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Macedonia, power or largest and Herodotus on Greek Hellenicity

Athenean, can you please explain why you reverted my edit? Here are my explanations.

My explanation for the edits are:

1) Was Macedon briefly the most powerful country on Earth?

Firstly, Macedonia under ATG can probably lay claim to being the largest country on Earth at the time under one theoretical government. However land area and power are not the same thing. For example Somalia has roughly two and a half times the land area of Great Britain but their power levels are vastly different. I would question how strong Macedonia really was. They defeated the Persian empire but apart from that there was no significant opposition in that area of the world and it seemed to require ATG personally for anything to happen. When ATG died the kingdom fractured into multiple kingdoms starting the Diadochi period, not exactly the description of the most powerful long-lasting country. In comparison Qin China the joint leader in the Warring States period at the time and would go inexorably on to win. Qin was more organised, had better technology and a better utilisation of its populace. It must also be remembered that the Qin empire that came out of the Warring States period by one measure was 12.5 million km squared compared to 5.4 million km squared for ATG at its height. Therefore, I move that the word powerful is changed to largest.

2)

Herodotus and context

Imagine if William the Conqueror who essentially created modern England had said he was French. Nothing unusual at the time, everyone would agree with him. However that does not mean that a thousand years later all English are actually French. By the end of the Hundred Years Wars many places which thought of themselves as Norman English at the start now thought of themselves as French. I mention this because cultures change and I feel this should be reflected. Herodotus was writing over a century before the birth of Macedonia's most famous son and this time lag should be mentioned. Why? Because the section in effect is in effect asking whether Macedonia was just another Greek city state or whether it was a separate country. The state under Alexander I was just out of direct Persian control without time to effectively form a separate identity. I see no other evidence that Macedonian Olympic Games attendance was at all regular hence I want to put in context that firstly Herodotus is not an impartial observer and secondly the time when he was writing.

Nath9091 (talk) 23:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Greek word Makednos, meaning Tall Guy?

stop imagining stuff. it's on pra-balcans indo-european language. dunya is world. ma ki is mother of the. if you open translate google and write down "world of mother" and translate it to hindi and than press the speaker sign you will be pleasantly surprised. now, that you can not falsify. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.126.227.141 (talk) 14:40, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Do you have resources that can back this theory? Because in reality, nor the Greeks, nor the neighboring tribes in the Balkans claimed a connection of this word with the ancient Macedonias. The historians on the other hand, noted the meaning of the term Makednos which was in use during this period, which highlights a characteristic of the Ancient Macedonians: they were tall people, as confirmed at least for Alexander the Great. Between a disputable word "Dunya" and the written-in-documents-of-that-age word "Macednos", of course personally I could think the second. --85.75.180.103 (talk) 05:28, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

dunya is an arabic word...Lets start with that... You might mind to check a dictionary before making such bold statements http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dmakedno%2Fs Fkitselis (talk) 20:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

duniya is a sanskrit word. not arabic. even now if you open google translate from hindi to english and type "ma ki duniya" and press enter you will see my claim. as for the ancient kingdom mygdonia, type from hindi to english "mukh duniya" and press enter. you will be pleasantly surprised :). i was wondering. half the world was hellenic back then. how come, nowhere in the world is speaking greek? not persia, not bactria, not indus valey, not egypt, not afghanistan, not armenia, not turkey, not in any point of the mediterrane, not even albania as the first neighbour. on the other side, half of the world is speaking macedonian.79.126.251.234 (talk) 15:01, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

There's no single inscription in Macedonia where Macedonia is written Ma ki duniya (or with Greek letters MA KI ΔΥΝΙΥΑ), therefore your Ma ki duniya has nothing to do with ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΙΑ. Period! The fact that the word exists in Ancient Greek is irrelevant to you (e.g Homer Οιά τε φύλλα μακεδνής αιγείροιο)? Can you quote one academic who claims Macedonian is Sankrit? I think not... As for google translate, I can turn it into a German beatbox if you want. The fact that you cut and separate words as it fits you, doesn't make the word Macedonia Sanskrit. Fkitselis (talk) 15:09, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

you missed out one thing. the indo-european tree of languages. why do you think they call it that way?79.126.204.223 (talk) 22:32, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

There's a term for this: folk etymology. It's also why no serious etymologist pays any attention to it... Neither should we. TREKphiler 23:01, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

ok than. "os", "as", "is", "us", are roman, latin adds to the original words. how you call it in English? adverbs? and they are used after the period of the Macedonian kingdom. without "os" how would you call a tall guy? makedn? and what is the meaning of donia if it's not the same indian/persian donia?79.126.196.235 (talk) 15:05, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

