Ancient Macedonian was either an ancient Greek dialectNigel Guy Wilson (2009). Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, Routledge, p.439: "The latest archaeological findings have confirmed that Macedonia took its name from a tribe of tall, Greek-speaking people, the Makednoi."—related to Northwest Doric and Aeolic—or a Hellenic language spoken by the ancient Macedonians during the 1st millennium BC. Spoken originally in the kingdom of Macedon, it gradually fell out of use from the 4th century BC, marginalized by the Macedonian aristocracy's use of Attic Greek, the dialect that became the basis of Koine Greek, the lingua franca of the Hellenistic period. It became extinct during either the Hellenistic or Roman imperial period, and was entirely replaced by Koine Greek.: "However, with respect to the discussion in this chapter it seems to be quite clear that (a) ancient Macedonian at some date during the Hellenistic or Roman imperial era was completely replaced by koine Greek and died out, and (b) that ancient Macedonian has no relationship with modern Macedonian which together with Bulgarian belongs to the eastern branch of southern Slavonic languages."
While the bulk of surviving public and private inscriptions found in ancient Macedonia were written in Attic Greek (and later in Koine Greek),: "Many surviving public and private inscriptions indicate that in the Macedonian kingdom there was no dominant written language but standard Attic and later on koine Greek." fragmentary documentation of a vernacular local Macedonian variety comes from onomastic evidence, ancient glossaries, and recent epigraphic discoveries in the Greek region of Macedonia, such as the curse tablets from Pella and Pydna.Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 289
Classification There has been some recent scholarly agreement, often expressed as cautious or tentative, that ancient Macedonian was a dialect of the Northwest Greek group. However, a minority of scholars has suggested that ancient Macedonian was most likely a separate Indo-European language closely related to Greek rather than a simple dialect.Friedman, Victor A.; Joseph, Brian D. (2025). The Balkan Languages. Cambridge University Press. Suggested classifications include:
A Greek dialect, part of the Northwest Doric group of dialects; pioneered by (1808), and subsequently supported by Olivier Masson (1996), Irad Malkin (2001), Michael Meier-Brügger (2003),Michael Meier-Brügger, Indo-European linguistics, Walter de Gruyter, 2003, p. 28,on Google books Johannes Engels (2010),: "This [i.e. Pella curse tablet] has been judged to be the most important ancient testimony to substantiate the theory that Macedonian was a north-western Greek and mainly a Doric dialect (...)." Simon Hornblower (2011), J. Méndez Dosuna (2012), Georgios Babiniotis (2014), Joachim Matzinger (2016), Georgios Giannakis (2017),: "Recent scholarship has established the position of (ancient) Macedonian within the dialect map of North-West Greek (see, among others, Méndez Dosuna 2012, 2014, 2015; Crespo 2012, 2015). Here belongs the study by M. Hatzopoulos, who offers a critical review of recent research on the Macedonian dialect, arguing that all available evidence points to the conclusion that this is a Greek dialect of the North-West group." Claude Brixhe (2018), M. B. Hatzopoulos (2017, 2020), Emilio Crespo (2017, 2023), Lucien Van Beek (2022) and Jessica Lamont (2023). A Greek dialect related to, or a version of, Aeolic Greek; suggested by August Fick (1874), Otto Hoffmann (1906), N. G. L. Hammond (1997), Ian Worthington (2012) and Wojciech Sowa (2007, 2018, 2022). A sister language of Greek, according to a scheme in which Macedonian and Greek are the two branches of a Greek–Macedonian subgroup, also called Hellenic (or Helleno-MacedonianEric P. Hamp & Douglas Q. Adams (2013), "The Expansion of the Indo-European Languages", Sino-Platonic Papers, vol 239.) suggested by Georgiev (1966),Vladimir Georgiev, "The Genesis of the Balkan Peoples", The Slavonic and East European Review 44:103:285–297 (July 1966)"Ancient Macedonian is closely related to Greek, and Macedonian and Greek are descended from a common Greek–Macedonian idiom that was spoken till about the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. From the 4th century BC on began the Hellenization of ancient Macedonian." Joseph (2001) and Hamp (2013).
Scholars have variously proposed that ancient Macedonian was a dialect of Greek, a sister language, or an independent Indo-European language, and the disputes have sometimes had modern nationalistic overtones. Research has also considered the extent of influence from Thessalian Aeolic Greek and non-Greek substrata or adstrata, such as Phrygian, Illyrian, and Thracian. Hammond suggests that in the region of Upper Macedonia, the tribes of Elimiotes, Orestes, Lyncestae, and Pelagones, were all Epirotic Molossian tribes speaking the Northwest Greek dialect,: "Pelagones in the region of Prilep, the Lyncestae in the region of Florina, the Orestae in the region of Kastoria, and the Elimeotae in the region of Kozani. These tribes were all Epirotic tribes and they talked the Greek language but with a different dialect, the Northwest Greek dialect, as we know now from the local questions which were put to the god of Dodona." while the inhabitants of Lower Macedonia spoke an Aeolic dialect. Sowa also suggests that ancient Macedonian can be interpreted as a Greek dialect of originally Aeolic provenance with strong influences from Northwest Doric, as well as from non-Greek languages. Hatzopoulos and Crespo suggest that the ancient Macedonian dialect was of Northwest Doric origin but also shared isoglosses with Thessalian, an Aeolic dialect. According to Angelos Boufalis, in the Macedonian dialect, "several features can be established as local and most of them seem indeed to be shared with the NW Doric and/or the Thessalian dialect"; and "rather than a monolithic dialect throughout, different local or regional idioms may have had been spoken in this extensive geographical area".Boufalis, Angelos. "The Epigraphy of Archaic and Classical Macedonia." CHS Research Bulletin 13 (2025). "Several features can be established as local and most of them seem indeed to be shared with the NW Doric and/or the Thessalian dialect (Méndez Dosuna 2014; Hatzopoulos 2018). However, it seems that on the spatially and chronologically sparse available evidence the classification of the 'Macedonian' dialect should probably remain an open question, as there appears to be no uniformity throughout the area. Rather than a monolithic dialect throughout, different local or regional idioms may have had been spoken in this extensive geographical area." https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HLNC.ESSAY:106297565.
