Was Greek the Linqua franca of ancient times prior to Alexander?

in Ancient Macedonian History / by / on March 16, 2007 at 4:31 pm /

FYROM Claim:

Quote:

Greek was the international language (Linqua Franca) of Ancient times thus it was adopted from Philip and Alexander like Latin and English much later.While Alexander the Great spoke Macedonian to his comrades and Macedonian brothers he spoke Greek to Asians, Greek people and the rest of the world

Fact: Greek was not the “lingua franca” during the reign of Philip II and Alexander III. In fact, it became so later because of the conquests of Alexander and the many colonies he founded that dispersed the Greek culture and language around the world of Eastern Mediterranean. During the time of Philip and the beginning of the conquests of Alexander, if there was a lingua franca, that was Persian, not Greek. In fact, after Alexander, despite the wide adoption of Greek, native languages survived and thrived and Hellenistic kingdoms erected multiple multilingual inscriptions.

To demonstrate it clearly…

Prior to Philip and Alexander,

Did Illyrians speak Greek??? NO

Did Paeonians speak Greek? NO

Did Persians speak Greek? NO

Did Egyptians speak Greek? NO

Did the bulk of Thracians speak Greek? NO

Did the Carthaginians speak Greek? NO

Did the Romans speak Greek? NO

Did Dardanians speak Greek? NO

Did Indians speak Greek? NO

Did Macedonians speak Greek? YES

From all the multilingual inscriptions found, none contained the “phantom Macedonian language”. Extennsive escavations in Macedonia in hundreds of sites, private cemeteries, religious temples have not uncovered any other language than Greek and in fact, they established the fact that the Macedonian dialect was a North-West Greek dialect.

Want more of this? See these Posts:

  1. Exposing FYROM’s Fashionable Nonsense #1: “Greek was the lingua franca before Alexander the Great’s era like English is today”
  2. Ancient Literary sources about ancient Macedonian language being a Greek dialect
  3. Dr. Warren Carroll : “Alexander was always a Greek first..”
  4. Books in Greek education prior to 1936 about Macedonia
  5. Ancient Macedonian language recognized as Greek dialect
Comments
andy says:
April 22, 2010 at 12:27 pm

we also no for a fact that later on the romans also spoke greek but a the same time we know that their mother tongue was latin ,now if the macedonians spoke a language other than greek you would think that alexander after conquering the known world and controling all the power would have left someting in a non greek lang. after all he could have done anything he wanted,this proves he was beyond any doubt the most greatest greek of all .

TasteofSaltAndSea says:
January 22, 2010 at 11:15 am

All the arguments are correct. No matter how well we speak a language, no matter how “in” this language is, our mother tongue will still dominate our life. One important fact: Graves carry inscriptions in the native language of a people. You do not use a foreign language to write the names of your family on their grave stones. To this day, every Macedonian grave ever found carries GREEK inscriptions -- without exception (all Greek names, incidentally too..).

RealMacedonianGR says:
October 14, 2007 at 2:48 am

Some scopians say that a distinct Macedonian language existed ,even if no proof exists, Some other SCOPIANS say that Greek was used as English or French today! All existing proof we have say that they spoke only Greek
I have some questions for FYROMers.I hope u will understand the correspondence:

If u speak english today do u name ur people ONLY in english?
If u speak english today do u name ur cities ONLY in english?
If u speak english today do u write only in english?
If u speak english today do u say ur mother tongue is ONLY english?
If u speak english today do u forget reading & writing in ur language?
If u speak english today do u forget ur mother tongue?

Macedonians as Greeks
named their people only in Greek
named their cities only in Greek
They wrote only in Greek
They were proud of their mothertongue Greek
They spread their mothertongue to all Empire
They always read & wrote only Greek, as the ancient findings show us.
They never forgot speaking and writing in their “supposed Macedonian” language, because simply such a language didnt exist & Greek was definitely their MOTHERTONGUE, because THEY WERE GREEKS

Macedonians HAD SAME LANGUAGE WITH TH REST OF GREEKS
NO SUCH PROOF OF THE OPPOSITE EXISTS

Titus Livius
“Aetolians, Acarnanians, Macedonians,(All Hellenes) men of the same language”

(T. Livius XXXI,29, 15)
Ancient historian who lived when at that time no one was questioning the Greekness of Macedonians, & of course would have no reason to lie !