-ος (os), -ας (as) and -ις (is) are in fact ancient Greek: you call a tall guy μακεδνός (makednos). The *donia that you are talking about is not a viable division of Makedonia, as the -ία is independent from the root: it is a common suffix in the formation of country names, e.g. Aetolia, Lacedaemonia etc.  _.: 15:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

than why the original name of alexander is not alexandros? and why on hebrew is "alexander mugdon"? similar to mygdonia or mukhduniya don't you think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.126.196.235 (talk) 16:36, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

You're pretty far out of your depth here. Alexander's name was Ἀλέξανδρος (Alexandros) and the treatment in Hebrew of the Greek consonant cluster -νδρ- (-ndr-) or the outcome of a weak stem like one ending in -ked(o)n- would have nothing to do with etymology. This talk page is for discussions aimed at improving the article, so unless you have some reliable sources—and there won't be any because this is WP:FRINGE nonsense—for what you're proposing, I think this thread can be considered closed. If you'd like to ask further questions about this topic, try Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Language or Wiktionary.  _.: 16:45, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

ok. thanks for raising up so many users to convince me. i'm just wandering why, when king Otto came to power said:"-these are not greek, they speak albanian", and all the sudden you are experts in depth, in linguistics and etymology.79.126.196.235 (talk) 18:02, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 7 August 2013

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Infomation provided is historically inaccurate in claiming that Macedon was a Greek kingdom where it was not, largely anything linking Macedon to Ancient Hellas is incorrect or not entirely true 125.209.134.247 (talk) 07:56, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, just because you say so it doesn't make it historically inaccurate. It takes much more than ones personal opinion to make a change on this article. The kingdom is generally regarded as Greek kingdom, a view supported by major history scholars (and those are not few nor Greeks). Fkitselis (talk) 18:15, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Rivertorch (talk) 17:23, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's inaccurate where there is no source of the claim that it was Greek kingdom, scholars do refer to the kingdom as Macedonian and separate from Greek ,same to Macedonian people as separate from Greeks. Check the first reference in the article, from Britannica, it is quite well written. Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page). http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/354266/Macedonia Daci92 (talk) 19:29, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

If it is inaccurate, then you should explain why Kagan in his Yale lectures is so confident saying they were Greeks? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuOxGMoHMMY (see 1:36). I could list a bunch of other authors stating the same. I think you have been doing some selective readings from the past (e.g. Badian). The dispute on this issue is not whether Macedonians regarded themselves as Greeks or not, but whether the Indo-European language spoken in Macedonian, before Attic Koine was Greek. On this issue currently some scholars are not sure because of scarse evidence, while others are. It is not more complicated than that. Fkitselis (talk) 08:52, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Youtube is not reliable source as i know, yet some historians claim that he was Greek or opposite ,no matter what there is no reliable source according to me because of the scarce evidence, so most of the claims are based on opinion. If we go according to that opinion most of the modern scholars has formed opinion because of scholars of the previous generation ,but in fact most of the scholars in the past and in the present regard to the Macedonian Kingdom as separate from the Greek or Hellenic Kingdom or City States until there is strong physical or written evidence. But if we speak about Hellenistic influence or culture then it is totally different because is certain and confirmed that the most known king (Alexander III of Macedon or the Great as you prefer) to the world, accepted and spread the Hellenistic culture because he was fascinated from the culture.Same as we known that half of the Balkan Peninsula was Hellenized few hundred years before he was born (Jirechek line). So again i would ask the admins of this page to rethink on this because they should rely on reliable sources especially when they use reliable source partially then they should use it completely.Daci92 (talk) 00:49, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

