Origins of the Greek language

[King Makedon]

KM, see here about Iljov:

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1552

Please respond there for anything related to him.

Thanks SoM

[George S.]

Don't forget if you don't want people to comment we won't

Som you have made 2850 comments i wonder how many are incorrect or are you infallible .or wre you there 2500 years ago.No wonder macedonia is in such a turmoil.We all don't even know our own history or aren't sure & it's all mostly speculation.Who does know exactly what is going on???
George S.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Well it certainly doesn't appear to be you. When you make things up as you go along and cite theories which you are not willing to defend or corroborate, I will point it out to you. I don't know how many of my 2850 posts are incorrect, but by percentage it is minimal compared to yours in 33 posts.

[George S.]

guys these forums are for commenting,If you personally attack someone it's your own fault so don't get too personal it's all a matter of opinion are you god you know everything???We should all be tolerant we could be as wrong or right as the next person.
George S.

[Soldier of Macedon]

We should all educate each other with the truth and correct any misconceptions. Do you feel as if you are being attacked when somebody highlights a likely error in your assertions?

[George S.]

you watch out brother if you misstreat me ,otherwise i'll cut macedonia of my budget.
you watch out!.
George S.

[Risto the Great]

George, you are about to be deleted.
Just like the 6 posts I deleted above.
Why persist with the ignorance? Please tell me you are not one of those Greeks pretending to be Macedonian pretending to be thick?

[Soldier of Macedon]

George, don't post on this thread again, I want to bring it back on topic and do not wish to entertain your opinions here.

Here is a chronology of information taken from basic sources on the internet just to begin with.

2700BC to 1450 BC - Minoan
The Minoan civilization arose in Crete, the language was written in Linear A. Both the language and alphabet remain un-deciphered.

1600 BC to 1100 BC – Mycenaean
Mycenaean culture became dominant as Minoan was dying out. The Mycenaean alphabet was an adaptation from Linear A, known today as Linear B. It was written in a language that appears to be a form of archaic European, and claimed as an early form of Greek.

1200 BC – Dark Ages
The end of the Mycenaean civilization and language takes place, along with the Linear B alphabet.

1000 BC – The appearance of the Dorians
There is no cultural trait surviving in the material record for the two centuries or so after 1200 BC, that can be regarded as uniquely Dorian. It was not until the start of the Geometric period at about 950 BC that such evidence appears, therefore the origins of the Dorians is controversial. This period is also referred to as the time of origin for the Ionic dialect.

800 BC - Advent of Hellenes
The first signs of Greek-speaking city-states appear, together with a variant of the Phoenician alphabet, originally used to write Semitic languages.

Some important observations can be made from the above information. For example:

1) If the Mycenaeans were not considered Greek-speakers until Ventris and his Linear B decipherment, it brings into question the origins of the heroes in Homer's epic. Furthermore, words from Linear B appear to also correspond to European (inlcuding Slavic) equivalents.

2) Dorian origins are disputed, but it appears that they are in fact the original 'Greek' speakers. The question is, where did they come from?

3) The solid origin for the Greek language as it is known today is evidenced from the time of their adoption of Phoenician letters.

The above may or may not be correct, I would like to hear the opinions of others interested in the topic.

[Soldier of Macedon]

you watch out brother if you misstreat me ,otherwise i'll cut macedonia of my budget.
you watch out!.
George S.

Hahaha, sorry guys, I couldn't help but bump this one up, as I just laughed my head off when reading George's comment, lol.

Gorgi, kak si be dusho?

[Anarchist]

Proto-Greek: the assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek which is not recorded. Proto-Greek speakers possibly entered the Greek peninsula in the early 2nd millennium BC. Since then, Greek has been spoken uninterruptedly in Greece.

Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula since around the late 3rd millennium BC. The earliest written evidence is found in the Linear B clay tablets in the "Room of the Chariot Tablets", an LMIII A-context (c. 1400 BC) region of Knossos, in Crete, making Greek one of the world's oldest recorded living languages.

Greek words have been widely borrowed into the European languages, including English: mathematics, astronomy, democracy, philosophy, thespian, athletics, theater, rhetoric etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as a basis for coinages: anthropology, photography, isomer, biomechanics, cinema, physics etc. and form, with Latin words, the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary, e.g. all words ending with "-logy" ("discourse"). An estimated 12% of the English vocabulary has Greek origin, while numerous Greek words have English derivatives.[12]

Soilder Of Macedonia you're correct with your quote about the Greek langauge and dates as well , as i've quoted up the top " Proto - Greek " wasn't recorded.

Proto in Greek means first. and we all know Mesopotamia was like the first civillization 5300bc , im sure cultures adopted and used customs between one civillization to the other as knowledge in those times was the key which drove man forward , guess times were alot more simpler then.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Anarchist, I don't believe that the Greek language, as it is known and in its location, has been spoken for any more than a 1000 years before Christ.

