Ancient Macedonian language
Encyclopedia
Ancient Macedonian was the language of the ancient Macedonians
Ancient Macedonians
The Macedonians originated from inhabitants of the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, in the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios...

. It was spoken in the kingdom of Macedon
Macedon
Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....

 during the 1st millennium BCE and it belongs to the Indo-European group of languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

. It gradually fell out of use during the 4th century BCE, marginalized by Koine Greek
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....

, the lingua franca of the Hellenistic period
Hellenistic period
The Hellenistic period or Hellenistic era describes the time which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was so named by the historian J. G. Droysen. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia...

.

The classification of the language and its relation to Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 is closely tied to the modern Macedonia Naming Dispute
Macedonia naming dispute
A diplomatic dispute over the use of the name Macedonia has been an ongoing issue in the bilateral relations between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia since the latter became independent from former Yugoslavia in 1991...

. According to Eugene Borza, classification is difficult, as it is known from only a few fragmentary surviving attestations, mainly in glosses and proper names. A body of words has been assembled from ancient sources, mainly from inscriptions, and from the 5th-century lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria
Hesychius of Alexandria
Hesychius of Alexandria , a grammarian who flourished probably in the 5th century CE, compiled the richest lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words that has survived...

, amounting to about 150 words and 200 proper names. The volume of the surviving public and private inscriptions indicate that there was no other written language in ancient Macedonia but Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, and recent epigraphic
Epigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...

 discoveries suggest that ancient Macedonian was a variety of the Northwestern Greek dialects.

Classification

Due to the fragmentary attestation various interpretations are possible.
Suggested phylogenetic classifications of Macedonian include:
  • An Indo-European language which is a close cousin to Greek
    Greek language
    Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

     and also related to Thracian
    Thracian language
    The Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times in Southeastern Europe by the Thracians, the northern neighbors of the Ancient Greeks. The Thracian language exhibits satemization: it either belonged to the Satem group of Indo-European languages or it was strongly...

     and Phrygian
    Phrygian language
    The Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Asia Minor during Classical Antiquity .Phrygian is considered to have been closely related to Greek....

     languages, suggested by A. Meillet
    Antoine Meillet
    Paul Jules Antoine Meillet was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. Meillet began his studies at the Sorbonne, where he was influenced by Michel Bréal, Ferdinand de Saussure, and the members of the Année Sociologique. In 1890 he was part of a research trip to the...

     (1913) and I. I. Russu (1938), or part of a Sprachbund
    Sprachbund
    A Sprachbund – also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads – is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related...

     encompassing Thracian, Illyrian and Greek (Kretschmer
    Paul Kretschmer
    Paul Kretschmer was a German linguist who studied the earliest history and interrelations of the Indo-European languages and showed how they were influenced by non-Indo-European languages, such as Etruscan....

     1896, E. Schwyzer
    Eduard Schwyzer
    Eduard Schwyzer was a Swiss Classical philologist and Indo-European linguist, specializing in Ancient Greek and Greek dialects...

     1959).
  • An "Illyrian" dialect mixed with Greek, suggested by K. O. Müller (1825) and by G. Bonfante
    Giuliano Bonfante
    Giuliano Bonfante was an Italian linguistics scholar and expert on the language of the Etruscans and other Italic peoples. He was professor of linguistics at the University of Turin.Bonfante was born in Milan...

     (1987).
  • A Greek dialect, part of the North-Western (Locrian
    Locris
    Locris was a region of ancient Greece, the homeland of the Locrians, made up of three distinct districts.-Locrian tribe:...

    , Aetolian, Phocidian
    Phocis
    Phocis is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Central Greece. It stretches from the western mountainsides of Parnassus on the east to the mountain range of Vardousia on the west, upon the Gulf of Corinth...

    , Epirote
    Epirus
    The name Epirus, from the Greek "Ήπειρος" meaning continent may refer to:-Geographical:* Epirus - a historical and geographical region of the southwestern Balkans, straddling modern Greece and Albania...

    ) variants of Doric Greek
    Doric Greek
    Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...

    , suggested amongst others by N.G.L. Hammond (1989) Olivier Masson (1996) and Michael Meier-Brügger
    Michael Meier-Brügger
    Michael Meier-Brügger is a Swiss linguist and Indo-Europeanist.He has been professor of comparative and Indo-European linguistics at the Free University of Berlin since 1996. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 1973, he became Ernst Risch's assistant there before going on to...

     (2003).
  • A northern Greek dialect, related to Aeolic Greek
    Aeolic Greek
    Aeolic Greek is a linguistic term used to describe a set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia , Thessaly, and in the Aegean island of Lesbos and the Greek colonies of Asia Minor ....

     and Thessalian, suggested among others by A.Fick
    August Fick
    August Fick was a German philologist.He spent his life chiefly at Göttingen, where he first studied philology under Theodor Benfey; became a teacher in the Gymnasium, and eventually in 1876 professor of Comparative Philology in the university; in 1887 accepted a professorship in Breslau, but...

     (1874) and O.Hoffmann (1906).
  • A Greek dialect with a non-Indo-European substratal influence, suggested by M. Sakellariou (1983).
  • A sibling language of Greek within Indo-European, Macedonian and Greek forming two subbranches of a Greco-Macedonian subgroup within Indo-European (sometimes called "Hellenic"), suggested by Joseph (2001), Georgiev (1966) and others.

Properties

From the few words that survive, only a little can be said about the language. A notable sound-law is that the Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

 voiced aspirates
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...

 (/bʰ, dʰ, gʰ/) appear as voiced stops /b, d, g/, (written ), in contrast to all known Greek dialects, which have unvoiced them to /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/ with few exceptions.
  • Macedonian dánοs ('death
    Death
    Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....

    ', from PIE
    Proto-Indo-European language
    The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

     *dhenh2- 'to leave'), compare Attic
    Attic Greek
    Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...

      thános
    Thanos
    Thanos is a fictional character that appears in comic books and other media published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Iron Man #55 and was created by writer-artist Jim Starlin....