The youtube link is a lecture of Proffessor Kagan from the channel of Yale University ( www.yale.edu ). Youtube is not the source. The owner of the channel is an renowned academic institution. Anyway, I think you've missed the fact that all foreign nations in Asia refer to them as Greeks (Yauna, Yona, Jawan) and not something separate (separate in this case depends on how you understand the Ancient Greek world). Caranus who was the first King to establish the Kingdom of Macedon came with a large band of Greeks (Justin 7.1). The cities established such as Alexandria are called Hellenic by ancient authors (e.g. Plutarch). Also, already from the 8th century B.C. you have Greek writing in Macedonia (the cup of Akesandros), which is a bit early for a 'non-Greek' kingdom. Those arguments you present have been analyzed to death by many historians and a very good resume of it is done by N.G.L. Hammond in his book "History of Macedonia" amongst others. The matter is rather complex to discuss in this page, but Hammond is the one who dealt with it best in terms of historical analysis, archaeology and language (as this is also a linguistic issue). Fkitselis (talk) 00:42, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Macedonia should be considered part of Greek culture and history because that's what the general historical and linguistic evidence points to. HOWEVER, there is, on the other hand, much evidence that points to a 'barbaric' origin for Macedonians, or at least to a mixed Hellenic-Barbarian ethnos that cannot be ignored. This evidence is given to us directly from quotations of Greek ancient historians and there are scholars (neither few nor irrelevant) who have mentioned this. Linguistically they were surely mixed (Macedonian displays the initial -b-, typical of non Greek dialects of the region, where Greek, as well as Latin has -v-, word initial -gh- against Greek -b- etc.). Ironically enough, even the fact in itself that Alexander had to prove his 'Greek lineage' (and the relevant fact that the Greeks held him for or called him 'barbarian') in order to compete in the Hellenikades is evidence of his not quite clear or possibly even non-Greek origin. Otherwise, why so much fuss about demanding a 'blood-prove' for someone who is supposed to be so 'definitively' Greek? I think this other side should be mentioned in the 'Origin of Macedonia' part!! Etimo (talk) 19:01, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Just two things there: a) The Hellenodikae were not an assembly that was exclusively setup for Alexander I. They were Eleans, a tribe that was been mocked most of all Greeks for being barbaric, ironically they were the ones to measure Greekness. Is that a paradox or a missunderstanding of how that world worked? Second, as Dosuna (2012) showed, Spanish developed similar internal phenomena e.g. Estephan becomes Estaban in certain dialects. In any case there were for sure "Brygian" remains (see Brixhe 1994) on the north west and Thracian on the north East (Mygdonia, Kallindia). How much or if the first affected the language is beyond measurement at the moment. As you say, it is not be ignored, but it is not to be used for purposes other than history and historical linguistics either. Fkitselis (talk) 22:26, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't see misunderstanding I see contradiction. How is it that a tribe who is repeatingly mocked for his 'barbaric nature' is supposed to be the measure of 'Greekness'?? Because this looks to me as sheer political convenience not at all unknown even to the Romans. As far as a foreign people serve 'Hellenism' or 'Romanism' with fanatical devotion they are considered the archetype of this civilization but in internal circles they are mocked for their foreign origins!!? I think there is more than just 'Brygian' remains in the Macedonians, the -b- displayed in Ancient Macedonian has nothing to do with the Spanish -b- -v- phenomenon. Greek and Latin reflect regularly initial -f- of PIE *b and often *d, and -b- of PIE *gh. In Greek you have boton for 'pig' but gotan, in Macedonian, reflecting directly PIE *gwou 'cow'. Macedonian displays initial -d- of PIE *dh, something strange to every Greek dialect. Some Macedonian words, like baskioi or bathara, for instance, seem more close to Albanian (a supposed Ancient Balkan language) bashkë 'fleece' and bathë 'lentlil', than to Greek faskolos, Latin fascies 'bundle', or Greek athare 'porridge'. Different anlauts are not considered 'dialectal variants' in Indo-European linguistics, but different treatments of labials from different languages (e.g. between Latin 'piscis' and Gothic 'fiskas' there's only a 'p-f' shift which marks different language families). A great bulk of words has no Greek parallels, and those words which are very close to Greek look more like Greek borrowings uttered according to 'lokal' pronunciation. I think we will never know whether ancient Macedonians were in fact helenized 'barbarians'or 'barbarized' Helenes, but considering the superior Greek culture and its almost irresistible power of assimilation the former possibility is by far the most realisticEtimo (talk) 23:22, 5 January 2014 (UTC).

