Historians on the Ancient Macedonians

[tchaiku]

The Macedonians conquered all the way to India yet we are expected to believe that this great and powerful civilisation did not produce a single written document in its own language?

Hmm, interesting.

[DraganOfStip]

Hmm, interesting.

Why is it so interesting?

[Stevce]

Given that in Macedonia there is no written text why is it strange to believe?

[Amphipolis]

Thousands of texts are found both in Macedonia and all the way up to India. What is not found is a text in a language, which most of you basically imagine as something "proto-Slavic".

This is a set of coin galleries from India. This website has 47(!) galleries like this, one for every Indo-Greek king.

http://coinindia.com/galleries-artemidoros.html

[tchaiku]

The Romans did conquer the Balkans and destroy the Macedonian kingdom, and most Greeks welcomed that. As Plutarch states, the universal belief in the region was that "the Romans came not to fight against the Greeks, but for the Greeks, against the Macedonians."

Romans came not to fight against the Greeks, but for the Greeks against the Macedonians.
Here is the source:

http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/flaminin.html

Seems reliable to me.

[Karposh]

Thousands of texts are found both in Macedonia and all the way up to India. What is not found is a text in a language, which most of you basically imagine as something "proto-Slavic".

This is a set of coin galleries from India. This website has 47(!) galleries like this, one for every Indo-Greek king.

http://coinindia.com/galleries-artemidoros.html

What is also not found is a text in Illyrian, Thracian, Paeonian, Dardanian or Scythian. We have explained the reasons for this many times on this forum. When will most of you give up on that worn out argument?

[Risto the Great]

Perhaps he can refer to the ancient German or even ancient English texts to help him with his logic.

[tchaiku]

What is also not found is a text in Illyrian, Thracian, Paeonian, Dardanian or Scythian. We have explained the reasons for this many times on this forum. When will most of you give up on that worn out argument?

Macedonia was a predominant ancient civilization. Egyptians, Hebrews etc all of them had their own alphabet and language. Macedonia conquered and shaped all those civilizations and have not left a single document but just the Greek ones manage to survive.

[DraganOfStip]

Macedonia conquered and shaped all those civilizations and have not left a single document but just the Greek ones manage to survive.

Uhm...not really following you here, you're implying what exactly?
The Ancient Macedonian language is a fact, not fiction. And the fact that so little of it is found in written form only suggests that it was predominately an oral language, used by the Macedonians in their everyday communication.
On the other hand, Koine was a language used in the Mediterranean in commerce between nations, so it was known to other people other than just Greeks and therefore it was accepted as language of the court and as the lingua franca of the empire.
It was also better known to the non-Macedonian elements of the Macedonian army than the oral Ancient Macedonian language.
But Karposh is right, this has already been pointed out and debated many times here. I suggest you do your research before you ask a question.

[Karposh]

Macedonia was a predominant ancient civilization. Egyptians, Hebrews etc all of them had their own alphabet and language. Macedonia conquered and shaped all those civilizations and have not left a single document but just the Greek ones manage to survive.

You're really hung up on this point aren't you. Why don't we let the Ancient Macedonians answer this question for you instead. I'll repeat what I posted earlier on this thread.

Philotas giving his reasons for Macedonians having to use the Greek (Koine) language, i.e. "Besides the Macedonians, there are many present who, I think, will find what I am going to say easier to understand if I use the language you yourself have been using (Koine Greek), your purpose, I believe, being only to enable more people to understand you" and; "That native language of ours (Macedonian) has long been rendered obsolete through our dealings with other nations, and conquerors (Macedonians) and conquered (Asian barbarians) must learn a foreign tongue (Koine Greek)."

Are you willing to accept this as a reasonable enough answer to your question. I'm not making this stuff up. It's an ancient record of Alexander's foreign policy within his empire.

[Redsun]

Macedonia was a predominant ancient civilization. Egyptians, Hebrews etc all of them had their own alphabet and language. Macedonia conquered and shaped all those civilizations and have not left a single document but just the Greek ones manage to survive.

You didn’t read post #66.

Why is it that the Greeks had a written language and the Macedonians didn’t? Where did the Alphabet originate, where were written languages first used? How did the alphabet enter Europe?


Why did the Macedonians use Koine?

Why did the Assyrians use Imperial Aramaic? The Assyrians spoke Akkadian, why did Tiglath-Pileser III decide to adopt another language as the lingua franca of his empire? Darius I after conquering Assyria used Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of his empire, why Tchaiku?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_Neo-Aramaic

Following the Achaemenid conquest of Assyria under Darius I, the Aramaic language was adopted as the "vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages."

[Stevce]

What I meant by no written text, is on artifacts found in Macedonia.
Excluding during the Roman times.
As for the coins it might be because they were part of a Persian Tribute and they used a standard language to communicate between themselves.
It could be that Cadmus spread the alphabet along his travels from Ohrid to Montenegro.
I wonder if the ancient Greek historians spoke Greek to their Eqyptian teachers?

[Redsun]

Stevce, you and tchaiku are one?

Writing itself and the idea of it spread, there must be some form of exposure to a written language. Where did the concept come from?

Concerning Cadmus and his travels, where did you read this?
Do you really think the Egyptians used some form of Greek to teach Plato and Pythagoras?

What do you mean by no written text found in Macedonia? I don’t understand, what are you trying to say?

[Stevce]

Hi Redsun,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohrid

The existence of the ancient Greek city of Lychnidos is linked to the Greek myth of the Phoenician prince Cadmus who, banished from Thebes, in Boeotia, fled to the Enchelei[16] and founded the town of Lychnidos on the shores of the modern Lake Ohrid.[

http://www.budva.com/eng/budva/history-and-legends/a-legend-about-the-foundation-of-budva

Egyptians had a long history with the Greek and Jewish people. I wouldn't be surprised if they taught in 'Greek' to Plato and Pythagoras and that the Phonecian script spread with Cadmus and the Jewish colonies in Eqypt. As the Phoenicians spread across the language would have also changed. According to Herodotus The Phoenicians who came with Cadmus . . . introduced into Greece, after their settlement in the country, a number of accomplishments, of which the most important was writing, an art till then, I think, unknown to the Greeks. At first they used the same characters as all the other Phoenicians, but as time went on, and they changed their language, they also changed the shape of their letters.

In Macedonia, if you go to the ancient cities, burial tombs there is no Greek writing. The few fragments they have found is indecipherable in Greek and the rest is from Roman times.

[tchaiku]

There is actually proof that Herodotus classifies Macedonian as a barbaric language.