  • Macedonian abroûtes or abroûwes as opposed to Attic ophrûs for 'eyebrows'
  • Macedonian Bereníkē
    Berenice
    Berenice or Berenike is the Ancient Macedonian form for Attic Greek Φερενίκη , meaning "bearer of victory", from φέρω "to bear" + νίκη "victory". Berenika priestess of Demeter in Lete ca. 350 BC is the oldest epigraphical evidence. The name also has the form Bernice...

     versus Attic Phereníkē, 'bearing victory'
  • Macedonian adraia ('bright weather'), compare Attic aithría, from PIE *h2aidh-
  • Macedonian báskioi ('fasces'), Attic pháskōlos 'leather sack' , from PIE *bhasko
  • According to Herodotus 7.73 (ca. 440 BC), the Macedonians claimed that the Phryges
    Phrygia
    In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges , changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the...

     were called Brygoi before they migrated from Thrace
    Thrace
    Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

     to Anatolia
    Anatolia
    Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...

     (around 8th–7th century BC).
  • According to Plutarch
    Plutarch
    Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

    , Moralia
    Moralia
    The Moralia of the 1st-century Greek scholar Plutarch of Chaeronea is an eclectic collection of 78 essays and transcribed speeches. They give an insight into Roman and Greek life, but often are also fascinating timeless observations in their own right...

     Macedonians use 'b' instead of 'ph', while Delphi
    Delphi
    Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

    ans use 'b' in the place of 'p'.
  • Macedonian mágeiros ('butcher') was a loan from Doric into Attic
    Attic Greek
    Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...

    . Vittore Pisani has suggested an ultimately Macedonian origin for the word, which could then be cognate to mákhaira
    Makhaira
    Makhaira is a term used by modern scholars to describe a type of ancient bladed weapon, generally a large knife with a slight backwards curve...

     ('knife', h-, 'to fight')


If gotán ('pig') is related to *gwou ('cattle'), this would indicate that the labiovelars were either intact, or merged with the velars, unlike the usual Greek treatment (Attic boûs). Such deviations, however, are not unknown in Greek dialects; compare Doric (Spartan) glep- for common Greek blep-, as well as Doric gláchōn and Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...

  glēchōn for common Greek blēchōn
Pennyroyal
Pennyroyal refers to two plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. For the American species, see American pennyroyal. The European pennyroyal, Mentha pulegium, , is a plant in the mint genus, within the family Lamiaceae. Crushed Pennyroyal leaves exhibit a very strong fragrance similar to spearmint...

.

A number of examples suggest that voiced velar
Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....

 stops were devoiced, especially word-initially: kánadoi, 'jaws' (Pieria
Pierian Mountains
The Pierian Mountains are a mountain range between Imathia, Pieria and Kozani Prefecture, south of the plain of Kambania in Central Macedonia. The village of Vergina, where the archaeological site of ancient Aigai lies, is built at the foot of these mountains...

n name Akesamenos (if Akesa- is cognate to Greek agassomai, agamai, "to astonish"; cf. the Thracian name Agassamenos).

In Aristophanes
Aristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

' The Birds
The Birds (play)
The Birds is a comedy by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed in 414 BCE at the City Dionysia where it won second prize. It has been acclaimed by modern critics as a perfectly realized fantasy remarkable for its mimicry of birds and for the gaiety of its songs...

, the form keblēpyris ('red-cap bird') is found, showing a Macedonian-style voiced stop in place of a standard Greek unvoiced aspirate: keb(a)lē versus kephalē ('head').

A number of the Macedonian words, particularly in Hesychius' lexicon, are disputed (i.e., some do not consider them actual Macedonian words) and some may have been corrupted in the transmission. Thus abroutes, may be read as abrouwes , with tau replacing a digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...

. If so, this word would perhaps be encompassable within a Greek dialect; however, others (e.g. A. Meillet
Antoine Meillet
Paul Jules Antoine Meillet was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. Meillet began his studies at the Sorbonne, where he was influenced by Michel Bréal, Ferdinand de Saussure, and the members of the Année Sociologique. In 1890 he was part of a research trip to the...

) see the dental as authentic and think that this specific word would perhaps belong to an Indo-European language different from Greek.

A. Panayotou summarizes some generally identified, through ancient texts and epigraphy, features:

Phonology

  • Occasional development of voiced aspirates (*bh, *dh, *gh) into voiced stops (b, d, g) (e.g. Βερενίκα, Attic Φερενίκη)
  • Retention of */a:/ (e.g. Μαχάτας)
  • [a:] as result of contraction [a:] + [ɔ:]
  • Apocope of short vowels in prepositions in synthesis (παρκαττίθεμαι, Attic παρακατατίθεμαι)
  • Syncope (hyphairesis) and diphthongization are used to avoid hiatus (e.g. Θετίμα, Attic Θεοτίμη)
  • Occasional retention of the pronunciation [u] οf /u(:)/ in local cult epithets or nicknames (Κουναγίδας = Κυναγίδας)
  • Raising of /ɔ:/ to /u:/ in proximity to nasal (e.g. Κάνουν, Attic Κανών)
  • Simplification of the sequence /ign/ to /i:n/ (γίνομαι, Attic γίγνομαι)
  • Loss of aspiration of the consonant cluster /sth/ (> /st/) (γενέσται, Attic γενέσθαι)

Morphology

  • First-declension masculine and feminine in -ας and -α respectively (e.g. Πεύκεστας, Λαομάγα)
  • First-declension masculine genitive singular in -α (e.g. Μαχάτα)
  • First-declension genitive plural in -ᾶν
  • First person personal pronoun dative singular ἐμίν
  • Temporal conjunction ὁπόκα
  • Possibly, a non-sigmatic nominative masculine singular in the first declension (ἱππότα, Attic ἱππότης)

Anthroponymy

M. Hatzopoulos summarizes the Macedonian anthroponymy (that is names borne by people from Macedonia before the expansion beyond the Axius
Vardar
The Vardar or Axios is the longest and major river in the Republic of Macedonia and also a major river of Greece. It is long, and drains an area of around . The maximum depth of river is ....

 or people undoubtedly hailing from this area after the expansion) as follows:
  • Epichoric Greek names that either differ from the phonology of the introduced Attic or that remained almost confined to Macedonians throughout antiquity
  • Panhellenic Greek names
  • Identifiable non-Greek (Thracian, Illyrian and "native" – that is names generally confined to Macedonian territory that aren't identified with any language, Greek or not) names
  • Names without a clear Greek etymology that can't however be ascribed to any identifiable non-Greek linguistic group.


Common in the creation of ethnics is the use of -έστης, -εστός especially when derived from sigmatic nouns (ὄρος > Ὀρέστης but also Δῖον > Διασταί).

