK; THEY WERE AKIN BOTH TO THOSE WHO AT AN EARLIER TIME MAY HAVE MIGRATED SOUTH TO BECOME THE HISTORICAL "DORIANS", and to other Pindus tribes who were the ancestors of the Epirotes or Molossians. That is, we may suggest that NORTHWEST GREECE PROVIDED A POOL OF INDO-EUROPEAN SPEAKERS OF PROTO-GREEK from which were drawn the tribes who later were known by different names as they established their regional identities in separate parts of the country."
"First, the matter of the Hellenic origins of the Macedonians: Nicholas Hammond's general conclusion (though not the details of his arguments)that the origin of the Macedonians lies in the pool of proto-Greek speakers who migrated out of the Pindus mountains during the Iron Age, is acceptable."
As you can see Borza actually agrees with Hammond that Ancient Macedonians were Greeks and spoke a Greek dialect and if you read the above passage the various references of the site you mention take a different meaning!!!!
But there are more historians who say the same!
Malcolm Errington, ‘A History of Macedonia’
(University of California Press, February 1993, pg 3)
"That the Macedonians and their kings did in fact speak a dialect of Greek and bore Greek names may be regarded nowadays as certain."
"Ancient allegations that the Macedonians were non-Greeks all had their origin in Athens at the time of the struggle with Philip II. Then as now, political struggle created the prejudice. The orator Aeschines once even found it necessary, in order to counteract the prejudice vigorously fomented by his opponents, to defend Philip on this issue and describe him at a meeting of the Athenian Popular Assembly as being 'Entirely Greek'. Demosthenes' allegations were lent on appearance of credibility by the fact, apparent to every observer, that the life-style of the Macedonians, being determined by specific geographical and historical conditions, was different from that of a Greek city-state. This alien way of life was, however, common to western Greeks of Epiros, Akarnania and Aitolia, as well as to the Macedonians, and their fundamental Greek nationality was never doubted. Only as a consequence of the political disagreement with Macedonia was the issue raised at all."
"The Molossians were the strongest and, decisive for Macedonia, most easterly of the three most important Epirote tribes, which, like Macedonia but unlike the Thesprotians and the Chaonians, still retained their monarchy. They were Greeks, spoke a similar dialect to that of Macedonia, suffered just as much from the depredations of the Illyrians and were in principle the natural partners of the Macedonian king who wished to tackle the Illyrian problem at its roots."
And And Robin Lane Fox - "Alexander the Great"
"he was still in a world of Greek gods and sacrifices, of Greek plays and Greek language, though the natives might speak Greek with a northern accent which hardened 'ch' into 'g','th' into 'd' and pronounced King Philip as Bilip".
Page 30.
"Philip's mother had been Lyncestian noblewoman of the rebellious kings of Lyncestis who traced their origins to the notorious Bacchiad kings of Greek Corinth"
Page 32.
"Olympia's royal ancestry traced back to the hero Achilles, and the blood of Helen of Troy was believed to run on her father's side"
Page 44.
"The Macedonian kings, who maintained that their Greek ancestry traced back to Zeus, had long given homes and patronage to Greece's most distinguished artists"
Page 48.
"But Alexander was stressing his link with Achilles... Achilles was also a stirring Greek hero, useful for a Macedonian king whose Greek ancestry did not stop Greeks from calling him a barbarian"
Page 60.
"No man, and only one hero, had been called invincible before him, and then only by a poet, but the hero was Heracles, ancestor of the Macedonian kings"
Page 71.
"War, Philip had announced, 'was being declared against the Persians on behalf of the Greeks, to punish the barbarians for their lawless treatment of the old Greek temples"
Page 92.
"Among the conservative Greek opinion there would be no regrets that Alexander the Greek leader was invading the barbarians"
Page 101.
