Perhaps none of them were Greek?Quote:
Originally Posted by hellenes
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Perhaps none of them were Greek?Quote:
Originally Posted by hellenes
Hellenes has a point when he says they were all Greek in the sense of 'Greekness' as it was then understood. The sense meant by a Herodotus or Xenophon when they (or their protagonists) state that 'we are all Greeks because we speak the same language and worship the same gods'. Such invocations of a common Greek identity were often used in the face of outside threats (Persia) or for reasons of diplomatic convenience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffrey S
For the purpose of clarification, a suitable (though anachronistic) analogy would be the present relationship between the British and the Americans. They share a language and worship similar gods, yet they are very different in many other ways to the point where no outsider would mix them up. After the British created an empire and watched it fall apart, the Americans have created theirs, just as Alexander created a Makedonian empire after the Greek dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean came to an end. Yet in the face of a common threat (Nazi-Germany, Soviet Russia) they worked together and felt united.
I know this comparison is crippled in many ways, but maybe it helps some people to get a conceptual grip on the issue.
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Beyond all the fuss troll-fed by modern nationalism, I'd like to know more about the different languages (or dialects if you wish to put it so) of those 'remote greeks' and how the interaction between them went. But that's just the lingua-maniac in me. :devil:
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I believe that if you compare this to modern day Italy it would equate quite well.
If at the time of Hannibal, someone outside of the seven hills of Rome could possibly be called "Roman" but would definitely fall into the modern "Italian". At the time things were more tribal so if you weren't born of a certain tribe you would never be part of that club. Alexander was born within the Hellenes influence, but his situation as the son of the King of Macedon somewhat negates any claim to be a Greek of the Athenian context. They'd look north and accept any benefits the other tribes produced for Athens, but the bonds between the tribes and city states of ancient Greece fluctuated from generation to generation; overall they were Hellenic, but Macedon was on the edges of this wheel.
Let's think of when Hannibal was marauding through the Italian countryside. Someone living on the northern Adriatic coast may consider themselves as a Roman subject, or even a Roman, but the view of the citizens of Rome might be quite different considering the same people. However, give it a generation or two and those people who are of Latin decent may very well be identified completely Roman or completely alienated depending on the acts of their citizenry. If a leader of a village, who was profoundly loyal to Rome, yet not technically a "citizen" did something damaging to Hannibal and his army and beneficial to Rome - well it's likely that his children would become Romans in the truest sense if he wasn't offered it himself. On the flip side, if he sided with Hannibal, the whole city might be seen as disloyal to Rome.
I'm pretty sure Alexander would say he was both Greek and Macedonian, and be confused if anyone thought that was a strange statement for him to make. In the end, I think he was born a Macedonian, and the Greeks of the south were kind of stuffy and didn't enjoy having just anyone claiming to be Greek. However, Alexander is quite the catch for any Nation to claim as a fixture of identity. If it wasn't for him and what he accomplished, I doubt many would scramble to claim ties to such greatness.
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Anybody read this book on topic? Can you tell anything about it or its author? I wishlisted it and some preview could help me set its priority of purchase.
ADD: Brief googling turned out the fact that he's a Slavic Makedonian and that he might be a nationalist propagandist. Not much about him out there except Greek nationalists using his name as a curse word in fanboy fora. :laugh4:
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Some wrong perceptions of Macedonia
1. There was an ancient Greek language. Ancient Macedonians soke Macedonian not Greek
Reality
Greece was composed of many small and isolated areas (Attica, Lakonia, Ilia, Achaea etc) and a few larger ones (Molossia, Thesprotia, Macedonia, Akarnania, Aetolia). Greeks were speaking different dialects in all those areas, all related with each other. The most evolved dialect the Attic one, of Athens. Most people today, when they speak of "ancient Greek" they refer to the Attic dialect and all comparison between the "Macedonian language" and the "Greek language" is in reality a comparison between the Attic and Macedonian dialect. An example of such a situation is modern Germany with each state having its own idiom (ever tried to understand Bavarian, cause I can't). Italy's official language is derived from Tuscan dialects but there asre many others in the south and north.
Why is ancient Greek different?
