Talk:Ancient Macedonians/Archive 7

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Recent edit-warring

Recent reverts have centred around this edit:

The ancient Macedonians probably had some [[Illyrians|Illyrian]] roots, but their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics.<ref>http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+al0014)</ref>

First, this does not belong at WP:LEAD per WP:UNDUE because it is a minor and uncertain point about the Ancient Macedonians. There is a whole section about "Modern discourse" concerning the origins of the Ancient Macedonians. Second, the source phrasing is vague, uses WP:WEASELWORDs such as "probably" and "some" and is unattributed to a reliable and scholarly publication. Third it speaks in Wikipedia's voice as if that were a universally accepted fact, which it isn't. Fourth, it is a word by word copyvio from the source. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 20:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I think that the source is more than reliable, first many quotes that have been found here on wikipedia are a copy paste,the important thing is the reference from where it is taken, maybe if u want u can rearange the order of the words. Second, it was taken by the site "Library of Congress Country Studies", which of course occupies about studies about different countries,and has been used as a refernce before here on wiki, why i originaly found it,from the page History of Albania, so i believe it is reliable.As u can see it contains a large material about different fields, so it has been used on other articles and if u remove it, then should be flagged and also we have to find the other pages where the site has been used and remove the site as reference, but i would have to engage in war edit with other users then.the thing is we cant pretend that references are or are not reliable only by ONE'S way of judgement.The "scholary publication" that u mentioned and needed is in the site "Source: Based on information from R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy, The Encyclopedia of Military History, New York, 1970, 95; Herman Kinder and Werner Hilgemann, The Anchor Atlas of World History, 1, New York, 1974, 90, 94; and Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15, New York, 1975, 1092." Third, th words "probably" and "some" have been used often on wikipedia because there are articles who actually are not an "exact science" article.It is not wikipedias duty to always find out the truth, an actual example would be the Origins of Albanians, still scholars havent agrred on a factual origin, so here on wiki often have been used the words about their origns "probably","maybe","this is uncertain". I hope i explained myself.i suppose the text should be back on.—RcLd-91 (talk) 21:18, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I feel the arguments are still weak to warrant an addition in the lead. As I see the lead does not mention the possible roots/origins, so it would be also wp:undue weight apart from wp:lead. I suggest to make the appropriate additions in the correspondent section first and then try to add all possible theories about the origins (if possible).Alexikoua (talk) 21:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @RcLd-91: Please see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. What happens in other articles does not matter. What you want to add to this article makes no sense, it is a copyvio and it is not a quote, but a word for word copy from the source. It also does not belong in the lead. Your copyvio says: "The ancient Macedonians probably had some Illyrian roots, but their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics." Why "but"? What is the connection between "some Illyrian roots" of the Macedonians and "their ruling classes"? Why the use of "but" to join the two sentences together? What do "some Illyrian roots" have to do with "their ruling classes"? Also their ruling classes were Greek, they did not "adopt Greek cultural characteristics", because they were Greek. So this is misleading as well. The whole sentence does not make any sense either gramatically or historically. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 21:43, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry now, but before u said " "Modern discourse" concerning the origins of the Ancient Macedonians", and Alexikoua mentioned "all possible theories about the origins" so i dont think it is now the case to definetly affirme that "they were Greek". i said if u want u can rearrange the words of the text, the importan is the source.u are asking me WHY? but we cant know for sure why they addopted greek culture (maybe the greeks were a stronger and more civilized group) or anything else for sure, maybe they were mixed because of living in continuos contact, with illyrians or maybe even thracians. this is why i think the text should be added for a more neutral point of view and to give a better idea to the reader. I found the section where it talked about the "possible roots/origins",as it was asked from me by alexikoua, so i believe im going to add it there, in beetwen two theories.hope i explained myself.–—RcLd-91 (talk) 21:59, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Please answer my question: I repeat: Your copyvio says: "The ancient Macedonians probably had some Illyrian roots, but their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics." Why "but"? What is the connection between "some Illyrian roots" of the Macedonians and "their ruling classes"? Why the use of "but" to join the two sentences together? What do "some Illyrian roots" have to do with "their ruling classes"? Also their ruling classes were Greek, they did not "adopt Greek cultural characteristics", because they were Greek. So this is misleading as well. The whole sentence does not make any sense either gramatically or historically. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 22:02, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

