What was the language of the ancient Macedonians? Was it a Greek Dialect, a separate language related to Greek, or something on its own? As will be seen in this article, the first hypothesis is also the most plausible.
1. ETHNONYMY
Linguistic information can already be collected from the ethnonym (or ethnonyms) of the Macedonians. Makedones (Μακεδόνες) has an obvious Greek etymology from the word mākos (Doric)/ mēkos (Attic-Ionic) meaning "length" (PIE *méh₂ḱos > Proto-Greek *mā́kos). Adjectives derived from this root include makednós and mēkedanós (μακεδνός/μηκεδανός) meaning "high" or "long" ¹. An older version of the ethnonym, "Maketai" ², also comes from the same root. The etymology points to the conclusion that the so-called Makedones were simply the Highlanders. There is also similarity with the meaning of other Greek ethnonyms around Macedonia such as the "Orestai" or "Oreitai" meaning "mountain men". Here is what N. G. L. Hammond writes:
«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 mékos» ³.
The transition from "Maketai" to "Makedones" was probably made with the addition of the collective Hoffmann suffix *-h₃onh₂- , also observed in the ethnonym of the Aeolian Greeks (Aioleīs > Aiolíōnes). In Hesychius' glossary we find
<Αἰολίωνες · Αἰολεῖς, ἀπὸ τοῦ Αἰόλου>
Another famous Macedonian tribal name, the Argeadai, is found in ancient literature. According to Strabo ⁴ , Argeadai was the tribe who were able to prevail in early Macedonia/Emathia:
«The country now called Macedonia was formerly called Emathia. It acquired this name from Macedon, one of its ancient princes. There was also a city Emathia near the sea. The country was occupied by some of the Epirotæ and Illyrians, but the greatest part by Bottiæi and Thracians. The Bottiæi were of Cretan origin, and came under the command of Botton; the Pieres, who were Thracians, inhabited Pieria and the parts about Olympus; the Pæonians, the borders of the river Axius, from whence the region was called Amphaxitis; the Edoni and Bisalti, the rest of the country as far as the Strymon. The Bisalti retained their name, but the Edoni went under the various names of Mygdones, Edoni, (Odones?) and Sithones. Of all these people, the Argeadæ and the Chalcidenses of Eubœa became the chief».
The ethnonym shows obvious connection to the Greek toponym Árgos ( Ἄργος). The etymology is uncertain, although it is believed that there is a link to the Greek word argós ( ἀργός) meaning "shining" (PIE *h₂erǵ-, "white") ⁵. Nevertheless, derived Greek ethnonyms are found in ancient Greek literature, with a well-known example being the Argeīoi Danaoí ( Ἀργεῖοι Δαναοί) of Homer, used to describe the Greeks collectively ⁶.
2. TOPONYMY
We will focus on the place names found inside the so-called Macedonian homeland, the geographical region where the ethnogenesis of the Macedonians took place and became the core of their expansion. The geographical term "Macedonia" is absent from Homer's Iliad, which means that even before the Dark Ages, the ancestors of the Macedonians were settled elsewhere. Marsyas of Pella, Macedonian writer, informs us that «Orestia is also called Maketa» (καὶ τὴν Ὀρεστίαν Μάκεταν λέγουσιν) ⁷. It can therefore be assumed that the pre-Orestian population was related to the "Maketai" (who later became the Makedones), hence the name "Maketa". The etymology of the toponym is technically already discussed in the previous section. Thus, the Molossian tribe of the Orestai forces the Maketai to migrate to the land which they will call Macedonia. The ethnogenesis of the Macedonians is described by Marsyas through a traditional myth:
«Makedon son of Zeus and Thyia, conquered the land then belonging to Thrace and he called it Macedonia after his name. He married a local woman and got two sons, Pierus and Amathus; two cities, Pieria and Amathia in Macedonia were founded or named after them» ⁷.