Language tree The following tree is based on the work of Lucien van Beek:
Graeco-Phrygian Greek South Greek Achaean Mycenaean Arcadocypriot Attic–Ionic Attic Western Ionic Central Ionic Eastern Ionic North Greek Aeolic Boeotian (it also has West Greek features; precursor was possibly a bridge dialect between Aeolic and West Greek) Lesbian (it also has at least one archaic South Greek innovation; precursor was possibly a bridge dialect between Aeolic and South Greek) Thessalian West Greek Doric Northwest Greek Ancient Macedonian Phrygian
Properties Because of the fragmentary sources of Ancient Macedonian, only a little is understood about the special features of the language. A notable sound-law is that the voiced aspirates (/bʰ, dʰ, gʰ/) of Proto-Indo-European sometimes appear as voiced stops /b, d, g/, (written ), whereas they were generally unvoiced as /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/ () elsewhere in most Greek.Exceptions to the rule:
arhphys (Attic cord, yarn) bagaron (Attic ' 'warm') (cf. Attic phôgô 'roast') (Laconian) bônêma speech (Homeric, Ionic eireo) (cf. Attic phônêma sound, speech) (Laconian) keblê Callimachus Fr.140 Macedonian versus Attic ('head') keblēpyris ('red-cap bird'), (Aristophanes Birds) keblêgonos born from the head, Euphorion 108 for Athena, with its seed in its head Nicander Alexipharmaca 433. pechari deer (Laconian berkios) Amerias Hyperberetos Cretan month June, Macedonian September Hyperberetaios (Hellenic Calendars) (Attic hyperpheretês supreme, hyperpherô transfer, excel) Macedonian dánοs ('death', from PIE 'to leave'), compared to Attic Macedonian abroûtes or abroûwes, compared to Attic for 'eyebrows' Macedonian Bereníkē, compared to Attic , 'bearing victory' (Personal name) Macedonian adraia ('bright weather'), compared to Attic , from PIE Macedonian báskioi ('fasces'), compared to Attic 'leather sack', from PIE According to Herodotus 7.73 (), the Macedonians claimed that the Phryges were called Bryges before they migrated from Thrace to Anatolia (around 8th–7th century BC). According to Plutarch, MoraliaGreek Questions 292e – Question 9 – Why do Delphians call one of their months Bysios . Macedonians use 'b' instead of 'ph', while Delphians use 'b' in the place of 'p'. Macedonian mágeiros ('butcher') was a loan from Doric into Attic. Vittore Pisani has suggested an ultimately Macedonian origin for the word, which could then be cognate to ('knife', < PIE , 'to fight')Česko-jihoslovenská revue, Volume 4, 1934, p. 187. Macedonian shared with Thessalian, Elean, and Epirote, an "oddity" of cases where voiced stops (, written ) appear to correspond to Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirates, . In most Greek, the Proto-Indo-European aspirates were devoiced to voiceless aspirates , written (though these would later become fricatives in Attic Koine around the first century AD). As with Macedonian, this phenomenon is sometimes attributed to non-Greek substrate and adstrate influence, with some linguists attributing such an influence on Epirote to Illyrian. Filos, however, notes, that the attribution of , and for specifically voiced stops is not secure. Simon Hornblower writes: "Little is known about how Macedonian Greek was spoken, except that for instance 'Philip' was pronounced 'Bilip' (...)."
If gotán ('pig') is related to the Proto-Hellenic noun , and hence to the PIE noun ('cattle'), this would indicate that the labiovelars were either intact, or merged with the velars, unlike the usual Greek treatment (Attic ). Such deviations, however, are not unknown in Greek dialects; compare Laconian Doric (the dialect of Sparta) for common Greek , as well as Doric and Ionic for common Greek .Albrecht von Blumenthal, Hesychstudien, Stuttgart, 1930, 21. A number of examples suggest that voiced velar stops were devoiced, especially word-initially: kánadoi, 'jaws' (< PIE ); , 'molars' (< PIE ); within words: arkón (Attic ); the Macedonian toponym , from the Pierian name Akesamenos (if Akesa- is cognate to Greek , , "to astonish"; cf. the Thracian name ). In Aristophanes' The Birds, the form ('red head', the name of a bird, perhaps the goldfinch or redpoll) is found,Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, κεβλήπυρις. Perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved on 2013-07-21. showing a Macedonian-style voiced stop in place of a standard Greek unvoiced aspirate: versus ('head').