Ancient Macedonian was the language spoken by the ancient Macedonians during the first millennium BC, variously described by scholars as an ancient Greek dialect or as its own Hellenic language. It originated in the kingdom of Macedon but declined from the fourth century BC onward as the Macedonian aristocracy adopted Attic Greek, the dialect that became the basis of Koine Greek. The language went extinct during the Hellenistic or Roman imperial period, having been fully replaced by Koine Greek; what little is known of it comes from onomastic evidence, ancient glossaries and epigraphic finds such as curse tablets discovered at Pella and Pydna, since most surviving inscriptions from ancient Macedonia were themselves written in Attic or Koine Greek.
Facts
RegionSpoken in the kingdom of Macedon in the southern Balkans, present day northern Greece; attested through onomastic evidence, ancient glossaries and inscriptions such as the Pella and Pydna curse tablets. 1 Speaker CountExtinct; entirely replaced by Koine Greek by the Hellenistic or Roman imperial period. Disputed
Proto-Language StatusNo independently reconstructed proto-language: classification is debated between a Northwest Doric Greek dialect, the view with recent cautious scholarly agreement, and a separate but closely related Hellenic sister language of Greek. 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Ancient Macedonian Language
Wikimedia FoundationIntroduction
It became extinct during either the Hellenistic or Roman imperial period, and was entirely replaced by Koine Greek.
Classification section
There has been some recent scholarly agreement, often expressed as cautious or tentative, that ancient Macedonian was a dialect of the Northwest Greek group. A minority of scholars continues to view the language as a separate Indo-European language closely related to Greek.
Introduction, opening sentence
Spoken originally in the kingdom of Macedon, it gradually fell out of use from the 4th century BC, marginalized by the Macedonian aristocracy's use of Attic Greek, the dialect that became the basis of Koine Greek, the lingua franca of the Hellenistic period.
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