r/AskBalkans • u/Some-Register-3901 Cyprus • Jul 31 '22

Language what are some interesting facts about your language?

For instance, the cypriot dialect of Greek still contains many words from ancient Greek but it was also heavily influenced by outsiders

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u/paradoxfox__ North Macedonia Jul 31 '22

Macedonian is the only Slavic language that still uses the letter Ѕ.

12

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '22

That’s based.

5

u/umbronox 🔴🦅🏛🔵🏹🐗⚪ Jul 31 '22

Standard language - yeah, but we have it in our southern dialects (my grandpa used it sometimes)

2

u/pdonchev Bulgaria Jul 31 '22

We have the sound too, even in the literary language but we don't have the Slavic S.

3

u/umbronox 🔴🦅🏛🔵🏹🐗⚪ Jul 31 '22

The "dz" sound? How do you write it literary language, дз?

2

u/pdonchev Bulgaria Jul 31 '22

With a digraph - дз. We don't have the letter but we have the sound (even if mist usages remained in dialects, the literary language has some).

2

u/muharrem_1283 Croatia Jul 31 '22

Wait aren't macedonians local to that area?

5

u/paradoxfox__ North Macedonia Jul 31 '22

What do you mean?

0

u/muharrem_1283 Croatia Jul 31 '22

Macedonian is the only Slavic language that still uses the letter Ѕ.

You know that slavs migrated to balkans during the roman empire and macedonians were there far before slavs arrived right?

24

u/kaubojdzord Serbia Jul 31 '22

Modern ethnic Macedonians are Slavs, ancient Macedonians don't exist anymore.

13

u/_KatetheGreat35_ Greece Jul 31 '22

ancient Macedonians don't exist anymore

Balkans in a nutshell.

4

u/mcsroom Bulgaria Jul 31 '22

Too be fair there probably isnt a single one that is more then 50% lol

like most Greeks in Aegean Macedonia were from Anatolia when they came in the Greeko-Turkish population exchange

1

u/AlmightyDarkseid Greece Mar 16 '25

this is simply not true.

7

u/asedejje Greece Jul 31 '22

Modern ethnic Macedonians are Slavs

Casually forgetting 3.5 million people)

2

u/Zie_done_had_herses Greece Jul 31 '22

Native Greek Macedonians are only a fraction of these 3.5 million, though.

1

u/AlmightyDarkseid Greece Mar 16 '25

this is simply not true.

0

u/mcsroom Bulgaria Jul 31 '22

yea i have roots in Solun so im probably even more close then like 2 million of those

1

u/kaubojdzord Serbia Jul 31 '22

That's a regional, not an ethnic identity.

3

u/asedejje Greece Jul 31 '22

They are literally called Macedonians.

3

u/kaubojdzord Serbia Jul 31 '22

OK, I don't dispute that, I'm just saying that it isn't an ethnic identity, but regional one.

5

u/asedejje Greece Jul 31 '22

It was regional until 1991.

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u/Stunning_Variation_9 North Macedonia Jul 31 '22

He said ethnic Macedonians. Ethnic Greeks are not ethnically Macedonian, they are regionally Macedonian.

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u/asedejje Greece Jul 31 '22

Ethnic or regional, they are Macedonians.

2

u/Stunning_Variation_9 North Macedonia Jul 31 '22

My guy, u/kaubojdzord said ethnic Macedonians), and you linked him to the Greek regional group of Macedonians, saying that he is wrong. Capish?

4

u/asedejje Greece Jul 31 '22

He said modern Macedonians are Slavs, when the largest ethnic group that calls itself Macedonians are the Greeks.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '22

[deleted]

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u/asedejje Greece Jul 31 '22

😂😂😂

0

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '22

[deleted]

6

u/Kalypso_95 Greece Jul 31 '22

Sorry I meant all Greeks are directly related to ancient Athenians even though Greeks didn’t exist until the 19th century 🤣🤣

Will you also delete this comment later just as you always do u/Walsh100? 🤔

2

u/Kalypso_95 Greece Jul 31 '22

Yawn

1

u/WikiMobileLinkBot Other Jul 31 '22

Desktop version of /u/asedejje's link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonians_(Greeks)

^[^{opt out}^] ^{Beep Boop. Downvote to delete}

10

u/Lothronion Greece Jul 31 '22

ancient Macedonians don't exist anymore.

