Were Ancient Macedonians Greek?

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EGGPT and EGGPTers ??? Can you at least spell these names Dachs? :) FOERM and FOERMians are nice to spell (Phoerm / Phoermians).

FECA and FECAns too (Former English Colonies of America). Pheca / Phecans.

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You should add "y" to your name, and Poland will be EGGYPT and Poles EGGYPTERS. :lol:

When we are finally Eggypters, we can start building pyramids: :lol:

 
Another interesting opinion on this subject:

Michael J. Taylor said:
On the issue of language, my understanding is that Macedonian has a number of similarities, and probably would have been somewhat intelligible to a Greek speaker (although some linguists suggest that Philip would have been pronounced "Bilib" due to a patois sound shift. On the criterion of mutual intelligibility, Macedonian might be considered a Greek dialect. The line between a dialect and a separate language is in reality an often dubious one, and some linguists quip that a "language is a dialect with an army an navy." I have also been told by people who know linguistics better than I do, that Macedonian is related to Greek, but it is not the most closely related language: this honor goes to Phrygian.

When the Greeks went about policing their own ethnic boundaries, the Macedonians usually fell on the outside, although for diplomatic reasons the Macedonian royal family was considered of Greek descent, and therefore members of the royal family were allowed the participate in the Olympic games. Nonetheless, Greeks could point to a number of un-Greek things Macedonians did, most notably drinking un-diluted wine, and for having homosexual relationships between between fully grown, bearded men (Greeks, on this definition, only had sex with boys).

The Macedonians, despite the Hellenic pretensions of their royal family, were themselves content to let this separation stand. Note, for example, the isolation amongst Alexander's successors that Eumenes of Caria faced, not being an ethnic Macedonian. Even Hellenistic kings identified themselves as "Macedonians" to their subjects (for example Antiochus I in the Borsippa cylinder). But the again, when necessary, the Macedonians wave the Panhellenic banner when they had to, most notably Alexander in his crusade against the Persians. Alexander even had the audacity to justify his brutal destruction of Thebes in the fact that the Thebans had Medized during the Persian Wars. They had, but so had the Macedonians!

The short answer, would be no, the Macedonians were not full card carrying Greeks. But as with most controversies in the ancient world, it is complicated!

So even Phrygians were linguistically "more Greek" than Macedonians.

Also on the basis of sexual habits, Macedonians were not Greeks... :lol:
 
Yeah, and we should also refer to Poland as the Erstwhile General Government of the Polish Territories.
I'll contemplate that as soon as they start haranguing a fellow North African country for stealing that name...:D
 
Some update of this thread:

How much Greek were Ancient Macedonians is still a subject of scientific discussion (leaving aside nationalistic quarrels).

The knowledge of Ancient Macedonian language from primary sources is very limited. Only small pieces of vocabulary are known.

What is certain is that it was an Indo-European language, but other things remain doubtful.

There are many theories regarding Ancient Macedonian language, but 4 of them are the most influential ones:

1) It was not Greek, but a separate Indo-European language, related to Greek, Thracian and Phrygian.
2) It was not Greek, but one of dialects of the Illyrian language, heavily influenced by neighbouring Greek language.
3) It was one of northern or north-eastern dialects of Greek, with strong influence of some Pre-Indo-European substrate.
4) It was a "sister" language of Greek within the Indo-European languages, closely related to Greek but not Greek itself.

Theory number 3) is of course the most popular one among nationalistic Greek historiography.

But it is no more probable than the remaining three theories - 1), 2) and 4).

So I'd be careful with claims that Ancient Macedonian history "belongs" to modern Greeks from the Hellenic Republic, and ONLY to them.

Somehow Ancient Greeks were not so eager to "embrace" Ancient Macedonians, and did not see them as part of the Hellenic world.

They called them "barbarians" and considered them as less civilized than a) Greeks / b) other Greeks (choose proper answer).