"To his ancestors (to a Persian's ancestors) Macedonians were only known as 'yona takabara', the 'Greeks who wear shields on their heads', an allusion to their broad-brimmed hats"
Page 104.
"As for the hired Greeks in Persian service, thousands of the dead were to be buried, but the prisoners were bound in fetters and sent to hard labour in Macedonia, 'because they had fought as Greeks against Greeks, on behalf of barbarians, contrary to the common decrees of the Greek allies'"
Page 123.
"Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks, except the Spartans...", as "Sparta did not consider it to be her fathers' practice to follow, but to lead"
Page 123.
"In spirit, Alexander made a gesture to the Lydians' sensitivities, though his Greek crusade owed them nothing as they were not Greeks."
Page 128.
"Alexander was not the first Greek to be honored as a god for political favor..."
Page 131.
"Alexander was recognized as a son of Zeus after his visit"
Page 201.
"it was the Delphi of the Greek East and as a Hellene, not as Pharaoh, Alexander would be curious..."
Page 204.
"supported the belief that he was the Greek gos Zeus's son"
Page 214.
"when his Macedonians mutinied at the end of their marching, they were said to have ridiculed him and told him to 'go fight alone with his father', meaning Zeus, not Philip"
Page 216.
"The occasion was not lost on Alexander: at Susa, he sacrificed to Greek gods and held Greek gymnastic games..."
Page 253.
"In return he left behind Darius's mother, daughters and the son whom he had captured at Issus, and appointed teachers to teach them the Greek language."
Page 254.
"Alexander was still the Greek avenger of Persian sacrilege who told his troops, it was said 'that Persepolis was the most hateful city in the world'. On the road there, he met with the families of Greeks who had deported to Persia by previous kings, and true to his slogan, he honoured them conspicuously, giving them money, five changes of clothing, farm animals, corn, a free passage home, and exemption from taxes and bureaucratic harassments."
Page 256.
And also many more agree such as Richard Stoneman, ,Ulrich Wilcken ,John V.A. Fine ,A. B. Bossworth ,Charles Edson, Thomas Martin, Hermann Bengtson ,Paul Cartledge , A.R. Burn ,Peter Green ,Mary Renault ,J.M. Roberts,R. M. Cook,Francois Chamoux ,Bevan ,Peter Tsouras ,Lewis Vance Cummings ,D.G Hogarth ,L.S. Stavrianos
Martin Sicker ,Graham Shipley ,Richard Gabriel, Michael Cage, Samuel Eddy ,René Grousset ,Anthony E. David ,Donald R. Dudley
And a source that you will find it unexpected!!
The Military Yugoslavian Encyclopedia of the 1974 edition (Letter M, page 219), (a very anti-Hellenic biased publication,) states, “… u doba rimske invazije, njihov jezik bio grčki, ali se dva veka ranije dosta razlikovao od njega, mada ne toliko da se ta dva naroda nisu mogla sporazumevati.” (… at the time of the Roman invasion their language was Hellenic, but two centuries before it was different enough, but not as much as the two peoples could not understand one another). (If you think the translation is wrong please correct) Interesting isn’t it!
And now about the Badian article. Badian clearly states at the beginning that his article “does not propose to bring up the much-debated old question of whether the ancient question of whether the ancient Macedonians "were Greeks." And he also clearly states:” The Kultursprache of ancient Macedonians, as soon as they felt the need for one, was inevitably Greek, as it was in the case of various other ancient peoples. There was no feasible alternative.”
Again Badian states that he is not questioning the origin or the language of the ancient Macedonians but he is writing about the historical connection of the various Greek states with the Macedonians before the Persians wars!
And he clearly excludes the royal family and the upper aristocracy! :
“The average Macedonian (as distinct from the royal family and the highest nobility) had left us little evidence of what he thought--or indeed, whether he cared.”
“We have now become accustomed to regarding Macedonians as "Northern Greeks" and, in extreme cases, to hearing Alexander's conquest described as in essence Greek conquests. The former certainly became true, in Greek consciousness in the course of the Hellenistic age; the latter may be argued to be true ex post facto.”