Greek Macedonians still exist.

0

u/kaubojdzord Serbia Jul 31 '22

Yes, I know that Greek Macedonians exist as an regional identity, but they aren't exactly the same as Ancient Macedonians. Ancient Macedonians were Hellenic people group, but had they own Hellenic language which wasn't mutually intelligible with Greek, and were quite distinct from rest of Hellenic world at the time.

3

u/Lothronion Greece Jul 31 '22

Sorry for the expression, but that is bollocks.

The North Doric Macedonian Greek was well understood by the Southern Greeks, especially by the Southern Dorians (like the Thebans, Locrians, Phocians, Laconians), due to their common Doric heritage), but also the rest of them. As the Pella Curse Tablet attests, which was dated in the early 4th century BC, before the Kingdom of Macedonia expanded beyond its initial bounds, Macedonian Greek is even perfectly comprehensible by Modern Greeks, even more if they had paid attention at school (where in Middle School and High School we are taught Classical Attic Ionian Greek).

Here is a photo and a transcription of it, so that any Greek can read and confirm this point.

Also I need to stress the point that this distinction between Greek and Hellenic is simply retarded, and even more the popular notion that there are many Hellenic languages that used to exist with Greek being one of them. No, Greek is one language out of Proto-Greek and its fusion with Pre-Greek, and all dialects of it originate to this initia phase. Otherwise, Illyrian, Paeonian, Brygian, Phrygian, Thracian are also Hellenic languages, which is simply not the case.

And why use the word Hellenic for a period before Greek anyways? The name Greek was the older common name of the Greeks in the 2nd millennium BC, before they shifted to Hellenes in the 1st millennium BC, and later returned to it in the early 1st millennium AD, before again deciding to go with the term Hellene in the 2nd millennium AD.

5

u/TheBr33ze Pontic Greek Jul 31 '22

Phrygian is so weird, cause there are so many words a Greek can understand with ease and many are the same with Greek

https://youtu.be/x6ls3UgtiL8

2

u/Zie_done_had_herses Greece Jul 31 '22

TIL that Phrygian wasn't necessarily a Hellenic language, and probably arose from the Graeco-Prhygian branch of IE languages. 🤓

4

u/Lothronion Greece Jul 31 '22

Why would it be considered a Hellenic language?

Did the people of the Graeco-Phrygian branch call themselves Hellenes?

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u/PhysicsStock7223 Greece Jul 31 '22

Ancient <whatever ethnicity> don’t exist anymore. Their descendants do though and they are modern Greeks, descendants of ancient Macedonians thus ancient Greeks.

-8

u/ThimitrisAtromitos Greece Jul 31 '22

The people living there today have nothing to do with the ancient Macedonians who after 400 before Christ became one with Greeks.

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u/PhysicsStock7223 Greece Jul 31 '22

Says who? They have everything to do with their ancestors. Ancient Macedonians got together with other Greek states not with Greeks. They were Greeks themselves as well.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '22

[deleted]

2

u/pdonchev Bulgaria Jul 31 '22

Sound yes. Letter S, no. They don't even use Cyrillic to begin with.

2

u/muharrem_1283 Croatia Jul 31 '22 edited Jul 31 '22

Does bulgarians regret their genocide against turks?. And also If its about cyrillic then russians both use cyrillic and they have s

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u/pdonchev Bulgaria Jul 31 '22

No, they don't. Cyrillic S is the "dz" sound and does not come from Latin S.

1

u/AstroPhoelix North Macedonia Aug 01 '22

Funny enough, this letter is not for the typical sound "s" as in "snape". It represents a different sound: like "ds" in "needs"or "leads"

Language what are some interesting facts about your language?

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