This myth is not much different from that of Hesiod, quoted by Constantine Porphyrogennetus:
«Macedonia the country was named after Makedon, the son of Zeus and Thyia, daughter of Deucalion, as the poet Hesiod relates; and she became pregnant and bore to thunder-loving Zeus, two sons, Magnes and Macedon, the horse lover, those who dwelt in mansions around Pieria and Olympus» ⁸.
To the above can be added the definition of the "Macedonian Territory" of Herodotus:
«When he had arrived at Therma, Xerxes quartered his army there. Its encampment by the sea covered all the space from Therma and the Mygdonian country to the rivers Lydias and Haliacmon, which unite their waters in one stream and so make the border between the Bottiaean and the Macedonian territory» ⁹.
We can subsequently identify the Macedonian cradle with Pieria. Inside the Macedonian homeland, the vast majority of place names have a Greek etymology:
- Pieria (Πιερία): from Greek πῖαρ (pīar, "fat"), in the metaphorical sense of "πίειραν ἄρουραν" = "fertile land"; PIE root *péyh₂wr̥ ¹⁰
- Amathia/Emathia (Αμαθία/Ημαθία): from Greek ámathos ("sand"), ἠμαθόεις (ēmathóeis, “sandy”); PIE root *sámh₂dʰos ¹¹
- Dion (Δίον): from Greek Διός (Diós, genitive singular of Zeus); PIE root *dyḗws
- Leibethra (Λείβηθρα): from Greek λείβηθρα (leíbēthra, "canals", sing. λείβηθρον)¹²
- Petra (Πέτρα): from Greek πέτρα (pétrā, "rock")
- Aigai (Αἰγαί): from Greek αἴξ (aíks, "goat"); PIE root *h₂eyǵ-
Hammond confirms:
«The toponyms of the Macedonian homeland are the most significant. Nearly all of them are Greek: Pieria, Lebaea, Heracleum, Dium, Petra, Leibethra, Aegeae, Aegydium, Acesae, Acesamenae; the rivers Helicon, Aeson, Leucus, Baphyras, Sardon, Elpeüs, Mitys; lake Ascuris and the region Lapathus. The mountain names Olympus and Titarium may be pre-Greek; Edessa, the earlier name of the place where Aegeae was founded and its river Ascordus were Phrygian» ³.
It is reasonable to assume that Greek place names indicate a presence of a Greek-speaking community. And these place names came to Pieria with the settlement of the Macedonians, as indicated by the case of Aigai; the Macedonians established their first city in Edessa and renamed it to Aigai. We observe that the Macedonian name is Greek, while the pre-Macedonian one is non-Greek, but Phrygian.
3. ANTHROPONYMY
Particular emphasis should be given to Macedonian anthroponymy, as it is an indicator of whether the Macedonians were linguistically Hellenized. In the Greek colony of Halicarnassus, Greek personal names constitute only a significant number, while onomastics of (Graeco-)Carian origin prevail:
«Two fifth-century inscriptions from Halikarnassos document well over a hundred names together with patronymics. Of these, only about one third of occurrences concern a Greek name and a Greek patronymic» ¹³.
In Halicarnassus, which received the first waves of Greek colonists in the 14th century BC, the personal onomastics are mostly local, despite the Hellenization of the inhabitants. If the Macedonians were Hellenized like the Carians, we would expect the same thing for Macedonian anthroponymy. Let us extract information from the Macedonian homeland again. Jaime Curbera and David Jordan published six curse tablets from the Macedonian city of Pydna, which yield 66 personal names. Of these 66, only 2 (~3.03%) are of non-Greek origin (!):
• Αμαδωκος (Amadokos)
• Σιτάλκας (Sitalkās)
These two names obviously come from neighboring Thrace. The Greek names can be divided in roughly two categories; epichoric (Macedonian) names and Panhellenic names (names attested in other Greek regions). We will comment on the Macedonian and possible Macedonian (i.e. Aeolo-Doric) names:
- Τροχας: Doric name, attested in an inscription at Kytenion, Doris ¹⁴. Names with the root Τροχ- are also found in other Greek regions ¹⁵.