He is saying that we can not tell if before the Persian wars the Macedonians were considered as Greeks but he clearly says that the Macedonian royal family claimed Greek descent. The Argive dynasty.
He sees political motivation behind it but he never at any part of the article claims that ancient Macedonians were not Greeks.
At least we can say that he is skeptical and not yet fully convinced!
And this is how he ends the article:
“In fact, these two rebellions at the two extremes of the empire were the only ones for a long time. It was (significantly) only Greeks, whether professional soldiers or mere Greek citizens, who showed enough spirit to challenge what they felt to be the foreign domination. But that they in fact did so shows that at this time the gap between Greeks and Macedonians was by no means bridged. The work of the Argead kings who had long tried to work toward bridging it, and the work of Alexander who was himself the result of the long process (though, as we saw, he did not try to force it on beyond what was acceptable), was to take perhaps another century to reach fruition. Perhaps it was not fully completed until both parties became conscious of their unity, as it had by then developed, in contrast to a conqueror from the barbarian West.”
Read it more carefully and you see that he says:
” The work of the Argead kings who had long tried to work toward bridging it, and the work of Alexander who was himself the result of the long process (though, as we saw, he did not try to force it on beyond what was acceptable), was to take perhaps another century to reach fruition. Perhaps it was not fully completed until both parties became conscious of THEIR UNITY, as it had by then developed, in contrast to a conqueror from the barbarian west.”
Of course he is making some assumptions (he always says that he is not sure!) that are not supported by evidence and as it seems the article is ignoring archeological evidence.
All the archaeological evidence in Greek (real) Macedonia including those in Trebenište and Oleveni near Bitola, are in pure Greek! Every inscription, coin, name on tombs, artifacts, are all in pure Greek language! With a few exceptions, the only time one sees non-Greek names and toponymies is in areas that constituted the expansion of Macedonia, i.e. Paeonia, Thrace, etc. Any non-Greek names, words or toponymies found in the Macedonian expanded territory are remnant of Thracians, Phrygians or Paeonians that used to live there before their expulsion by the Macedonians.
All the names of Ancient Macedonia are Greek! All the cities the ancient Macedonians were named with Greek names! Such as Aigai , Pella, Thesalloniki, Veroia, Oresteias, Philipoi, and hundreds more like Anthemous, Almopia, Amphaxitis, Bisaltia, Botiaia, Chakildiki, Edonis, Elimeia,Eordaia, Krestonia, Lynkests, Mygdonia,Odomantis, Orestis, Pelagonia, Pieria, Sintiki, Thassos, Tymphaea and more!! All these Greek names originate from the ancient times and they are found in scripted and in the coinage of real Macedonians and consequently they are much older than the Slavic alternatives. Most of these names are used even today in Greece.
All the ancient Macedonian names mentioned in history or found on tombs are Greek. All the kings of Ancient Macedonia had Greek names. Let me give you a small list of the Greek names of the Macedonians
Alexandros(Alexander) , Phillipos (Philip), Ifestion, Antipatros, Antiochos Lyssimachos , Ptolemeos, Antigonos ,Seleukos, Parmenion, Perdicas Hermias Anaksarxos, Marsias, Zoilos, Deinokratis, Aristoboulos ,Aristokritos, Thessalos ,Argeos, Pausanias, Eumenes , Kassandros , , Admetos, Krateros, Arrianos, Philotas, Cleitos, Neoptolemos Python, Hippostratos, Attalos, Kleitarxos, Polyperchon, Aristandros, Polycratis, Bolon, Koinos, Iolaos, Xenokratis ,Deukalos, Arrhideos ,Charidimos ,
Kalas, Perseas, Meleagros, Arpalos, and hundred more names found written on their tombs!!!
I hoped I have answered your question and hope you realized that both Borza and Badian don’t question the Greek origin of the Macedonians and the fact that they spoke a Greek language.
Also don’t forget that archaeological evidence don’t lie !

