Originally posted by Agamoi Thytai
......maybe the Macedonian tendency of deaspiration of Proto IE bh*,dh" and gh" and their conversion to b,d and g,which many scholars attribute to Phrygian influence.
Phrygian was certainly a centum language like ancient Macedonian,while modern Macedonian is satem.
Most Modern linguistics.....hold the view that Phrygian was the language that was closer to Greek than any other,so that they speak of a common Greco-phrygian group that existed till 2.600 BC:
However we know Philotas certainly spoke Macedonian (regardless of whether it was a Greek dialect or not) since in the same chapter Alexander asks him if he "intends to speak in their native dialect".It would be meaningless to ask that question if Philotas didn't speak Macedonian.So the accusation "he does not blush to hear his own country men by an interpreter" should be considered as a mockery of Philotas towards the most rustic of his soldiers,like his habit to call them "Sapient Phrygians" and "Eloquent Paphlagonians".
It's obvious that Philotas suffered of the complex of cultural superiority and in all probability he imitated the attitude of highly educated Athenians who despised as "barbarians" even other Greeks who spoke different dialects instead of Attic
IMHO,the entire story of Philotas' trial is invented by Curtius Rufus,since it is not mentioned by any other of the chief historians of Alexander's life like Plutarch,Arrian and Diodorus,whose works are based on genuine and contemporary accounts.
It's full of self-contradictions and inconsistencies:Alexander is allegedly pissed off with Philotas and accuses him that "he rejects his country's dialect",however Alexander himself has spoken before in Attic Greek too,instead of Macedonian!
Here is another self-contradiction of Curtius Rufus.In some other chapter he says the language of common Macedonian soldiers,or the lower class,as you put it,had a similarity with the dialect of Miletus:
21 He is now near an inconsiderable city inhabited by the Branchidae. Their ancestors had betrayed to Xerxes, retiring from Greece, the treasures under their charge, as priests of the Didymean Apollo; and by him had been transplanted from Miletus to this settlement. The Branchids had not forsaken the customs, though they had degenerated from the language, of their original country, gradually mingling with it a foreign dialect. With extreme joy they meet the king and with themselves surrender their city. Alexander convened all the Milesians in his army.The Milesians inherited the ancient feud against the race of the Branchidae. Nevertheless,empowered by their liberator to decide, whether the crime of the ancestors, or the Grecian blood of the descendants should now be remembered, they could not agree in opinion. He then declared that he would advise with himself. When the parties met the next day he commanded them to proceed with him to the town .He entered one gate with a light division, ordering the phalanx to surround the place and at a signal to pillage that receptacle of traitors and slay the race to an individual. In all directions unarmed people are butchered,nor can SIMILARITY OF LANGUAGE nor the veils held up by kneeling suppliants nor the prayer "Have mercy" stop one inhuman sword.The walls are dug up from the foundations that not a trace of the city might remain.
http://books.google.com/books?id=v3IIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA173
21 He is now near an inconsiderable city inhabited by the Branchidae. Their ancestors had betrayed to Xerxes, retiring from Greece, the treasures under their charge, as priests of the Didymean Apollo; and by him had been transplanted from Miletus to this settlement. The Branchids had not forsaken the customs, though they had degenerated from the language, of their original country, gradually mingling with it a foreign dialect. With extreme joy they meet the king and with themselves surrender their city. Alexander convened all the Milesians in his army.The Milesians inherited the ancient feud against the race of the Branchidae. Nevertheless,empowered by their liberator to decide, whether the crime of the ancestors, or the Grecian blood of the descendants should now be remembered, they could not agree in opinion. He then declared that he would advise with himself. When the parties met the next day he commanded them to proceed with him to the town .He entered one gate with a light division, ordering the phalanx to surround the place and at a signal to pillage that receptacle of traitors and slay the race to an individual. In all directions unarmed people are butchered,nor can SIMILARITY OF LANGUAGE nor the veils held up by kneeling suppliants nor the prayer "Have mercy" stop one inhuman sword.The walls are dug up from the foundations that not a trace of the city might remain.
http://books.google.com/books?id=v3IIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA173
It's noteworthy that Alexander had in his Indian campaign only Macedonian troops because the Greek ones were dismissed some time ago and returned to Greece apart from few who stayed in Persia.
I think most scholars have properly translated μακεδονίζοντας (participle,accusative plural) and μακεδονίζειν (infinitive) as a reference to Macedonian dialect or idiom.First we should have examinded whether ancient Greek authors used identical participles and infinitives for other Greek dialects too or it was the case only with Macedonian or non-Greek languages in general.
'The precise sense of "speaking Macedonian" in these and other passages can be and has been debated; yet when these references to Macedonian speech are considered in their context, it is not difficult for one to conclude that what is being reported is the use of a distinct, non-Greek (i.e., "barbarian") Macedonian language.'
Woodward, R.D., (ed.) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, Cambridge, 2004
Woodward, R.D., (ed.) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, Cambridge, 2004
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