Macedonian language
Macedonian languageThe problem of the nature and origin of the Macedonian language is still disputed by modern scholars, but does not seem to have been raised among the ancients. We have a rare adverb makedonisti (important passages in Plutarch, Alex 51 and Eum 14), but the meaning of this form is ambiguous. The adverb cannot tell us whether Plutarch had in mind a language different from Greek (cf. phoinikisti, ‘in Phoenician’), or a dialect (cf. megaristi, ‘in Megarian’), or a way of speaking (cf. attikisti). We have some ‘Macedonian’ glosses, particularly in Hesychius' lexicon, but they are mostly disputed and some were corrupted in the transmission. Thus áβροûτε<, ‘eyebrows’ probably must be read as áβροûϜε< (with τ which renders a digamma). If so, it is a Greek dialect form; yet others (e.g. A. Meillet) see the dental as authentic and think that the word...
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