Toponymy

The toponyms of Macedonia proper are generally Greek, though some of them show a particular Macedonian phonology that might set them apart and a few others are non-Greek.

Calendar

The Macedonian names of about half or more of the months of the ancient Macedonian calendar
Ancient Macedonian calendar
The Ancient Macedonian calendar is a lunisolar calendar that was in use in ancient Macedon in the 1st millennium BC. It consisted of 12 synodic lunar months , which needed intercalary months to stay in step with the seasons...

 have a clear and generally accepted Greek etymology (e.g. Dios, Apellaios, Artemisios, Loos, Daisios), though some of the remaining ones have sometimes been considered to be Greek but showing a particular Macedonian phonology (e.g. Audunaios has been connected to "Haides
Hades
Hades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...

" *A-wid and Gorpiaios/Garpiaios to "karpos" fruit).

Epigraphy

Macedonian onomastics: the earliest epigraphical documents attesting substantial numbers of Macedonian proper names are the second Athenian alliance decree with Perdiccas II
Perdiccas II of Macedon
Perdiccas II was a king of Macedonia from about 454 BC to about 413 BC. He was the son of Alexander I and had two brothers.-Background:After the death of Alexander in 452, Macedon began to fall apart. Macedonian tribes became almost completely autonomous, and were only loosely allied to the king...

 (~417-413 BC), the decree of Kalindoia
Kalindoia
Kalindoia was an ancient Bottiaean city in Mygdonia .Kalindoia is first reported in the Athenian-Bottiaean alliance of 422 BC and later in the Epidaurian list of Theorodokoi of 360/59 BC. The name of Theodorokos was Pausanias, possibly the same as Pausanias, the pretender to the Macedonian...

,~335-300 BC) and seven curse tablets of the 4th c. BC bearing mostly names.

The Pella curse tablet, a text written in a distinct Doric Greek
Doric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...

 dialect, found in 1986 and dated to between mid to early 4th century BC, has been forwarded as an argument that the ancient Macedonian language was a dialect of North-Western Greek, part of the Doric dialects.

Hesychius Glossary

A body of words has been assembled from ancient sources, mainly from coin inscriptions, and from the 5th century lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria, amounting to about 150 words and 200 proper names, though the number of considered words sometimes differs from scholar to scholar. The majority of these words can be confidently assigned to Greek albeit some words would appear to reflect a dialectal form of Greek. There are, however, a number of words that are not easily identifiable as Greek and reveal, for example, voiced stops where Greek shows voiceless aspirates.
  • abagna 'roses amaranta (unwithered)' (Attic
    Attic Greek
    Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...

      rhoda, Aeolic
    Aeolic Greek
    Aeolic Greek is a linguistic term used to describe a set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia , Thessaly, and in the Aegean island of Lesbos and the Greek colonies of Asia Minor ....

      broda roses). (LSJ: amarantos unfading. Amaranth
    Amaranth
    Amaranthus, collectively known as amaranth, is a cosmopolitan genus of herbs. Approximately 60 species are recognized, with inflorescences and foliage ranging from purple and red to gold...

     flower. (Aeolic
    Aeolic Greek
    Aeolic Greek is a linguistic term used to describe a set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia , Thessaly, and in the Aegean island of Lesbos and the Greek colonies of Asia Minor ....

      aba 'youthful prime' + hagnos 'pure, chaste, unsullied) or epithet aphagna from aphagnizo 'purify'. If abagnon is the proper name for rhodon rose, then it is cognate to Persian
    Persian language
    Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

     bāġ, 'garden', Gothic
    Gothic language
    Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...

     bagms 'tree' and Greek
    Ancient Greek
    Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

     bakanon 'cabbage-seed'. Finally, a Phrygian
    Phrygian language
    The Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Asia Minor during Classical Antiquity .Phrygian is considered to have been closely related to Greek....

     borrowing is highly possible if we think of the famous Gardens of Midas
    Midas
    For the legend of Gordias, a person who was taken by the people and made King, in obedience to the command of the oracle, see Gordias.Midas or King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek mythology for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold. This was called the Golden touch, or the...

    , where roses grow of themselves (see Herodotus 8.138.2, Athenaeus 15.683)
  • abarknai Text Corrupted (komai? abarkna hunger, famine.
  • abarú 'oregano
    Oregano
    Oregano – scientifically named Origanum vulgare by Carolus Linnaeus – is a common species of Origanum, a genus of the mint family . It is native to warm-temperate western and southwestern Eurasia and the Mediterranean region.Oregano is a perennial herb, growing from 20–80 cm tall,...

    ' (Hes. origanon) (LSJ: barú perfume used in incense, Attic barú 'heavy') (LSJ: amarakon sweet Origanum Majorana
    Marjoram
    Marjoram is a somewhat cold-sensitive perennial herb or undershrub with sweet pine and citrus flavours...

    ) (Hes. for origanon agribrox, abromon, artiphos, keblênê)
  • , abloē, alogei Text Corrupted spendô)
  • or abroûtes or abroûwes 'eyebrows' (Hes. Attic ophrûs acc.
    Accusative case
    The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...

     pl.
    Plural
    In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...

    , ophrúes nom.
    Nominative case
    The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...

    , PIE
    Pie
    A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

     *bhru-) (Serbian
    Serbian language
    Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....

     obrve, Lithuanian
    Lithuanian language
    Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

     bruvis, Persian
    Persian language
    Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

     abru) (Koine Greek
    Koine Greek
    Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....

     ophrudia, Modern Greek
    Modern Greek
    Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...

     φρύδια frydia)
  • ankalis Attic 'weight, burden, load' Macedonian 'sickle
    Sickle
    A sickle is a hand-held agricultural tool with a variously curved blade typically used for harvesting grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock . Sickles have also been used as weapons, either in their original form or in various derivations.The diversity of sickles that...