Ancient Greek is closer (by about 99%) to Demotiki than it is to the Mycanean tongue from the Linear B tablets. The latter is a proto Indo-European tongue, not a proto-Greek tongue, although it may have had some influence in Greek, like the several words in your language today that cannot be given a Greek etymology. And I think there are some important points that can be contested in the theories of Chadwick and his little buddy Ventris.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Several words and names assumed to be 'Hellenic' are in fact of pre-Hellenic origin. As explained at the beginning of the thread, some of the non-Hellenic and non-Indo-European terms used include:

- Terms of insult and prejorative vocabulary
- Maritime terms, words for the sea, shipping (eg thalassa)
- Words relating to Mediterranean agriculture, (eg olives)
- Words regarding rulers, given by the populace (eg Tyranos)
- Building technology (eg Kapital)
- Words relating to Non-Indo-European divinities (eg Athena)

Linguistic features not native to Hellenic are:

- The ss cluster of the same letter
- The tt cluster of the same letter
- The nth feature

Below are some previously cited words and placenames in the Hellenic tongue which are of non-Hellenic origin.

- Knossos, Parnassos, Thessaly, Larissa, Molossus
- Corinth, Perinth
- Attica

I just wanted to summarise the key points thus far in this thread to provide the context for further discussion. I have noticed that even the names of two literary figures from antiquity that feature prominently among the earliest writers in the Hellenic tongue, Homer and Herodotus, appear to have names that are originally of Semitic origin, Omer and Herod, respectively. Is there a case to argue for a Hellenic etymology?

Do the words Dodona and Hellen have an etymology in Hellenic? Perhaps the odd Greek that enters this forum for no other reason than spamming can try and be productive for once by assisting with these questions.

Spartan, if you are able to help, please do so.

[Onur]

I just wanted to summarise the key points thus far in this thread to provide the context for further discussion. I have noticed that even the names of two literary figures from antiquity that feature prominently among the earliest writers in the Hellenic tongue, Homer and Herodotus, appear to have names that are originally of Semitic origin, Omer and Herod, respectively. Is there a case to argue for a Hellenic etymology?

Do the words Dodona and Hellen have an etymology in Hellenic?

Good catch SOM. Did you read this at somewhere or is this your theory?

Homer could be the Latinized, Hellenized version of "Omer", like Yacob to Jacop, Ibrahim to Abraham, Cebrail to Gabriel etc. This just proves the ancient Persian and eastern connection in general with the ancient Greeks. Ancient Greek culture was already an eastern culture created by taking ancient Persian culture as a base.

The recent discovery of Persian King`s tomb in turkey is just an another proof for that;

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=4139

Already, most of the political and cultural norms of east-Roman Empire was already copied from Persian culture.


I believe when the western European`s started to re-discover ancient Greek culture after the renaissance, they overlooked and then eliminated all the eastern influence from ancient Greeks and they isolated them like ancient Greeks had no contact with any eastern culture and they created everything by their own. Only then, they could consider ancient Greek culture as their primary source because, a culture with the eastern influence couldn't be considered as a source for European culture. Thats why they artificially isolated ancient Greeks from the eastern influence.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Good catch SOM. Did you read this at somewhere or is this your theory?

Homer could be the Latinized, Hellenized version of "Omer", like Yacob to Jacop, Ibrahim to Abraham, Cebrail to Gabriel etc.

Onur, I have seen discussions about it in the past. Herodotus looks to simply be the Semitic original (Herod, as in Herod the Great) with a Hellenic suffix (otus). Homer is recorded in Hebrew as 'omer' meaning 'wheat', and in Arabic as 'umar/omar' meaning 'life', the connection between 'wheat' and 'life' being commonplace for many cultures (in Macedonian the word for 'wheat' is 'zhito' and the word for life is 'zhivot', clearly related).

On the other hand, there seems to be a suggestion by some that Homer's name derives from the Hellenic word 'homeros', which means hostage. So we are comparing traditional and plausable examples in 'wheat' and 'life' against a Hellenic example of 'hostage'.

[Onur]

Homer is recorded in Hebrew as 'omer' meaning 'wheat', and in Arabic as 'umar/omar' meaning 'life', the connection between 'wheat' and 'life' being commonplace for many cultures (in Macedonian the word for 'wheat' is 'zhito' and the word for life is 'zhivot', clearly related).

On the other hand, there seems to be a suggestion by some that Homer's name derives from the Hellenic word 'homeros', which means hostage. So we are comparing traditional and plausable examples in 'wheat' and 'life' against a Hellenic example of 'hostage'.

Btw, you probably know that like the most semitic names, "Omer, Omar" is a male name which predates ancient Greek culture. "Omer" is a popular male name among all the semitic people, Jews or Muslim Arabs. It`s used as a male name in Turkey too after muslim conversion.