Paionian language
Encyclopedia
The Paeonian language is the poorly attested language of the ancient Paeonians, whose kingdom once stretched north 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....

 into Dardania and in earlier times into southwestern 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...

.

Several Paeonian words are known from classical sources:
  • monapos, monaipos, a wild bull
    Bull
    Bull usually refers to an uncastrated adult male bovine.Bull may also refer to:-Entertainment:* Bull , an original show on the TNT Network* "Bull" , an episode of television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation...

  • tilôn, a species of fish
    Fish
    Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

     once found in Lake Prasias
  • paprax, a species of fish
    Fish
    Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

     once found in Lake Πρασιάς. Paprakas, masc. acc. pl.


A number of anthroponyms (some known only from Paeonian coinage) are attested Άγις
Agis
Agis may refer to:* Agis I , a Spartan king* Agis II , a Spartan king* Agis III , a Spartan king* Agis IV , a Spartan king; Plutarch included a chapter on him in his Parallel Lives...

, Πατράος, Λύκπειος, Αυδολέων
Audoleon
Audoleon was an ancient Paeonian king son of Patraus or Agis. He was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, and was the father of Ariston, who distinguished himself at the battle of Gaugamela, and of a daughter who married Pyrrhus of Epirus...

, Ευπολεμένος, Αρίστων
Ariston
Ariston was a king of Sparta, 14th of the Eurypontids, son of Agasicles, contemporary of Anaxandrides.He ascended the Spartan throne before 560 BC, and died somewhat before , or at any rate not long after, 510 BC...

, etc. as well as several toponyms (Βυλαζώρα
Bylazora
Bylazora or Vilazora is a Paeonian city that was located on the Axius River at Veles in the Republic of Macedonia. Polybius tells us that "King Philip V captured Bylazora, the largest town of Paeonia, and very favourably situated for commanding the pass from Dardania to Macedonia: so that by this...

, Άστιβος) and a few theonyms (Dryalus, Dyalos|Δρύαλος, the Paeonian Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

), as well as the following:
  • Pontos, affluent of the Strumica River
    Strumica River
    The Strumica or Strumeshnitsa is a river in the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria...

    , perhaps from *ponktos, "boggy" (cf. German feucht, "wet", Middle Irish éicne "salmon", 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...

     pánka "mud, mire", pontos "passage", "way" 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;...

    );
  • Ιδομένη (nowadays Gevgeli), name of a city (cf. 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;...

     Idomeneus, proper name in Homer, "Ida", mountain in Crete
    Crete
    Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

    );
  • Stoboi
    Stobi
    Stobi was an ancient town of Paeonia, later conquered by Macedon, and later turned into the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia Salutaris . It is located on the main road that leads from the Danube to the Aegean Sea and is considered by many to be the most famous archaeological site in the...

    (nowadays Gradsko
    Gradsko
    Gradsko may refer to:*Gradsko, Bulgaria, a small village in south-eastern Bulgaria.*Gradsko, Republic of Macedonia, a village in the Republic of Macedonia.*Gradsko Municipality, a municipality in the Republic of Macedonia....

    ), name of a city, from *stob(h) (cf. Old Prussian stabis "rock", Old Church Slavonic
    Old Church Slavonic
    Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...

     stoboru, "pillar", Old English stapol, "post", Ancient Greek stobos, "scolding, bad language");
  • Δύσορον (nowadays Δύσορο), name of a mountain, from "dys-", "bad" (cf. 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;...

     dyskolos "difficult", and "oros" 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;...

     oros, "mountain");
  • Agrianes, name of a tribe, possibly from *agro- "field" (cf. Latin ager, Greek agros with cognates in the Greek tribe of Agraioi who lived on the Acheloos and the name of the month Agrianos or quite possibly from Greek agrios, "unrully", "wild".


Classical sources usually considered the Paeonians distinct from Thracians or Illyrians, comprising their own ethnicity and language. Athenaeus
Athenaeus
Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...

 seems to have connected the Paeonian tongue to the Mysian language
Mysian language
Mysian language was the languages spoken by Mysians inhabiting Mysia in north-west Anatolia.Little is known about the Mysian language. Strabo noted that their language was, in a way, a mixture of the Lydian and Phrygian languages. As such, the Mysian language could be a language of the Anatolian...

, itself barely attested, which, if correct, would make Paeonian an Anatolian language
Anatolian languages
The Anatolian languages comprise a group of extinct Indo-European languages that were spoken in Asia Minor, the best attested of them being the Hittite language.-Origins:...

.

On the other hand, the Paeonians were also regarded as being related to Thracians and ancestors of the Phrygians.

Modern linguists are uncertain on the classification of Paeonian, due to the extreme scarcity of materials we have on this language. Wilhelm Tomaschek
Wilhelm Tomaschek
Wilhelm Tomaschek, or Vilém Tomášek was a Czech-Austrian geographer and orientalist. Born at Olmiitz, in Moravia, he received his education at Vienna,...

 and Paul 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....

 claim it belonged to the Illyrian family
Illyrian languages
The Illyrian languages are a group of Indo-European languages that were spoken in the western part of the Balkans in former times by groups identified as Illyrians: Ardiaei, Delmatae, Pannonii, Autariates, Taulanti...

, and Dimiter Dečev claims affinities with 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...

. Irwin L. Merker considers Paionian Hellenic and closely related to Greek, a Hellenic language with "a great deal of Illyrian and Thracian influence as a result of this proximity".

The Indo-European voiced aspirates (*bh, *dh, etc.) became plain voiced consonants (/b/, /d/, etc.), just like in Illyrian, Thracian, and Phrygian.
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