Answer 2

According to N G L Hammond the ancient Macedonians spoke a very early form of Greek that was unintelligible to Southern Greeks. Eugene Borza calls the Macedonian language Proto-Greek. Linguists generally descibe Macedonian as North-Western Greek. James O'Neil states that Macedonian was very clearly Doric Greek but a different form of Doric Greek from any of the west Greek dialects. Ultimately the Macedonians under Philip adopted the more refined prestige Greek dialect of Attic Greek. Ultimately the ancient Macedonians genetically merged with the rest of the Greek peoples and assimilated themselves out of existence by Hellenistic times.

Answer 3

The Ancient Macedonians were the inhabitants of Macedon in ancient times. Historians generally agree that the ancient Macedonians—whether they spoke a Greek dialect or a distinct language—were absorbed into the Koine Greek-speaking population in Hellenistic times. Whether the ancient Macedonians were an ethnically Greek people themselves continues to be debated by historians, linguists, and lay people. However, the Macedonian Royal family known as the Argead dynasty claimed Greek descent.

Answer 4

Unfortunately I did not have the time to go thro' the webpage given by you. However I think the following answere your question.

The Ancient Macedonians were the inhabitants of Macedon in ancient times. Historians generally agree that the ancient Macedonians—whether they spoke a Greek dialect or a distinct language—were absorbed into the Koine Greek-speaking population in Hellenistic times. Whether the ancient Macedonians were an ethnically Greek people themselves continues to be debated by historians, linguists, and lay people. However, the Macedonian Royal family known as the Argead dynasty claimed Greek descent.

Answer 5

And the historian Nicholas G. L. Hammond wrote:

"What language did these `Macedones' speak? The name itself is Greek in root and in ethnic termination. It probably means `highlanders', and it is comparable to Greek tribal names such as `Orestai' and `Oreitai', mean­ing 'mountain-men'. A reputedly earlier variant, `Maketai', has the same root, which means `high', as in the Greek adjective makednos or the noun mekos... At the turn of the sixth century the Persians described the tribute-paying peoples of their province in Europe, and one of them was the `yauna takabara', which meant `Greeks wearing the hat'. There were Greeks in Greek city-states here and there in the province, but they were of various origins and not distinguished by a common hat. However, the Macedonians wore a dis­tinctive hat, the kausia. We conclude that the Persians believed the Macedonians to be speakers of Greek. Finally, in the latter part of the fifth century a Greek historian, Hellanicus, visited Macedonia and modi­fied Hesiod's genealogy by making Macedon not a cousin, but a son of Aeolus, thus bringing Macedon and his descendants firmly into the Aeolic branch of the Greek-speaking family. Hesiod, Persia, and Hellanicus had no motive for making a false statement about the language of the Macedonians, who were then an obscure and not a powerful people. Their independent testimonies should be accepted as conclusive."

so?

Answer 6

Macedonian

Answer 7

The Ancient Macedonian language was the tongue of the Ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in Macedon during the 1st millennium BC. Marginalized from the 5th century BC, it is believed to have disappeared by the early centuries of the Common Era.[citation needed] It was probably spoken predominantly in the inland regions away from the coast. 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 close to Greek, Thracian and Phrygian languages.

The Pella katadesmos, a text written in a distinct Doric Greek idiom, found in Pella in 1986, dated to between the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, has been forwarded as an argument that the ancient Macedonian language was a dialect of North-Western Greek, part of the Doric dialects (O. Masson, 1996). Before the discovery it was proposed that the Macedonian dialect was an early form of Greek, spoken alongside Doric proper at that time (Rhomiopoulou, 1980).

Answer 8

Pribojević, Vinko (1532). O podrijetlu i zgodama Slavena (Oratio fratris Vincentii Priboevii sacrae theologiae professoris ordinis praedicatorum de origine successibusque Slavorum, Venecija

Answer 9

The Macedonian spoke Greek but with an accent. The Greeks such as Demothenes considered them to be barbians, uncultured. Philip, Alexander's father, often raged at the Greeks for their snobbishnish of Macedonian ways, in a way like London towards the Beatles as okies.

Answer 10

Yes, they speak macedonian language, always .

Answer 11

ganesh is right. the confusing fact is that two entirely different languages have the same name.