HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ALEXANDER’S KOINE LANGUAGE (8)
PART OF THE BOOK “SELECTED PAPERS FOR MACEDONIA”
BY SLAVÉ KATIN
The historic period of what today we call the “Greek language” began with the migration of the first Hellenes into Pelazgia, south of Thessaly, estimated to have taken place around 1,600 B.C. Other sources however claim that it was between 1450 and 1400 B.C. after the catastrophic Teri Island earthquake.
Greek linguist Mpampionitis (1986, 73) has provided us with the following table listing the Greek language periods of development:
Prehistoric Elinski period:
Indo-European hellenic 3000 B.C.
1. Proto-Hellenic 3000 – 2000 B.C.
Historic 2. Ancient hellenic 1400 – 300 B.C.
Period:
3. Alexander’s 300 B.C. – 600 A.D.
“Koine”
4. Middle Age
a) Early Byzantine 6th century – 12th century
b) Byzantine 12th century – 15th century
c) Post-Byzantine 15th century – 18th century
5. Modern Greek 19th century – to present
Sources for studying the Greek language include written documents, onomastics and recorded oral speech. The most important from the written documents are the epigraphs, particularly the Dipilski epigraph which is partially preserved on an amphora dating back to 720 B.C. This was considered to be one of the oldest epigraphs to exist. With the decipherment of Linear B however, by Ventris and Chadwick (1953), the time was shifted back to 1450-1420 B.C., but without further evidence of existence of more material there is a huge gap between the two occurrences.
The Achaeans were the first Elines to exist in the Balkans. The name “Achaeans” (Achaioi) is of unknown origin but is believed to mean “without joy”, “distressed”, “sad”. There is no evidence to show what language the Achaeans spoke or what alphabet, if any, they used but because they were members of the Kurgan culture they spoke an Indo-European language.
The indigenous Pelazgians and Aeolians left no record of the Achaeans in their new fatherland, in the Thessalean Ftia. The Hittites in Asia Minor, however, did keep records of the Achaeans dating back to the 13th century B.C. and have left us the name Ahhieava. The Egyptians too have provided us with some evidence of their existence.
Based on historical and glossological reconstruction, the development of the Achaean language can be divided into three stages: 1. the pure Achaean, proto-Hellenic or katari stage, 2. the Achaean-dialectal stage which belongs to the prehistoric period, 3. the Achaean-Doric stage which belongs to the historic period.
The Achaean or katari stage is a proto-dialectal stage that covers the period of separation of the Achaeans from other Indo-European peoples in Kurgan Euro-Asia which probably took place around 3000 B.C. As sheep breeders and farmers the Achaeans first migrated to the plains of Pannonia around 2000 B.C. Then they migrated to Thessaly around 1450 B.C. During the migration period the Achaeans formed their first autochthonous language without dialects, classified as proto-Hellenic and proto-Achaean respectively by Greek linguists.
While living in Pannonia the Achaeans met and mingled with much more civilized people, mainly with those of the Lepenski Vir culture and were exposed to their language and graphemes, to the Vinča script as well as to their cosmogony, theogony and Hyperborean mythology. When they arrived in Thessaly, they, along with the Macedonians and Aeolians from the Middle Danube Basin (Minieci, Lapiti, Tiroits and Flegreycite), accepted the Hyperborean Pantheon and placed it high up on Mount Olympus.
The dialectal or proto-Hellenic period contained substrates of the older Balkan languages belonging to the indigenous people, mainly to the Hyperborean Macedonians of the Danube Basin and later to the Pelazgians and Ionians. The Achaeans were never called Hellenes, not even by Homer in the 8th century B.C. Led by Pelop, they left from Ftya, Asia Minor during the 12th century B.C. and settled in the northwestern part of the Peloponnesus and later extended their settlements into Athens.
When Herodotus (I, 56-58), (484-424 B.C.) turned his attention to the genesis and pronunciation of the Athenian language, he underlined that the Athenians originated from the Pelazgians. He was unable to name the Pelazgian language but was of the opinion that it was a non-Hellenic barbarian language. If this was true, Herodotus went on, then the people of Athens, as a Pelazgian people, assimilated into the Hellenic fold when the Achaeans and Dorians migrated into that region from the Danube Basin.
