Ancient Macedonian Language Introduction: The Ancient Macedonian language was the tongue of the Ancient Macedonians. It was spoken in Macedon during the first millennium BC and belongs to the Indo-European language family. Marginalized from the fifth century BC., it was gradually replaced by the common Greek dialect of the Hellenistic Era by the use of Attic Greek by the Macedonian aristocracy. It was probably spoken predominantly in the inland regions away from the coast. It is as yet undetermined whether the language was a dialect of Greek, a sibling language to Greek, or an Indo - European language which is a close cousin to Greek and also related to Thracian and Phrygian. Knowledge of the language is limited because there are no surviving texts that are indisputably written in the language. However, a body of authentic Macedonian words has been assembled from ancient sources, mainly from coin inscriptions, and from the fifth century lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria[1][55].
Proto – Macedonian was among the many languages that developed and were spoken in Macedonia[78].
The account of Herodotus lends itself to the view that at least the Macedonian aristocracy was of Hellenic origin[2]. Additionally, Livy states that the Macedonians, Aetolians, and Acarnanians are “men speaking the same language,� which lends itself to the theory that ancient Macedonian was a Doric dialect[8][9]. However, the notion that the kings were of Hellenic stock is contradicted by Thrasymachus and Demosthenes[3][4]. Additionally, there is reason to believe that Macedonian was, if not a different language, a tongue that was incomprehensible to Greeks[25, a]. Explicit references to the use and comprehensibility of Macedonian in contrast to the Greek dialects exist[5][6]. There is evidence that Macedonian was not readily understood by Greeks, unlike those Greek dialects used in Panhellenic gatherings. Furthermore, whenever the tongue is referenced in antiquity, it is apparently mentioned as a distinct language rather than a dialect[7]. The epigraphic discoveries in Macedonia show that only Greek dialects were used in any written documents. A fourth-century BC inscription found in the remains of Pella appears to be written in a variety of Northwest Greek and has led to conjectures that this may be the previously unattested Macedonian language, albeit many view it as full of Doracisms[5][10][11][50].