    ' (Hes. Attic ákhthos, drépanon, LSJ Attic ankalís 'bundle', or in pl. ankálai 'arms' (body parts), ánkalos 'armful, bundle', ankálē 'the bent arm' or 'anything closely enfolding', as the arms of the sea, PIE *ank 'to bend') ( ankylis 'barb' Oppian
    Oppian
    Oppian or Oppianus was the name of the authors of two didactic poems in Greek hexameters, formerly identified, but now generally regarded as two different persons: Oppian of Corycus in Cilicia; and Oppian of Apamea in Syria.-Oppian of Corycus:Oppian of Corycus in Cilicia, who flourished in the...

    us.C.1.155.)
  • addai poles of a chariot or car, logs (Attic ῥυμοὶ rhumoi) (Aeolic usdoi, Attic ozoi, branches, twigs) PIE
    Pie
    A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

     , branch
  • adē 'clear sky' or 'the upper air' (Hes. ouranós 'sky', LSJ and Pokorny
    Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch
    The Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch was published in 1959 by the Austrian-German comparative linguist and Celtic languages expert Julius Pokorny...

     Attic aithēr 'ether, the upper, purer air', hence 'clear sky, heaven')
  • adiskon potion, cocktail (Attic kykeôn)
  • adraia 'fine weather, open sky' (Hes. Attic aithría, PIE *aidh-) Serbian
    Serbian language
    Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....

     vedro
  • Aeropes tribe (wind-faced) (aero- +opsis(aerops opos, Boeotia
    Boeotia
    Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...

    n name for the bird merops)
  • akontion spine or backbone, anything ridged like the backbone: ridge of a hill or mountain (Attic rhachis) (Attic akontion spear, javelin) (Aeolic akontion part of troops)
  • akrea girl (Attic korê, Ionic kourê, Doric/Aeolic kora, Arcadian korwa, Laconian kyrsanis .
  • akrounoi 'boundary stones' nom. pl. (Hes. hóroi, LSJ Attic ákros 'at the end or extremity', from akē 'point, edge', PIE *ak 'summit, point' or 'sharp')
  • alíē 'boar or boarfish' (Attic kapros) (PIE
    Pie
    A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

     *ol-/*el- "red, brown" (in animal and tree names) (Homeric ellos fawn, Attic elaphos deer, alkê elk)
  • aliza (also alixa) 'White Poplar
    White Poplar
    Populus alba, commonly called abele, silver poplar, silverleaf poplar, or white poplar, is a species of poplar, most closely related to the aspens . It is native from Spain and Morocco through central Europe to central Asia...

    ' (Attic leúkē, Thessalian alphinia, LSJ: , aluza globularia alypum
    Globularia
    Globularia is a genus of about 22 species of flowering plants in the family Plantaginaceae, native to central and southern Europe, Macaronesia, northwest Africa and southwest Asia. They are dense low evergreen mat-forming herbs or subshrubs, with leathery oval leaves 1–10 cm long...

    ) (Pokorny
    Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch
    The Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch was published in 1959 by the Austrian-German comparative linguist and Celtic languages expert Julius Pokorny...

     Attic elátē 'fir
    Fir
    Firs are a genus of 48–55 species of evergreen conifers in the family Pinaceae. They are found through much of North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, occurring in mountains over most of the range...

    , spruce
    Spruce
    A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea , a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal regions of the earth. Spruces are large trees, from tall when mature, and can be distinguished by their whorled branches and conical...

    ', PIE *ol-, *el- , P.Gmc. and Span
    Spanish language
    Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

    . aliso 'alder
    Alder
    Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...

    ')
  • axos 'timber' (Hes. Attic hulê) (Cretan Doric
    Doric Greek
    Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...

     ausos Attic alsos 'grove' little forest. (PIE
    Pie
    A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

     *os- ash tree(OE
    Old English language
    Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

    .æsc ash tree), (Greek οξυά oxya, Albanian
    Albanian language
    Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

     ah, beech), (Armenian
    Armenian language
    The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...

    . haci ash tree)
  • aortês, 'swordsman' (Hes. ξιφιστής; Homer
    Homer
    In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

      áor 'sword'; Attic aortēr 'swordstrap', Modern Greek
    Modern Greek
    Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...

      aortír 'riflestrap'; hence aorta
    Aorta
    The aorta is the largest artery in the body, originating from the left ventricle of the heart and extending down to the abdomen, where it branches off into two smaller arteries...

    ) (According to Suidas: Many now say the knapsack abertê instead of aortê. Both the object and the word [are] Macedonian.
  • Αrantides Erinyes
    Erinyes
    In Greek mythology the Erinyes from Greek ἐρίνειν " pursue, persecute"--sometimes referred to as "infernal goddesses" -- were female chthonic deities of vengeance. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as "those who beneath the earth punish whosoever has sworn a false oath"...

     (in dative
    Dative case
    The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....

      ) (Arae name for Erinyes,arasimos accursed, araomai invoke, curse, pray or rhantizô sprinkle, purify.
  • argella 'bathing hut'. Cimmerian  or argila 'subterranean dwelling' (Ephorus
    Ephorus
    Ephorus or Ephoros , of Cyme in Aeolia, in Asia Minor, was an ancient Greek historian. Information on his biography is limited; he was the father of Demophilus, who followed in his footsteps as a historian, and to Plutarch's claim that Ephorus declined Alexander the Great's offer to join him on his...

     in Strb.
    Strabo
    Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

     5.4.5) PIE *areg-; borrowed into Balkan Latin and gave Romanian
    Romanian language
    Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

     argea (pl. argele), "wooden hut", dialectal (Banat) arghela "stud farm"); cf. Sanskrit
    Sanskrit
    Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

     argalā 'latch, bolt', Old English reced "building, house", Albanian
    Albanian language
    Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

     argësh "harrow, crude bridge of crossbars, crude raft supported by skin bladders"
  • argiopous 'eagle
    Eagle
    Eagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...

    ' (LSJ Attic argípous 'swift- or white-footed', PIE *hrg'i-pods < PIE *arg + PIE *ped)
  • Arētos epithet or alternative of Herakles (Ares
    Ares
    Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and...

    -like)
  • arkon 'leisure, idleness' (LSJ Attic argós 'lazy, idle' nom. sing.
    Grammatical number
    In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....

    , acc.)
  • arhphys (Attic ἱμάς himas strap, rope), (ἁρπεδών harpedôn cord, yarn
    Yarn
    Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...

    ; ἁρπεδόνα Rhodes, Lindos
    Lindos
    Lindos is an archaeological site, a town and a former municipality on the island of Rhodes, in the Dodecanese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Rhodes, of which it is a municipal unit. It lies on the east coast of the island...