At that time Greeks spoke more than 200 dialects or languages as they named them. Most famous and widespread were the Ionian, Doric, Attic (derived from Ionian but different), Aiolic, Cypriot, Arkadian, Aitolic, Akarnanian, Macedonian and Locrian.
Furthermore, we know that the Romans regarded Macedonians as Greek-speaking. Titus Livius writes: "(general Paulus) sat on his official chair(??not sure of translation) surrounded by many Macedonians...his announcements were translated in Greek and repeated by praetor Gnaeus Octavius..." (History of Rome, b.XLV par.XXIX). Why would the Romans translate in Greek if the Macedonians couldn't understand it?
After Alexander's death situation had changed rapidly. Pharao Ptolemy II, understood that his empire required the solification of the already common language the Koine, a simplified form of Attic (Koine=common in Greek). Koine was the common language of the Hellenistic world but it had no common alphabet or grammar.
This task was undertaken by an Athenean, Aristeas, who with his assistants structured the grammar, removed attic idiosyncrasies and added new words from Doric, Ionic and Aeloic dialects. However foreigners couldn't understand how to pronounce the complex Greek words (which had no gaps between them) so a paragraph system and many symbols were added.
Before that time ,may Greek cities used different alphabets and different letters to represent diphthongs. Those alphabets were mainly divided to the East and West. A new alphabet was created which removed old letters and created a 24 letter one.
Koine quickly overshadowed other Greek dialects and mixed with them resulting in many local dialects that exist even today. Doric vanished and only modern Tsakonian, has Doric roots.
2.If Macedonians were Greek why is Alexander I was called Philellene? This title is only for non Greeks.
Reality
Alexander was called Phillene by the poet Pindar for the same reason Jason of Pherae and Evagoras of Cyprus were. It meant Philopatris or patriot in the modern world.
3. Greeks had Greek conscience but Macedonians by destrying Greek cities, proved they were not Greek.
Reality
Greece is an area that favours isolation of different tribes. This explains why ancient greeks didn't have national conscience but kept fighting each other.
Macedonians were burning and destroying Greek cities for the same reason Spartans killed all Platean males of age in the Peloponnesean war and Thebans, Athenians etc. killed each other.
They all knew they were close somehow but only united against a common enemy like the Persians. And even then, sometimes many Greek cities sided with them.
Many centuries would pass before Greeks would create a national conscience. Only great minds foresaw this, like Pericles, Demosthenes, Philip II, but only under their own area's leadership.
4.Macedonians are an Illyrian tribe.
Reality
There is a proof from Polybius that Macedonians needed translators to speak with Illyrians. (b.XXVII par 8,9)
Edit: There is much more but I am tired I have to translate everything and write it down. I hope everyone is convinced. It's a part of a study by Marcus A. Templar. His bibliography is vast.
I don't know what more could somebody want to believe.
Good points there Vorian.
Makedonian IS a greek dialect, but because of the location of Macedonia it had a stronger influence from outside with some thracian an illyrian words entering the language for example.
Nowadays we hear different dialects of our own language on TV every day and get at least a bit used to some features of them. That was different back then.
It's like telling a country guy from a small village in northern england to speak to some stereotypical redneck...
They would have serious problems, still they both speak English.
One important thing we shouldn't forget:
There seem to have been no problems with people seeing Macedonians as greek, besides that they were a bit uncivilized for greeks maybe.
The whole thing about "Macedonians are no Greeks" starts during the time of Philip when the Athenians (seen by many historians as THE Greeks; and the people who left the most texts) under Demostenes tried to stirr up hate in Greece against the Macedonians. The Athenians (and their allies) tried to portray them as barbarians and outsiders so they have a common cause to fight them.
Interesting view, brother Cinna. So you are saying that today's propaganda wars started back then, albeit in totally different ways and for totally different reasons. It would not be the only instance where such a mechanism was at work. Many themes of today's propaganda war between western and islamic elites for instance go back to conflicts of centuries past when totally different issues were at stake.Quote:
Originally Posted by L.C.Cinna
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrian II
I would say it's more like FYROM propagandists trying to find any ground to step on and finding Athenian biased texts to prove their thesis.
