page_title: Ancient Macedonians
section_title: Language
hierarchical_section_title: Ancient Macedonians / Culture and society / Language
caption_attribution_description: Ελληνικά: Ενεπίγραφη στήλη των μέσων του 4ου αιώνα π.Χ. από την Βεργίνα, όπου αναπαριστώνται γονείς και κόρη και στην κορυφή υπάρχει επίγραμμα. Αρχαιολογικό μουσείο Θεσσαλονίκης. English: A relief inscribed stele (mid 4th century B.C., Vergina) depicting parents and daughter. An epigram is preserved on the upper part. Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki
context_page_description: The Macedonians were an ancient tribe that lived on the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios in the northeastern part of mainland Greece. Essentially an ancient Greek people, they gradually expanded from their homeland along the Haliacmon valley on the northern edge of the Greek world, absorbing or driving out neighbouring non-Greek tribes, primarily Thracian and Illyrian. They spoke Ancient Macedonian, a language closely related to Ancient Greek or a Doric Greek dialect, although the prestige language of the region was at first Attic and then Koine Greek. Their religious beliefs mirrored those of other Greeks, following the main deities of the Greek pantheon, although the Macedonians continued Archaic burial practices that had ceased in other parts of Greece after the 6th century BC. Aside from the monarchy, the core of Macedonian society was its nobility. Similar to the aristocracy of neighboring Thessaly, their wealth was largely built on herding horses and cattle.
  Although composed of various clans, the kingdom of Macedonia, established around the 8th century BC, is mostly associated with the Argead dynasty and the tribe named after it.
context_section_description: For administrative and political purposes, Attic Greek seems to have operated as a lingua franca among the ethno-linguistically diverse communities of Macedonia and the north Aegean region, creating a diglossic linguistic area. Attic Greek was standardized as the language of the court, formal discourse and diplomacy from as early as the time of Archelaus at the end of the 5th century BC. Attic was further spread by Macedonia's conquests. Although Macedonian continued to be spoken well into Antigonid times, it became the prevalent oral dialect in Macedonia and throughout the Macedonian-ruled Hellenistic world. However, Macedonian became extinct in either the Hellenistic or the Roman period, and entirely replaced by Koine Greek. For instance, Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, spoke Koine Greek as a first language and by her reign (51–30 BC) or some time before it the Macedonian language was no longer used.
  Attempts to classify Ancient Macedonian are hindered by the lack of surviving Ancient Macedonian texts; it was a mainly oral language and most archaeological inscriptions indicate that in Macedonia there was no dominant written language besides Attic and later Koine Greek. All surviving epigraphical evidence from grave markers and public inscriptions is in Greek. Classification attempts are based on a vocabulary of 150–200 words and 200 personal names assembled mainly from the 5th century lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria and a few surviving fragmentary inscriptions, coins and occasional passages in ancient sources. Most of the vocabulary is regular Greek, with tendencies toward Doric Greek and Aeolic Greek. There can be found some Illyrian and Thracian elements.
  The Pella curse tablet, which was found in 1986 at Pella and dates to the mid-4th century BC or slightly earlier, is believed to be the only substantial attested text in Macedonian. The language of the tablet is a distinctly recognizable form of Northwest Greek. The tablet has been used to support the argument that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Greek dialect and mainly a Doric dialect. Hatzopoulos's analysis revealed some tendencies toward the Aeolic Greek dialect. Hatzopoulos also states that the native language of the ancient Macedonians also betrays a slight phonetic influence from the languages of the original inhabitants of the region who were assimilated or expelled by the invading Macedonians. He also asserts that little is known about the languages of these original inhabitants aside from Phrygian spoken by the Bryges, who migrated to Anatolia.
  In Macedonian onomastics, most personal names are recognizably Greek (e.g. Alexandros, Philippos, Dionysios, Apollonios, Demetrios), with some dating back to Homeric (e.g. Ptolemaeos) or Mycenean times, though non-Greek names (e.g. "Bithys") are occasionally found here. Macedonian toponyms and hydronyms are mostly of Greek origin (e.g. Aegae, Dion, Pieria, Haliacmon), as are the names of the months of the Macedonian calendar and the names of most of the deities the Macedonians worshiped; according to Hammond, these are not late borrowings.
  Macedonian has a close structural and lexical affinity with other Greek dialects, especially Northwest Greek and Thessalian. Most of the words are Greek, although some of these could represent loans or cognate forms. Alternatively, a number of phonological, lexical and onomastic features set Macedonian apart. These latter features, possibly representing traces of a substrate language, occur in what are considered to be particularly conservative systems of the language.
  Several hypotheses have consequently been proposed as to the position of Macedonian, all of which broadly regard it as either a peripheral Greek dialect, a closely related but separate language (see Hellenic languages), or a hybridized idiom. Drawing on the similarities between Macedonian, Greek and Brygian, several scholars wrote that they formed an Indo-European macro-dialectical group, which split before circa 14th–13th century BC before the appearance of t
caption: An ancient Macedonian funerary stele, with an epigram written at the top, mid 4th century B.C., Vergina, Macedonia, Greece
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