- Λυγκωριτας: Ethnicon, implying origin from *Λυγκωρεια (Λύγκος, Lyncus + ὄρος, mountain). Possible identification with
montes Lyncon, between Epirus, Macedonia, and Thessaly attested by Titus Livius ¹⁶.
- Ορωιδυος: New/unattested name. The name's second element is related to Laconian βειδυ(ι)ος , Attic ιδυιος, ιδυος and Epirote ϝειδυς. The name might be a version of Οροιδος, name of the king of Parauaei ¹⁷ and has similar morphology to the Chaonian name Φωτυος.
- Κτολεμμας: A dialectal version of greek Πτολεμαίος (Ptolemy), common Macedonian name (cf. the famous Ptolemaic Dynasty). The shift kt- → pt- is rare in Greek but not unparalleled; cf. πτοίνα → κτοίνα in Doric inscriptions from Rhodes ¹⁸.
- Αλκιμος: Common Macedonian name with obvious origin from Greek ἄλκιμος (=powerful).
- Αμύντας: Common Macedonian name with obvious origin from Doric Greek ἀμύντᾱς (= defender)
- Κρατευας: Macedonian/Aeolo-Doric name also attested in Thessaly, Boeotia and Pergamon, also attested as Κρατεϝας ¹⁹. The name comes from Greek κράτος (= force, power) ²⁰
- Αρπαλος: Macedonian name, possibly connected with Greek αρπάζω ("to seize") or αλπνιστος ("loveliest") ²¹.
You can read the related publication here.
We can easily realise that Macedonian names are dialectal renderings of common Greek names. None of them are etymologically non-Greek, or at least unattested among Greeks. Comparing the case of Pydna with the case of Halicarnassus, it is plausible to conclude that there is no evidence of (linguistic) Hellenization. It is also worth noting that in one of the Pydna inscriptions records the dialectal Greek name Ἑλλαν, related to Doric/NW Greek Ἕλλᾱν (Hellene) and also in an inscription from Delphi we find a reference to Φιλαρχος, son of Ἑλλανίων the Macedonian from Elimeia ²². It would be extreme to deny the Hellenicity of a person literally named … "Hellene" !
In the next part, we will deal with epigraphic evidence and analyze in more detail the morphology and phonology of the Macedonian dialect.
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Sources/References:
¹ Lexicon of Hesychius, "Makednos" (pl. "Makednoi") also appears as an alternative ethnonym of the Macedonians and Dorians (Herodotus, 1.56)
² Strabo, 10.4.10; Aulus Gellius, 9.3.1
⁴ Strabo, 7.11
⁶ Homer. Iliad, 2.155-175, 4.8; Odyssey, 8.578, 4.6
⁸ Constantine Porphyrogennetus, De Thematibus «Μακεδονία ἡ χώρα ὠνομάσθη ἀπὸ Μακεδόνος τοῦ Διὸς καὶ Θυίας τῆς Δευκαλίωνος, ὥς φησιν Ἡσίοδος ὁ ποιητής· Ἣ δ' ὑποκυσαμένη Διὶ γείνατο τερπικεραύνῳ υἷε δύω, Μάγνητα Μακηδόνα θ' ἱππιοχάρμην, οἳ περὶ Πιερίην καὶ Ὄλυμπον δώματ' ἔναιον»
⁹ Herodotus, 7.127
¹⁰ J.P. Mallory, D. Q. Adams, The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the
Proto-Indo-European World, p.261
¹¹ E. Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus, p. 70
¹³ J. Hall, Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture, p. 101
¹⁶ 32.13.3
¹⁷ Thucydides, 2.80.6
²⁰ Search "Κρατευας" in LGPN
²¹ Search "Αρπαλος" in LGPN
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