I guess you did not understand what I meant Vorian.
This has nothing to do with modern politics and I think everybody knows that FYROM has nothing to do with Macedonia.
The Athenians DID try to present the Macedonians as "not greek" and "barbarian" to gather support for an anti-macedonian alliance. People always tried to put their enemies in a bad light, the Romans wrote about the Carthaginians that they eat babies and told stories of celtic druids making human sacrifices all day long. The Athenians had used the slogan of defending Greece against the barbarians before when they founded their naval alliances, when Philip appeared they tried to turn the whole thing into another direction by saing Macedonians were not Greeks and liek this present Athens as the defender of Greece against the Barbarians once more.
I wasn't commenting on your reply. i agree with you.
I was answering Adrian II's post and his suggestion that the doubt of the Greek origin of Macedonians exists since the propaganda of Athenians to modern age, which is false cause they were considered Greek in the Roman era.
I merely wrote that it was an interesting idea to think that there was a strain of propaganda going back so many centuries. It may have flowered during Philip's time, remained barren during the Roman era, only to be resumed later in different forms and for different purposes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vorian
As I said, there are other examples of such a mechanism. Some strains of the propaganda that is going back and forth between the West and the Islamic world these days for instance have roots in the eighteenth century, in the Crusades and even in the first clash at Poitiers (732). Over the centuries they have 'changed hands' so to speak, but their topoi remain the same.
EDIT
A good treatment of the crucial First Crusades' legacy can be found in Thomas Asbridge's The First Crusade: A New History: The Roots of Conflict between Christianity and Islam (2005). The book has just been translated into Dutch. I highly recommend it.
When it comes to antiquity, yes, I agree. Another possible analogy that springs to mind is Germany between the conquests of Napoleon and the unification later in the nineteenth century. There wasn't a Germany as such, but there were certainly Germans.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrian II
What I'm finding tenuous at best are links between the inhabitants of Greece past and present, whether they are both called 'Greeks' or not; let alone this whole mix about the modern Republic of Makedon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrian II
Oh, sorry I thought you meant that it continued during Roman times. My bad.:shame:
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I'd still like to know if their language was merely a remote dialect or a language in its own right from the same group with Greek, Phrigian, Armenian etc.
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Dialect mate. I have provided info a few posts above.
I agree. However, this being the Monastery, we should attempt to distinguish between good or bad posts or views, not between good or bad posters. Even those who defend firm views such as Vorian or Hellenes may have valuable points, and I for one certainly appreciate them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffrey S
This is the .org. If I want to know about history, I buy a book. I come here for the...'firm views'. That's what makes it interesting. The gritty reception of history, the opinions, misconceptions, the misuse and abuse of history.Quote:
However, this being the Monastery, we should attempt to distinguish between good or bad posts or views, not between good or bad posters. Even those who defend firm views such as Vorian or Hellenes may have valuable points, and I for one certainly appreciate them.
No, let me correct myself. It is not a misuse, it is the use of history. The living perception of it. I neither agree nor disagree with it, the opinions are the valuable stuff in themselves. If twenty posters claim that Vienna was the capital of Russia, then that is a great insight to have gained.
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Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
I don't think that claiming Macedonians were Greeks compares to this.
And I don't consider myself hardcore, for example while many nationalist Greeks claim that Epirots were Greek, I think that they were mixed with the Greek Mollosians ruling.
I don't think i am having delusions here, nor am I "abusing or misusing history"
EDIT: And I would like to hear to other people's opinions about the subject and not comments of how backward and needlessly nationalistic the Balkans are. As if western Europeans don't debate heavily whether the French are good at war, or if the British are not Europeans etc etc
If there is someone with different opinions i am open for debate, just provide proof and not theories.:book:
Oops, sorry 'bout this. I should've seen this coming. :embarassed:Quote:
Originally Posted by Vorian
I was responding in general to Adrian's post. I haven't even read this thread, save for a handful of posts. I don't know what you think of Alexander and so I couldn't even agree or disagree with it if I wanted to.