According to Herodotus, the Pelazgian Athenians in time abandoned parts of their own language in favour of the new Hellenic language. Herodotus also added that besides assimilating most of the Pelazgians, the Hellenes also assimilated other barbarian people because they needed the numbers to strengthen their own population.
We have already stated that there are many glossological substrates in the Greek language that belong to the Balkan Paleo-glossology and to the Aeolian, Pelazgian and Ionian dialects found in Elada. These glossological substrates can be found in toponyms, oronyms, hydronyms, theonyms, fitonyms, anthroponyms and horonyms in the Aegean islands.
If the Achaeans as a state and culture reached their pinnacle in Mycenae in the Peloponnesus during the middle of the 12th century B.C., then the answer to the proto-Hellenic language question should be found here. Unfortunately only a few Mycenaean clay tablets with writing have been found and even less in Tiringa and Thebes, not enough to support our case, while many more have been unearthed in Pila and Crete.
The writing on these clay tablets is in Linear A and B and refers to the administrative positions of the staff in the king’s court and to the functioning of some of the economic branches. Most often the writing is toponyms, anthroponyms, lists of goods, inventory of agricultural produce, numbers, etc. The names and words are written with syllabic symbols.
There are around 200 tablets found with people’s names written on them. Most frequently deciphered words however, around 60%, are those of people’s names written on Mycenaean tablets in Linear B. These are words like Eumenes (graceful, handsome), Opilmnios, Philowergos, Amphimedes, Europtolemos, etc.
From these words we can determine that the Mycenaeans spoke a dialect of the Achaean language, which contained old substrates of the Macedonian, Aeolian, Pelazgian and Ionian languages. With the migration of the Dorians at the end of the 12th century B.C., and the exodus of the Achaeans, more glossological substrates were added to the existing dialectal language in the region. These additions shaped the Hellenic language in what later came to be known as the classical or ancient (arhea) Hellenic language.
From what we have shown above, we can see that a number of dialects influenced the formation of the Greek language, including those of the Macedonians, Aeolians, Pelazgians, Ionians, Achaeans and Dorians. Influence of this ancient dialectology was the most significant chapter in the history of development of the Greek language.
According to Kretchmer (1924) the ancient Greek language consisted of three dialects, Ionian, Achaean and Dorian (Macedonian, Aeolian), while he omitted mentioning the Pelazgian dialect.
According to Kretchmer, the ancient Ionian dialect belonged to the autochthonous inhabitants of Attica, Eubea and northern Peloponnesus. With the arrival of the Dorians, around 1100 B.C., the Ionians and Arcadian Pelazgians migrated to Ionia in Asia Minor. Homer created his works in the Ionian language with Aeolian archaisms and ancient neoterisms. Hesiod also created his works in the Ionian language, with Aeolian and Doric elements added. The works of Tartey, Solon, Anakreon and others were written in pure Ionian.
The Achaean dialect with Aeolian and Ionian elements was used by the poets Sapho and Alkey. This dialect prevailed in Boeotia, South Thessaly, continental Elada (excluding Attica), Peloponnesus, Crete, Cyprus and South Italy.
The Doric dialect was used by Pindar, Stesihor, Bakhilides, etc. The Doric language, brought in by the third wave of migrants in Pelazgia, covered the region of Western Elada (Epirus, Etoloakarnania, Fokida and Lokrida), Western Thessaly, Peloponnesus (Arcadia excluded), Crete, Rhodes, Halicarnassus and other places.
This linguistic “Babylonian” calamity in the Greek City States, starting from Homer’s period to the period of Demosthenes, was radically solved by Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C., following the Macedonian conquest of Elada, thus marking the beginning of the third stage or the period of Alexander’s Koine.
Despite its existence and wide use, controversy still surrounds the ancient Macedonian language. According to some it is a colloquial oral language derived from the “Dorian Koine” (Roberts, 1976, 114), while others call it “Macedonian Koine” (Ranovič, 1983, 78) or “proto-Macedonian”.