So claiming that Ancient Macedonian history "belongs" to Greeks is - for example - like claiming that Russian history "belongs" to Poles. After all, Russian is a Slavic language related to Polish, and we have a common Slavic origin during the Migrations Period. There are more similarities - Russia was also considered more "barbarian" than Poland, but in the end Russia conquered Poland (just like Macedonia in the end conquered Greece).

[[ now I am waiting until Greek and Pro-Greek forumers start their rage - but I am well prepared, I have some snacks and beer ]]
 
The above does not really warrant a 7-month bump of a dead thread :/

As for Fyrom, i am not sure what you are up to but i already said they can be known as Macedonians, provided they move a bit further away from the already distant actual land of Macedonia :)

Maybe Poland, with all the other proto-characters :mischief:
 
Dumb but related question:

Is Macedonia (and Macedonians) pronounced with a soft "C", or a hard "C"? Never figured this one out.
 
There is no C at all, cause it stands for the K.

Makedonia (Μακεδονία).

Supposedly the etymology is from the obscure term Makednos, which is argued to denote height. But i am not sure if that is actually a legitimate meaning either (nor if that very term was at least usual in the ancient era).
 
There is no C at all, cause it stands for the K.

Makedonia (Μακεδονία).

Supposedly the etymology is from the obscure term Makednos, which is argued to denote height. But i am not sure if that is actually a legitimate meaning either (nor if that very term was at least usual in the ancient era).

Yeah, seeing the K is what tripped me up, as I always pronounced it with a soft C.
 
As for these quarrels on who was "first" in the Balkans.

All modern Balkan populations - regardless what language they speak - have significant percent of I2 haplogroup. This is - together with I1 (both of whom originate from I) - the oldest haplogroup in Europe, which was present already among population which lived in Europe during the Last Glacial Period.

So in the Balkans there is - to a large extent - the continuity of population and settlement since at least 15,000 years ago until now.

In other words - your biological ancestors lived in the Balkans already before any of modern languages spoken there came to existence.

Languages spoken in the Balkans were changing all the time, but people remained, despite many waves of new colonists and new admixtures.

Large amounts of I haplogroup (I2 and I1) survived only in two regions of Europe - in the Balkans (I2) and in Scandinavia (I1).

This is because both these places are unfavourable for farming.

Places favourable for farming - like Western Europe - became colonized by Stone Age farmers from Asia Minor, bearers of R1b haplogroup. Previous I2 and I1 populations were mostly hunter-gatherers (even though some of them learned farming), so they were much less numerous than migrating R1b.

But apparently most of R1b migrants decided not to settle in the Balkans and in Scandinavia. Apart from some groups maybe.
 
Yeah, seeing the K is what tripped me up, as I always pronounced it with a soft C.

Like most ancient Greek words, it's pronounced with a soft C in English, but erroneously if you were to use the original Greek. The same with Seleucid, Thrace, Nicias, etc.
 
Ancient Latin C's are the same way.
 
Do you pronounce Caesar as Kaiser?
 
And nobody calls that big Italian island Sikily or even Sikilia, because that sounds really stupid.
 
^

a) In current Greek it is Sikelia

b) I am not at all sure if that term was used while it was actually a mostly Greek land. Maybe it was, although i know not of any etymology and it does sound a bit like a latin or etruscan exonym. I suppose Herodotos and Thucydides would give the answer there.

note: Although it would sound far more Greek if it was something like Seikilia (as in song of Seikilos). In general it is rare to have two or more "e" sounds (of any of the two types) in a Greek word with all of them being one-letter ones.
 
No, but I pronounce Celtic with a hard C.

It's not consistent.

Well, I'm not sure that's wrong in English. To me, Celtic with a soft C are names of sports teams, while the ethnic group has a hard C. However, that might just be the exception.

Don't get me wrong, I've pronounced Tacitus with a hard c before even though I know the convention is a soft C. It's just a question of what language you're going for - the original language or English. However, if you're not using the English word, it's probably best to transliterate the original word.
 
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