My previous post sounded a bit arrogant now that I re-read it. What I meant is that any opinion of history is interesting. By default. Not for its historiographical value, but for the contemporary opinion of history you can get from it.
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Originally Posted by Vorian
With all respect, I have read your post, along with the entire thread. It just states that it's a dialect but gives no further information to back that up. What I'm looking for is the thing itself; comparative etymology, phonology, grammar, sample words etc.
I'm not asking you to give that or to back up your statement. But you happened to walk in, hence this post. :bow:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
Apologies accepted. i might be a little too hot-headed about the subject.. No big deal.
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With all respect, I have read your post, along with the entire thread. It just states that it's a dialect but gives no further information to back that up. What I'm looking for is the thing itself; comparative etymology, phonology, grammar, sample words etc.
I'm not asking you to give that or to back up your statement. But you happened to walk in, hence this post
Ahhhh, well you won't find anything like this I think.....not enough texts I think...:sweatdrop:
Btw, are you Turkish? Your username is a word for "guest" in Greek and I suppose it's a Turkish word so I would like to know if it means the same.
Take it from me, brother Mouzaphaerre hails from the State of Enlightenment and from nowhere else. :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Vorian
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So we'll never be sure if it was a seperate language or merely a remote dialect. Neither way! :eyebrows:Quote:
Originally Posted by Vorian
:wall: :wall: :wall:Quote:
Originally Posted by Vorian
It's not μουσαφίρης, which is actually Arabic مسافر - musāfir, from the root سفر, which indeed means guest (misâfir in Turkish), but a bastardization of -again Arabic- مظفر - muẓaffer, from the root ظفر, meaning victorious, triumphant (muzaffer in Turkish, also a given name, not mine though).
Yeah, I'm Turkish apparently (with much less grasp on Greek or Arabic than may seem). :yes: My location should give it out more easily. ~;)
If only I wasQuote:
Originally Posted by Adrian II
halfquarter as well read to deserve such a compliment. :embarassed: I'm merely an over-talkative and curious :drummer:
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Ahh... but then we actually exchange history for anthropology. Or, in a few years we can make a history of the org, and say "This was how they thought".Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
Part of history to be sure (there is even an entire school that concentrates on what people thought was their reality, rather than the actual reality), but given the limited scope we deal with here, we simply have to steer towards the "truth". We haev to dig, we have to argue and we have to present evidence in some form.
If you want oppinions in thier purest form, then I suggest the Backroom. And that is not an attempt at kicking you out, but really that is what the Backroom does best and the Monastery does badly.
I know it's wiki :shame:
but it sums the whole thing up rather nicely
Ancient Macedonian Language
Quote:
It's not μουσαφίρης, which is actually Arabic مسافر - musāfir, from the root سفر, which indeed means guest (misâfir in Turkish), but a bastardization of -again Arabic- مظفر - muẓaffer, from the root ظفر, meaning victorious, triumphant (muzaffer in Turkish, also a given name, not mine though).
Yeah, I'm Turkish apparently (with much less grasp on Greek or Arabic than may seem). My location should give it out more easily.
Well, I had guessed but I always prefer to ask. And thanks for the clarification on the word....
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One of the better Wiki articles with lots of references and an objective stance. Thanks. :bow:Quote:
Originally Posted by L.C.Cinna
My pleasure μου αδελφού.:bow:Quote:
Originally Posted by Vorian
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Hellenes was the one who dragged the whole FYROM/Illryia into this, not me.
Ah, I knew the issue of differant dialects would come into play at some point. The lack of a common vernacular and the relative isolation of many of the city-states geographically was one of the reasons that the ancient Greeks never became a unified nation.
Oh, btw Hellenes, most of the Greek cities sided with Persia during the two invasions of Darius and Xerxes. Makedonia was a fully fledged tributary of the King of Kings. That was another reason why the Greeks of Attica disliked the Makedonians, at least until they dropped a hammer on Parsa.
This even further proves my point...also you seem to forget that Alexander I warned the other greeks in secret about Persian plans...Quote:
Originally Posted by Hound of Ulster
I still havent seen any evidence of "Macedonian" "language"...until I see such evidence Makedones were as Greek as Spartans...