     II 2.37).
  • aspilos 'torrent' (Hes. kheímarrhos, Attic áspilos 'without stain, spotless, pure')
  • babrên lees of olive-oil (LSJ: babrêkes gums, or food in the teeth, babuas mud)
  • bathara pukliê (Macedonian), purlos (Athamanian) (unattested; maybe food, atharê porridge, pyros wheat)
  • birrhox dense, thick (LSJ: βειρόν beiron)
  • garka rod (Attic charax) (EM
    Etymologicum Magnum
    Etymologicum Magnum is the traditional title of a Greek lexical encyclopedia compiled at Constantinople by an unknown lexicographer around 1150 AD. It is the largest Byzantine lexicon and draws on many earlier grammatical, lexical and rhetorical works...

    : garkon axle-pin) (LSJ: garrha rod)
  • gola
    Hesychius of Alexandria
    Hesychius of Alexandria , a grammarian who flourished probably in the 5th century CE, compiled the richest lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words that has survived...

     or goda bowels, intestines (Homeric
    Homeric Greek
    Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. It is an archaic version of Ionic Greek, with admixtures from certain other dialects, such as Aeolic Greek. It later served as the basis of Epic Greek, the language of epic poetry, typically in...

     cholades) PIE: ghel-ond-, ghol-n•d- stomach; bowels
  • gotan 'pig
    Pig
    A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...

    ' acc. sing. (PIE *gwou- 'cattle', (Attic botón ' beast', in plural botá 'grazing animals') (Laconian grôna 'sow' female pig, and pl. grônades) (LSJ: goi, goi, to imitate the sound of pigs) (goita sheep or pig)
  • gyllas kind of glass (gyalas a Megarian cup)
  • gôps pl. gopes macherel (Attic koloios) (LSJ: skôps a fish) (Modern Greek
    Modern Greek
    Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...

     gopa 'bogue
    Boops boops
    Boops boops, called the bogue, is a species of seabream native to the eastern Atlantic. Its scientific name, and its common names in many languages, refers to its large eyes. It is found off the coasts of Europe, Africa, the Azores and the Canary Islands, from Norway to Angola, and in the...

    ' fish pl. gopes)
  • daitas caterer waiter (Attic daitros
  • danos 'death
    Death
    Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....

    ', (Hes. Attic thánatos 'death', from root than-), PIE *dhenh2- 'to leave, danotês (disaster,pain) Sophocles
    Sophocles
    Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...

     Lacaenae fr.338
  • danōn 'murderer' (Attic thanōn dead, past participle)
  • darullos 'oak' (Hes. Attic drûs, PIE *doru-)
  • drêes or drêges small birds (Attic strouthoi) (Elean δειρήτης deirêtês, strouthos, Nicander
    Nicander
    Nicander of Colophon , Greek poet, physician and grammarian, was born at Claros, , near Colophon, where his family held the hereditary priesthood of Apollo. He flourished under Attalus III of Pergamum.He wrote a number of works both in prose and verse, of which two survive complete...

    .Fr.123.) (LSJ: διγῆρες digêres strouthoi, δρίξ drix strouthos)
  • dôrax spleen, splên (Attic θώραξ thôrax chest, corslet
  • epideipnis Macedonian dessert
  • Zeirênis epithet or alternative for Aphrodite
    Aphrodite
    Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....

     (Seirênis Siren
    Siren
    In Greek mythology, the Sirens were three dangerous mermaid like creatures, portrayed as seductresses who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. Roman poets placed them on an island called Sirenum scopuli...

    -like)
  • Êmathia ex-name of Macedonia, region of Emathia
    Emathia
    For the modern Greek prefecture, see ImathiaEmathia is an earliest and poetic name of Macedonia , but foremost it roughly corresponds to the district of Bottiaea around Pella.-Classical sources:...

     from mythological Emathus
    Emathus
    Emathus , Emathius or Amathus , was son of Makednos, from whom Emathia was believed to have derived its name. The daughters of Pierus, the Pierides, are sometimes called Emathides. The Emathian or Emathius in Latin is a frequently used name by Latin poets for Alexander the Great...

     (Homeric amathos êmathoessa, river-sandy land, PIE *samadh. Generally the coastal Lower Macedonia in contrast to mountainous Upper Macedonia
    Upper Macedonia
    Upper Macedonia is a geographical and tribal term to describe the regions that became part of the kingdom of Macedon in the early 4th century BC. From that date, its inhabitants were politically equal to Lower Macedonians...

    . For meadow land (mē-2, m-e-t- to reap), see Pokorny.
  • Thaulos epithet or alternative of Ares
    Ares
    Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and...

     ( Thaulia 'festival in Doric
    Doric Greek
    Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...

     Tarentum
    Taranto
    Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....

    , thaulizein 'to celebrate like Dorians', Thessalian  Zeus Thaulios, the only attested in epigraphy 10 times, Athenian  Zeus Thaulôn, Athenian family Thaulônidai
  • Thourides Nymphs Muses (Homeric thouros rushing, impetuous.
  • izela wish, good luck (Attic agathêi tychêi) (Doric bale, abale, Arcadian
    Arcadocypriot
    Arcadocypriot or southern Achaean was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia in the central Peloponnese and in Cyprus. Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek, as it is known from the Linear B corpus, suggests that Arcadocypriot is its descendant...

     zele) (Cretan delton agathon) or Thracian
    Thracian language
    The Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times in Southeastern Europe by the Thracians, the northern neighbors of the Ancient Greeks. The Thracian language exhibits satemization: it either belonged to the Satem group of Indo-European languages or it was strongly...

     zelas wine.
  • ílax 'the holm-oak, evergreen or scarlet oak' (Hes. Attic prînos, Latin
    Latin
    Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

     ilex)
  • in dea midday (Attic endia, mesêmbria) (Arcadian also in instead of Attic en)
  • kancharmon having the lance up (Hes. ancharmon Ibyc
    Ibycus
    Ibycus , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet, a citizen of Rhegium in Magna Graecia, probably active at Samos during the reign of the tyrant Polycrates and numbered by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria in the canonical list of nine lyric poets...

    ? Stes
    Stesichorus
    Stesichorus was the first great poet of the Greek West. He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres but he is also famous for some ancient traditions about his life, such as his opposition to the tyrant Phalaris, and the blindness he is said to have incurred and cured by composing...

    ?) having upwards the point of a spear)

' onMouseout='HidePop("79607")' href="/topics/Crasis">Crasis
Crasis
Crasis is a type of contraction in which two vowels or diphthongs merge into one new vowel or diphthong — making one word out of two. Crasis occurs in Portuguese and Arabic as well as in Ancient Greek, where it was first described.-French:...