About Hellenodikae: do a background check. They are Eleians. As for the phonology, Brixhe, Dosuna and Crespo amongst others are the ones that have recently contributed with material on that. Can you prove that AM -b- is different than the spanish phenomenon? I think not. Can you explain how Greek displays internally such variations (often omitted by many) such τάφος and τύμβος, κύβος and κύφωσις, σκυδμαίνω and σκυθρός, κρυφηδόν and κρύβδην etc? I think that there is much more to explain within IE linguistics before making bold statements. That is why certain linguists (e.g. Adrados) refrain from making comments on the language and focus mainly in the cultural elements. I do support C. Brixhe's view on Brygian influence, however, there is no way to prove he is correct. Kind Regards Fkitselis (talk) 17:42, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I am not contesting what they were called (the genealogy from the Gods has little historical value), I'm contesting how and why they are considered of 'barbaric' origin and are mocked for that. Barbarian in Greek and Roman world means foreign people, non-Greek or non-Roman folk. The variants of the words you provided are different ablaut grades, something common to every IE language, in Greek are more marked due to its numerous tempora and modi. The -b- -f- shift has nothing to do with the 'spanish phenomenon', since, as I already stated, Greek treats PIE *bh as -f- in every dialect and in all of its inherited lexicon, and there are no exceptions in linguistic laws. The treatment of one sound can tell a language from another, that's what linguistics is all about. The initial PIE *bh is typical of 'barbaric' languages north of Greek speaking area (Illyrian, Thracian etc) and cannot be in any way assigned also to Greek as a dialect variant (without considering the Macedonian words which have no link to Greek words). Exceptions can be made perhaps in internal position or in the auslaut ,but even there an external influence has to be seriously taken into account. The 'Brygian' influence, or that of an Illyrian or Thracian dialect, from a linguistic point of view is very plausible. And we are only talking about language here, without considering culture, mythology, customs and other important aspects which make Macedonia the measure of Hellenism a bold statement Etimo (talk) 20:06, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I think you should revise Hesychius wordlist on 'barbarians' and 'barbarophones' http://el.wikisource.org/%CE%93%CE%BB%CF%8E%CF%83%CF%83%CE%B1%CE%B9/%CE%92. As you will see, Eleians are included. On the spanish phenomenon it is clearly your point of view, but not the view of certain academics. The examples where there is partial sound change (κύβ-, κύφ-, κυπ- etc), are not part of 'all' the inherited lexicon that you mention. Anyway, we do not disagree here exactly, we just having certain lines that do not go in par. What I strongly disagree with though is the old good Thraco-Illyrian theory. For Thracian, their names are distinct and easily traceable in western Macedonia. The Illyrian influence is a overated remnad of the Pan-Illyrian theories. Both have been a rather inresponsible bablin, considering that we're dealing with languages that are even less attested than Macedonian and in many cases largely reconstructed based on names. Brygian or proto-Phrygian or any early language from that group that didn't survive, has exactly the features you describe. That means, that languages from the same PIE ancestor of Greek (that is Phrygian, Armenian(?) and those languages that didn't make it) do demonstrate the PIE *bh. That is exactly why I do agree with the analysis of Brixhe (1994). Such a language would have a large amount of shared lexicon with Greek, but not include this Greek phonetic 'innovation'. That's why linguists nowadays speak of this 'Hellenic' group of IE languages. I do not agree with the name of the group (Phrygian is not Greek nor Hellenic so to say), but the idea is correct and much more plausible than any other non-Greek theory out there. Have a nice weekend! Fkitselis (talk) 17:25, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

"At the start of his reign, the 20 year old Alexander was the crowned king of only Macedon, a crude Greek nation north-east of mainland

Greece".AkiiraGhioni (talk) 17:55, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

References:

1. David Sacks,(1995) 'A Dictionary of the Ancient Greek world'

Ancient Macedonians

This subject of this article appears to be a copy of the better sourced Ancient Macedonians, which also contains the word ancient or refers to it as ancient".Cosprings (talk) 11:31, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately this article has only 18 sources compared to the main Ancient Macedonians article which has over 200. I've redirected this page after you input was received per its reason for existence. Cosprings (talk) 14:12, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I haven't checked in detail the overlap of these two articles but I think the topics are sufficiently different to warrant separate articles. I am not comfortable with the redirect, given also that these articles are separate in many other wikis. I would welcome additional input from the wider community. Perhaps an RfC may be in order. Δρ.Κ.  14:43, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment

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Should this article be redirected to Ancient Macedonians? Your input is welcome. Thank you. Δρ.Κ.  14:52, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• My first gut reaction was that a merger would very likely be a good idea, since I've never seen much use for this Wikipedian habit of having separate articles for ethnicities and their countries, where the factual scope of both topics can be considered as near-100% identical. However, in the present case, it turns out that both articles are of very substantial length already, with (apparently, from what I can gather at a quick glance) predominantly non-overlapping content, so a merger might lead to a rather unwieldy article. Before such a merger is done, I'd certainly want to see something like a planned outline first. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you for your input Future. I agree with your assessment that these articles are not identical as has been claimed and I fully agree that as a minimum any merger has to be planned. As a corollary to that, converting this article to a redirect is not a good idea at this stage. Δρ.Κ.  16:48, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• I believe that these articles shouldn't be merged as they are both quite long articles and they refer to different subjects, a kingdom vs people. A merge will lead to a very long article where bias will be harder to rid, so it is better for it to stay how it is. When you search for the Macedonian Kingdom, you're not looking for the people are you?Luxure (talk) 09:44, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Ancient Greek Kingdom?

Now, I will be going against the Greeks here, but there is only one reference saying it is a Greek Kingdom in the article, and it is contrary to the many authors/science which classify Macedonia as a separate Kingdom from Greece. Ancient Greece didn't have Kings, but thats not the point. There are many sources saying it is/isn't Greek, so I am going to change the subject line as it shows bias to one side of the argument. Also, the writing is inscribed in Greek, even though we do not know the runes/lettering system the Ancient Macedonians used. I await thy response and look forward to it. Luxure (talk) 09:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

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