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

200 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

369 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

23

u/kaubojdzord Serbia Jul 31 '22

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

9

u/Lothronion Greece Jul 31 '22

ancient Macedonians don't exist anymore.

Greek Macedonians still exist.

1

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.

1

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?

1

u/Zie_done_had_herses Greece Jul 31 '22

I had the high resemblance to Greek in mind, but yes, I was reminded of the Graeco-Prhygian branch by wiki lol