) kai and,together,simultaneously + anô up (anôchmon hortatory password)
  • karabos
    • Macedonian 'gate, door' (Cf. karphos any small dry body,piece of wood (Hes. Attic 'meat roasted over coals'; Attic karabos 'stag-beetle'; 'crayfish'; 'light ship'; hence modern Greek karávi)
    • 'the worms in dry wood' (Attic 'stag-beetle, horned beetle; crayfish')
    • 'a sea creature' (Attic 'crayfish, prickly crustacean; stag-beetle')
  • karpaia Thessalo-Macedonian mimic military dance (see also Carpaea
    Carpaea
    Carpaea among the Aenianians, Magnesians, and Macedonians was a kind of mimic military dance, performed by two persons; the one acting as a laborer, the other as a robber...

    ) Homeric
    Homeric Greek
    Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. It is an archaic version of Ionic Greek, with admixtures from certain other dialects, such as Aeolic Greek. It later served as the basis of Epic Greek, the language of epic poetry, typically in...

     karpalimos swift (for foot) eager, ravenous.
  • kí[k]erroi 'pale ones (?)' (Hes. Attic ōkhroi, PIE *k̂ik̂er- 'pea') (LSJ: kikeros land crocodile
    Crocodile
    A crocodile is any species belonging to the family Crocodylidae . The term can also be used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia: i.e...

    )
  • kommarai or komarai crawfishes
    Crayfish
    Crayfish, crawfish, or crawdads – members of the superfamilies Astacoidea and Parastacoidea – are freshwater crustaceans resembling small lobsters, to which they are related...

     (Attic karides) (LSJ: kammaros a kind of lobster, Epicharmus.60, Sophron
    Sophron
    Sophron of Syracuse was a writer of mimes.Sophron was the author of prose dialogues in the Doric dialect, containing both male and female characters, some serious, others humorous in style, and depicting scenes from the daily life of the Sicilian Greeks. Although in prose, they were regarded as...

    .26, Rhinthon
    Rhinthon
    Rhinthon was a Hellenistic dramatist.The son of a potter, he was probably a native of Syracuse and afterwards settled at Tarentum....

    .18:-- also kammaris, idos Galen
    Galen
    Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...

    .6.735.) (komaris a fish Epicharmus.47.)
  • komboi 'molars' (Attic gomphioi, dim.
    Diminutive
    In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form , is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...

     of gomphos 'a large, wedge-shaped bolt or nail; any bond or fastening', PIE *gombh-)
  • kynoupes or kynoutos bear (Hesychius kynoupeus, knoupeus, knôpeus) (kunôpês dog-faced) (knôps beast esp. serpent instead of kinôpeton, blind acc. Zonar (from knephas dark) (if kynoutos knôdês knôdalon beast)
  • lakedáma salty water with alix, rice-wheat or fish-sauce.(Cf.skorodalmê 'sauce or pickle composed of brine and garlic'). According to Albrecht von Blumenthal, -ama corresponds to Attic halmurós 'salty'; Cretan Doric
    Doric Greek
    Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...

     hauma for Attic halmē; laked- is cognate to Proto-Germanic *lauka leek
    Leek
    The leek, Allium ampeloprasum var. porrum , also sometimes known as Allium porrum, is a vegetable which belongs, along with the onion and garlic, to family Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Allioideae...

    , possibly related is Laked-aímōn, the name of the Sparta
    Sparta
    Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

    n land.
  • leíbēthron 'stream' (Hes. Attic rheîthron, also libádion, 'a small stream', dim. of libás; PIE *lei, 'to flow'); typical Greek productive suffix (-thron) (Macedonian toponym, Pierian Leibethra
    Leibethra
    Libethra or Leibethra was a city close to Olympus where Orpheus was buried by the Muses. His tomb was later destroyed by a flood of the river Sys. It was a place where the Libethrian Nymphs were worshiped...

     place/tomb of Orpheus
    Orpheus
    Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...

    )
  • mattuês kind of bird ( mattuê a meat-dessert of Macedonian or Thessalian origin) (verb mattuazo to prepare the mattue) (Athenaeus)
  • paraos eagle or kind of eagle (Attic aetos, Pamphylian
    Pamphylian Greek
    Pamphylian is a little-attested and isolated dialect of Ancient Greek which was spoken in Pamphylia, on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Its origins and relation to other Greek dialects are uncertain. A number of scholars have distinguished in Pamphylian dialect important isoglosses with...

     aibetos) (PIE
    Pie
    A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

     *por- 'going, passage' + *awi- 'bird') (Greek para- 'beside' + Hes. aos wind) (It may exist as food in Lopado...pterygon)
  • peripeteia
    Peripeteia
    Peripeteia is a reversal of circumstances, or turning point. The term is primarily used with reference to works of literature. The English form of peripeteia is peripety. Peripety is a sudden reversal dependent on intellect and logic...

     or peritia Macedonian festival in month Peritios. (Hesychius text )
  • rhamata bunch of grapes (Ionic
    Ionic Greek
    Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...

     rhagmata, rhages Koine rhôgmata, rhôges, rhax rhôx)
  • rhouto this (neut.) (Attic touto)
  • tagonaga Macedonian institution, administration (Thessalian tagos commander + agô lead)

Other Sources

  • aigipops eagle (EM 28.19
    Etymologicum Magnum
    Etymologicum Magnum is the traditional title of a Greek lexical encyclopedia compiled at Constantinople by an unknown lexicographer around 1150 AD. It is the largest Byzantine lexicon and draws on many earlier grammatical, lexical and rhetorical works...

    ) (error for argipous? maybe goat-eater? aix ,aigos + pepsis digestion) (Cf.eagle chelônophagos turtle-eater)
  • argyraspides (wiki Argyraspides
    Argyraspides
    The Argyraspides , were a division of the Macedonian army of Alexander the Great, who were so called because they carried silver-plated shields. They were picked men, were commanded by Nicanor, the son of Parmenion, and were held in high honour by Alexander. They were hypaspists, having changed...