In his work about Alexander, Plutarch (46-125 B.C.) also provides evidence that during ancient times the Macedonians spoke a different language incomprehensible to the Hellenes. For example, when Alexander was having a dispute with Cleitus he “called for his guards in his native Macedonian language”, a language not understood by the Hellenes. The German historian Beloch (1886) also asserted that “the Macedonians spoke a different language in king Archelaus’s (413-399 B.C.) presence, which the (Dorians) Hellenes didn’t understand”.
While the Dorian dialect in Elada served as an amalgam for the synthesis of the classical Greek language, the language in Macedonia was developing independently of the paleoglossology of the Balkans, as attested to by the Lepenski Vir culture and by the myths about the various Macedonian kings including Orpheus, etc.
A good source from which to study Alexander’s Koine are the papyri of Alexandria in Egypt. Here one will find works written in Koine on a variety of subjects including letters, reports, plays, epigrams, Macedonian toponyms, etc., which cover a period from the 4th century B.C. to the 7th century A.D. (Mpampiniotis, 1986, 113). Modern linguists have ample samples to work with and conduct comprehensive investigations of the language. Kostopoulos (1992, 15), for example, has discovered that about 6,000 epigrams have been found in Macedonia written in the Koine language. Koine was also used by Aristotle, Tukidid, Eshil, Evripid, Sophocles and many others.
There are texts of the Holy Scripture which also exist in Alexander’s Koine language, translated from the Old Testament during the 3rd century B.C. The New Testament also has been written in Koine. Historians like Polibius (2nd century B.C.), Diodorus Seculus (1st century B.C.) and others as well as the philosopher Epikrit (1st/2nd century B.C.) have also written in the Koine language (Lampsa, 1980, 636).
As with all other languages, this language, with Indo-European origins from the paleo-glossology of the Balkans, also had its own unique vocabulary, phonological system, syntax system of verbs and nouns, etc.
Without going into linguistic details, here are some morphological examples that belong to the Doric dialect: hipos > alogo (horse), hygor > nero (water), onos > gaiduri (donkey), oikos > spiti (house), odos > dromos (road), ihthis > psari (fish), oinos > krasi (wine), ofthalmos > mati (eye), ois > provaton (sheep), yshoiros > gourouni (pig), kyon > skylos (dog), mys > pondiki (mouse), oon > avgo (egg), ris > miti (nose), naus > plion (ship), etc.
It was possible to impose Alexander’s Koine over the various dialects of the Greek language for many reasons. We will only mention a few here. In the so-called Hellenic dialects there were elements inherited from the Aeolian, Pelazgian, Karsian, Lelegian and Dorian languages in the form of dialecticons. Because of the dominant Dorians living in Elada, led by the militant Doric Spartans, the Doric language or dialect became the spoken language in the Peloponnesus.
The ancient Ionian dialect (Eolsian-Pelazgian-Ionian-Achaean) was the written language monopolized by the oligarchs and philosophers, while ordinary people spoke in different dialects. Before the Persian Wars, the Ionian (Aeolian) dialect was used in Ionia in Asia Minor, later it filtered into Attica and as a multiethnic language it antagonized the Doric Spartans sparking the 30-year war.
The critical and major turning points for this language were reached when all conditions, political, military, economic and social, came to favour Macedonia. After the Persian Wars in 480 B.C. the Koine or common language began to replace the Ionian-Attic dialect, imposing itself not only as a Macedonian, but also as a Pan-Hellenic language (Dimitrakou, 1970, I).
As a result, a more modern language began to surface in the Aegean world and in the Balkans in general. This language entirely formulated from the paleo-glossology of the Balkans has its roots in the Middle Danube Basin and in Macedonia. It was popularized by the likes of Orpheus, Aristotle and others, creating a basis for a future world civilization.
Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), one of the greatest military leaders the world has even known and one of Aristotle’s disciples, spread this language not only in Elada but also throughout his entire Empire. Under these conditions the Koine language enriched itself with linguistic elements from the various languages in Asia and Africa, particularly by the Persians and Egyptians, gaining international status as the language of diplomacy (Dimitrakou, 1970).
In the same way that Alexander the Great created a world empire by his sword, so did his teacher Aristotle of Stagira create the creative spirit of the human race (Papastavrou, 1970, 416). However Aristotle was only an apex in this cultural pyramid. The founding father was another Macedonian, Orpheus, son of Oeagrus, great-nephew of Makedon (1315 B.C.) founder of the second Macedonian mythological dynasty.
