[tied] Old MACEDONIAN

Though a historian, and a late ancient/mediaeval Greek one at that, I follow and learn much from this list. I do feel compelled to comment on remarks that require a context and historical justification.

The statements I highlighted in red below [1 & 2] are so absolute as to be either wrong or meaningless. It is only in Demosthenes’  polemical speeches that the Macedonians are referred to a barbarians; most scholars over time (not influenced by anachronistic nationalists) largely assumed that this was simply name-calling. In fact the evidence is strong that, while early forms of Macedonian (and Epirotan at that) may well have been as Michael describes, by the sixth century BC the Macedonian elites, at least, were sucked into the main line Greek cultural and by extension linguistic orbit. Indeed there is very little evidence of any other linguistic influence, much less presence, during that period.

Questions of ethnic, political even cultural self-identification are perforce dynamic phenomena and are not easily set in dogma, modern nationalist (and anti-nationalist) assertions notwithstanding. The fact is that the Greek cultural presence (obviously transmuted over time) in the southern Balkans between the 7th century BC and the early middle ages was by far the most dominant (the incursions of Latin were relatively limited), so it is a little strange even to assert alternatives.

Phil’ s comment, “Some say it’s Hellenic... but it can’t be!” (sic) is incomprehensible were it not for the present phantasms of putative “Macedonian” (sic) nationalism that has reared its head in the southern Balkans over the last century or so. It has found some naïve,  if willing takers for its ideological hodge-podge that includes, (1) denial of the Hellenicity of the ancient Macedonians,(2) the assertion that somehow these “non-Greek Macedonians” of the first millennium BC are identical to the Slav-speakers that first appear in the historic record around the 5th century AD [to my best knowledge-- I stand to learn from the many Slavicists on the list about this subject], and (3) those, in turn, with the Christian non-Greek speaking Macedonian peasantry of the late 19th-early 20th centuries.

This is a short outline of a cultural-historical approach, which should not preclude anything that is demonstrable by evidence and documentation. Most of us are at least skeptical of ideological approaches and the distortions these perpetuate.

Cheers,
Aristide Caratzas


9/4/03 8:58 PM, "Michael" <lookwhoscross-eyednow@...> wrote:

Hi Phil,
My understanding was that it was closest to Aeolian, and either a seperate Hellenic branch, a seperate Indo-European branch from Hellenic but sharing much in common with it, or Macedonian and Hellenic were two seperate branches of a kind of "Macedonian-Hellenic."
Of course, I don't really know a whole lot about it and I could be wrong.

I don't think Macedonian and any other Hellenic dialects were mutually intelligable and [1] Macedonians were always distinguished from Hellenes and not considered Greeks.

-Michael

-- "lifeiscool86" <lifeiscool86@...> wrote:
What is OLD MACEDONIAN exactly?? Not Macedonian the Slavic tongue..
but Macedonian, like Alexander the Great the Phil-Hellene.. Some
say, it's a mixture of Thracian and Illyrian.. personally, I guess
so... but I really don't know for sure.
[2] Some say it's Hellenic.. but it can't be! The Macedonian Kingdom was
somehow Hellenized, the language and all (therefore previously non-
Hellenic), and those same Macedonians were reffered to as barbarians
by the Greeks. Is there a real genuine "Old Macedonian" language, a
language that is relative to another IE tongue -- I mean, not just a
mixture of Thracian and Illyrian?

P.S. Thracian is related to the Germano-Balto-Slavic group, right?

Peace out,
PHIL