    ) chrysaspides and chalkaspides (golden and bronze-shielded)
  • dramis a Macedonian bread (Thessalian bread daratos)(Athamanian
    Athamanians
    Athamanians or Athamanes were an ancient tribe that inhabited south-eastern Epirus and west Thessaly. Although regarded as "barbarians" by Strabo and Hecataeus of Miletus, the Athamanians self-identified as Greeks. The existence of myths about Athamas and Ino in Achaean Phthiotis suggests that the...

     bread dramix. (Athenaeus)
  • kausia felt
    Felt
    Felt is a non-woven cloth that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing woollen fibres. While some types of felt are very soft, some are tough enough to form construction materials. Felt can be of any colour, and made into any shape or size....

     hat used by Macedonians, forming part of the regalia
    Regalia
    Regalia is Latin plurale tantum for the privileges and the insignia characteristic of a Sovereign.The word stems from the Latin substantivation of the adjective regalis, 'regal', itself from Rex, 'king'...

     of the kings.
  • koios number (Athenaeus when talking about Koios, the Titan
    Titan (mythology)
    In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age....

     of intelligence; and the Macedonians use koios as synonymous with arithmos (LSJ: koeô mark, perceive, hear koiazô pledge, Hes. compose s.v. ) (Laocoön
    Laocoön
    Laocoön the son of Acoetes is a figure in Greek and Roman mythology.-History:Laocoön is a Trojan priest of Poseidon , whose rules he had defied, either by marrying and having sons, or by having committed an impiety by making love with his wife in the presence of a cult image in a sanctuary...

    , thyoskoos observer of sacrifices, akouô hear) (All from PIE
    Pie
    A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

     root *keu to notice, observe, feel; to hear.
  • pezetairoi (wiki Pezhetairoi
    Pezhetairoi
    The pezhetairoi were the backbone of the Macedonian army and Diadochi kingdoms. They were literally "foot companions" .The Macedonian phalanxes were made up almost entirely of pezhetairoi...

    ), Hetairidia, Macedonian religious festival (Attic ,) (Aeolic )
  • Púdna, Pydna
    Pydna
    Pydna was a Greek city in ancient Macedon, the most important in Pieria. Modern Pydna is a small town and a former municipality in the northeastern part of Pieria regional unit, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pydna-Kolindros, of which it is a...

     toponym (Pokorny
    Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch
    The Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch was published in 1959 by the Austrian-German comparative linguist and Celtic languages expert Julius Pokorny...

     Attic puthmēn 'bottom, sole, base of a vessel'; PIE *bhudhnā; Attic pýndax 'bottom of vessel') (Cretan
    Doric Greek
    Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...

    ,Pytna'Hierapytna
    Ierapetra
    Ierapetra is a town in the southeast of the Greek island of Crete and a municipality of Crete region.-History:The town of Ierapetra is located on the southeast coast of Crete, along the beach of Ierapetra Bay. It lies south of Agios Nikolaos and southwest of Sitia and is an important regional...

    , Sacred Pytna
  • sigynos spear (Cypriotic sigynon) (Illyria
    Illyria
    In classical antiquity, Illyria was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians....

    n sibyne) (Origin: Illyrian acc. to Fest.p. 453 L., citing Ennius
    Ennius
    Quintus Ennius was a writer during the period of the Roman Republic, and is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was of Calabrian descent...

    ) (Cyprian
    Cyprus
    Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

     acc. to Herodotus
    Herodotus
    Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

     and Aristotle
    Aristotle
    Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

     Il. cc., Scythian acc. to Sch.Par.A.R.4.320 (cf. 111)
  • sphuraina, hammer-fish sphyraena (Strattis
    Strattis
    Strattis was an Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy. According to the Suda, he flourished later than Callias Schoenion. He must have begun to exhibit in the 92nd Olympiad, that is, 412 BC. He was contemporary with Sannyrion and Philyllius, both of whom are attacked in the extant fragments of his...

    ,Makedones (fr. 28) – (Attic.κέστρα, kestra) (cestra, needle-fish (modern Greek fish σφυρίδα, sfyrida)
  • uetês of the same year Marsyas
    Marsyas of Philippi
    Marsyas of Philippi was a Macedonian Greek historian and the son of Critophemus. He was often called Marsyas the Younger to distinguish him from Marsyas of Pella, with whom he has frequently been confounded. The earliest writers by whom he is cited is Plinius and Athenaeus...

     (Attic autoetês, Poetic oietês)
  • charôn lion (Attic/Poetic fierce, for lion, eagle instead of charopos, charops bright-eyed)

Proposed

A number of Hesychius words are listed orphan; some of them have been proposed as Macedonian
  • agerda wild pear-tree (Attic acherdos).
  • adalos charcoal dust (Attic aithalos, asbolos)
  • addee imp. hurry up (Attic thee of theô run)
  • adis 'hearth' (Hes. eskhára, LSJ Attic aîthos 'fire, burning heat')
  • aidôssa (Attic aithousa portico, corridor, verandah, a loggia
    Loggia
    Loggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Minoan design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...

     leading from aulê yard to prodomos)
  • baskioi 'fasces
    Fasces
    Fasces are a bundle of wooden sticks with an axe blade emerging from the center, which is an image that traditionally symbolizes summary power and jurisdiction, and/or "strength through unity"...

    ' (Hes. Attic desmoì phrūgánōn, Pokorny
    Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch
    The Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch was published in 1959 by the Austrian-German comparative linguist and Celtic languages expert Julius Pokorny...

      baskeutaí, Attic phaskídes, Attic pháskōlos 'leather sack', PIE *bhasko-)
  • bix sphinx
    Sphinx
    A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...

     (Boeotia
    Boeotia
    Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...

    n phix), (Attic sphinx)
  • dalancha sea (Attic thalatta) (Ionic
    Ionic Greek
    Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...

     thalassa)
  • dedalai package, bundle (Attic dethla, desmai)
  • eskorodos tenon (Attic tormos skorthos tornos slice, lathe)
  • Eudalagines Graces Χάριτες
    Charites
    In Greek mythology, a Charis is one of several Charites , goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility. They ordinarily numbered three, from youngest to oldest: Aglaea , Euphrosyne , and Thalia . In Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae, the "Graces"...

     (Attic Euthalgines)
  • kanadoi 'jaws' nom. pl. (Attic gnathoi, PIE *genu, 'jaw') (Laconian  kanadoka notch (V) of an arrow )
  • laiba shield (Doric
    Doric Greek
    Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...

      laia, laipha) (Attic aspis
    Aspis
    "Aspis" is the generic term for the word shield. The aspis, which is carried by Greek infantry of various periods, is often referred to as a hoplon .According to Diodorus Siculus:-Construction:...