Orpheus was not only a king in Macedonia and Thrace; he was also the most famous and unsurpassed mythological poet and musician from whom 87 hymns still remain preserved to this day. Orpheus was a dynamic personality, an adventurer and a traveler. His adventures took him on the Argonaut (1225 B.C.) expedition where he kept the spirits of the sailors high with his lyrics and songs on their long voyages along the Danube River and across the Black Sea. Legend has it that he received his first music lessons from Apollo the Hyperborean.
Orpheus was not only the creator of his famous mysteries, concepts about life, death and the human soul, well known in Macedonia and in Elada, but he was also credited for having created the alphabet (Apollonius Rh. I, 34). After Orpheus died his followers, calling themselves Orphists, formed a religious sect worshipping him and his beliefs in the original sin and in the divine nature of the human soul.
It is noteworthy to mention here that important annual musical competitions were held in Pieria, Macedonia, a place of high culture. Apollo, god of prophecy, and Pan, god of nature, participated in such competitions, as mentioned earlier, when king Midas was president of the jury. Midas was not only king of Bromia, a region in Macedonia, but also credited for having discovered lead and for having invented the anchor and the syringe.
Culture in Macedonia became even more prominent during the time of Perdiccas and Archelaus around 700 B.C., when Archelaus established Pella as the new capital of Macedonia. Pella soon became the administrative, military, economic and cultural centre of power in the region. Here Macedonian rulers hosted great events with such artists as poets, tragedy writers and performers, musicians and painters not just from Macedonia but also from Ionia, Elada and Sicily.
Among them the most famous tragedy artist was Euripides (485-406 B.C.) who stayed in Pella until his death. Euripides was a disciple of Anaxagoras and a friend of Socrates, who through his artistic talent not only influenced the old and new European play but may have introduced the Phoenician-Ionian alphabet to the Macedonians. According to some sources he wrote 92 plays and 7 satires (Medea, Orestes, Iphigenia in Taurus, Heracles, Electra, Andromache, The Trojan Women, Helen, Cyclops, etc.).
During Philip II’s (359-336 B.C.) reign, Pella, in terms of culture, became the second Athens. The Macedonian language continued to develop and entrenched itself in philosophy, history, mathematics, etc. Outside of Aristotle there were other famous academics including philosopher Aristobulus, historians Dinocrates and Kalistenes, mathematician Leodam, physician Nicomachus, Aristotle’s father, icon painter Polignos, Pythagoras of Abdera, father of Sophists and others.
Archaeological discoveries by Andronicus in 1985 at the Vergina (Kutleš) locality alleged to be the tomb of Philip II, and those found in Pella are a testament to the highly developed culture that flourished in Macedonia during ancient times; an autochthonous culture that began from time immemorial.
During Alexander III’s (336-323) reign, Macedonia possessed a solid economy, a powerful army, skilled and capable personnel and a modern language, all preconditions for expansion and conquest.
After founding Alexandria in Egypt, in 331 B.C., the Macedonians established the largest library in the world, which in time possessed more than 7,000,000 monographs. The Macedonians established the greatest scientific and research centre that remained great not only during the Macedonian period but also during the Roman and later periods.
Through this accumulation of knowledge, Alexander’s Koine became the language of the Macedonians, Greeks and other peoples in the Macedonian Empires, including the language of Jesus Christ and his apostles. Dionysius Thrax gave the first linguistic description of this language in 100 B.C. in the form of a publication entitled “The Art of Grammar”. His work was the first European grammar and one of the most decisive steps in the development of grammar in general.
From a glossological aspect, compared to other influential languages such as Persian, Egyptian, Latin, Hebrew, Chinese and Indian, Alexander’s Koine became the first modern and most influential language in the world. Its introduction made radical changes on all levels including phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicology and semasiology, evolving into a dialectal language with a huge substrate and eventually into modern Greek (Mpampiniois, 1986).
According to Hatzidakis (1967), creator of the modern Greek glossology, the modern Greek language today is a progression of the Byzantine language which originated from Alexander’s Koine. This language, to a greater extent, is a simplified form containing ancient, Ionian, Dorian and Achaean elements.
To be continue
By Slave Nikolovski-Katin
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