    )
  • lalabis storm (Attic lailaps)
  • homodalion isoetes plant (θάλλω thallô bloom)
  • rhoubotos potion (Attic rhophema) rhopheo suck, absorb rhoibdeô suck with noise.

Macedonian in Classical sources

Among the references that have been discussed as possibly bearing some witness to the linguistic situation in Macedonia, there is a sentence from a fragmentary dialogue, apparently between an Athenian and a Macedonian, in an extant fragment of the 5th century BC comedy 'Macedonians' by the Athenian poet Strattis
Strattis
Strattis was an Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy. According to the Suda, he flourished later than Callias Schoenion. He must have begun to exhibit in the 92nd Olympiad, that is, 412 BC. He was contemporary with Sannyrion and Philyllius, both of whom are attacked in the extant fragments of his...

 (fr. 28), where a stranger is portrayed as speaking in a rural Greek dialect. His language contains expressions such as for "you Athenians", being also attested in Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, Sappho
Sappho
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...

 (Lesbian) and Theocritus
Theocritus
Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...

 (Doric
Doric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...

), while appears only in "funny country bumpkin" contexts of Attic comedy.

Another text that has been quoted as evidence is a passage from Livy
Livy
Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

 (lived 59 BC-14 AD) in his Ab urbe condita
Ab Urbe condita (book)
Ab urbe condita libri — often shortened to Ab urbe condita — is a monumental history of ancient Rome written in Latin sometime between 27 and 25 BC by the historian Titus Livius. The work covers the time from the stories of Aeneas, the earliest legendary period from before the city's founding in c....

 (31.29). Describing political negotiations between Macedonians and Aetolia
Aetolia
Aetolia is a mountainous region of Greece on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, forming the eastern part of the modern prefecture of Aetolia-Acarnania.-Geography:...

ns in the late 3rd century BC, Livy has a Macedonian ambassador argue that Aetolians, Acarnanians and Macedonians were "men of the same language". This has been interpreted as referring to a shared North-West Greek speech (as opposed to Attic Koiné). In another passage, Livy states that an announcement was translated from Latin to Greek for Macedonians to understand.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
Quintus Curtius Rufus
Quintus Curtius Rufus was a Roman historian, writing probably during the reign of the Emperor Claudius or Vespasian. His only surviving work, Historiae Alexandri Magni, is a biography of Alexander the Great in Latin in ten books, of which the first two are lost, and the remaining eight are...

, Philotas
Philotas
Philotas was the eldest son of Parmenion, Alexander's most experienced and talented general. When Alexander became king of Macedonia with Parmenion's support Philotas (in Greek, Φιλώτας, died October 330 BC) was the eldest son of Parmenion, Alexander's most experienced and talented general. When...

's trial and the statement that the Greek-speaking Branchidae had common language with the Macedonians.

Over time, "Macedonian" (μακεδονικός), when referring to language (and related expressions such as μακεδονίζειν; to speak in the Macedonian fashion) acquired the meaning of Koine Greek
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....

.

Contributions to the Koine

Despite the Macedonians' important role in the formation of the Koine, Macedonian itself contributed few elements to the dialect, such as military terminology (διμοιρίτης, ταξίαρχος, ὑπασπισταί etc.) and, possibly, the suffix "-issa" which became productive in Medieval Greek.

See also

  • Ancient Greek
    Ancient Greek
    Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

  • Ancient Greek dialects
  • Proto-Greek language
    Proto-Greek language
    The Proto-Greek language is the assumed last common ancestor of all known varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean, the classical Greek dialects , and ultimately Koine, Byzantine and modern Greek...

  • Amerias
    Amerias
    Amerias was an ancient Macedonian lexicographer, known for his compilation of a glossary titled Glossai...

  • Macedon
    Macedon
    Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....

  • Ancient Greece
    Ancient Greece
    Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

  • Phrygian language
    Phrygian language
    The Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Asia Minor during Classical Antiquity .Phrygian is considered to have been closely related to Greek....

  • Thracian language
    Thracian language
    The Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times in Southeastern Europe by the Thracians, the northern neighbors of the Ancient Greeks. The Thracian language exhibits satemization: it either belonged to the Satem group of Indo-European languages or it was strongly...

  • Hellenic languages
    Hellenic languages
    Hellenic, as a technical term in historical linguistics, is the branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Greek . According to most traditional classifications, Hellenic contains only Greek as a single language alone in its branch, and is as such co-extensive with "Greek"...


Further reading

  • Brixhe C., Panayotou A. (1994) Le Macédonien in Bader, F. (ed.) Langues indo-européennes, Paris:CNRS éditions, 1994, pp 205–220. ISBN 2-271-05043-X
  • Chadwick, J.
    John Chadwick
    John Chadwick was an English linguist and classical scholar most famous for his role in deciphering Linear B, along with Michael Ventris.-Early life and education:...

     The Prehistory of the Greek Language. Cambridge, 1963.
  • Crossland, R. A., "The Language of the Macedonians", CAH III.1, Cambridge 1982
  • Hammond, Nicholas G.L.
    N. G. L. Hammond
    Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond CBE, DSO was a British scholar of ancient Greece of great accomplishment and an operative for the British Special Operations Executive in occupied Greece during World War II....

     "Literary Evidence for Macedonian Speech", Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Vol. 43, No. 2. (1994), pp. 131–142.
  • Hatzopoulos, M. B. Le Macedonien Nouvelles Donnees et Theories Nouvelles in Ancient Macedonia, Sixth International Symposium, Volume 1, Institute for Balkan Studies (1999)
  • Kalleris, Jean. Les Anciens Macédoniens, étude linguistique et historique. Institut Francais d'Athénes, 1988
  • Katičić, Radoslav
    Radoslav Katicic
    Radoslav Katičić is a Croatian linguist, classical philologist, Indo-Europeanist, Slavist and Indologist, one of the most prominent Croatian scholars in the field of humanities.-Biography:...

    . Ancient Languages of the Balkans. The Hague; Paris: Mouton, 1976.
  • Neroznak, V. Paleo-Balkan languages. Moscow, 1978.
  • Rhomiopoulou, Katerina. An Outline of Macedonian History and Art. Greek Ministry of Culture and Science, 1980.
  • Die Makedonen: Ihre Sprache und ihr Volkstum by Otto Hoffmann

External links

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