First off, i didnt say they had illyrian,greeks or anything else of roots, the word "probably" and "some" lets the people know that maybe or partially or even not at all they were related to the illyrians,that depends by ones judgement, but i think that before the conclusion the theory should be added, just for a better point of view. Second, its not me but the source that says it,when i tried before to remove sth that i thought it shouldnt be here the words given to me were:"restored referenced tex" just like that,without saying anything else, i suppose because its not easy to remove the refernced parts...So i dont see why the case should be different here.the connection between "some Illyrian roots" of the Macedonians and "their ruling classes" is the same conection that a group of people might not be always leaded by their ethnicity, for example,the greeks during the ottoman empire when the ruling classes were turkish.Or maybe they wanted to follow a more civilized lead and system that the one the illyrians had, i said before this is not an "exact science" article. About a previous arguments here, i found the word "possibly" in a section on this page "...possibly having originated from the same (proto-Greek) population...", so the argument of vaseal words isnt a strong one, we know that these type of words are used on different articles on wiki. Since u insist im going to change the gramatical or historical meaning of the word so that it makes sense and also not be the same copy/paste that u stated. i suppose the referenced text should be back on.—RcLd-91 (talk) 22:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Now you made it even worse:

According to a different theory, the ancient Macedonians probably had some [[Illyrians|Illyrian]] roots, even though their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics.<ref>http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+al0014)</ref>

According to whose theory? Can you give us the name of the guy who wrote this theory? This your original research. It is not allowed. Please see WP:OR. You also still have the same sentences about "Greek cultural characteristics" which is still a copyvio and still does not make any sense and you are still edit-warring to add this copyvio nonsense into the article. This is not good at all. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 22:53, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

It is sad that you must go this far to solve a little problem,and to report someone, however thats you bussines, I stand by my words, i didnt violate any copyrights,i changed the words in the text from the refernce, and ive been here talking and explaining myseld so i dont see where u saw "problem comunicating".I added sourced material so i dont see why removing it.The sentence is clear and if someone is having trouble understanding it, its not my problem, i didnt give any final results about the topic, i just added another theory.This is a theory that is presented in the site that ive taken it,open it and u will see the name of the scholars, u are searching for sth that i will change now,just so that its not a copyvio→RcLd-91 (talk) 23:05, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it is still a copyvio from http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+al0014) and you are still edit-warring to add it to the article, despite the fact that I already told you that it is a copyvio and also nonsense because the "Illyrian roots" are not connected in any way to the fact that "the ruling classes adopted Greek cultural characteristics". The only thing I can tell you now is that I expect you will be blocked for this disruption. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 23:13, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I doubt the use of an unchanged single sentence can be considered a copyright violation. You cannot copyright an opinion, and it would be difficult to reword such a concise and specific wording without the meaning being lost (Dr.K. has been complaining about the rewording attempts). But the source of the sentence seems unsuitable, being uncredited (the overall work has named editors, but no named authors), and the sources it uses also seem unsuitable (just general works and encyclopedias). However, the claim being made in the contested sentence actually seems reasonable. RcLd-91 - I think you need to find better sources and stop concentrating on the Library of Congress Country Studies source. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:24, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: Thank you for your comments. A copyvio is a copyvio even in a single sentence. But aside from that, the sentence is badly written. I said that before: The copyvio says: "The ancient Macedonians probably had some Illyrian roots, but their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics." Why use the conjunction "but"? What is the connection between "some Illyrian roots" of the Macedonians and "their ruling classes"? Why the use of "but" to join the two sentences together? What do "some Illyrian roots" have to do with "their ruling classes"? Having "some Illyrian roots" does not mean that you must also have Illyrian customs because you may have an even larger quantity of roots from another culture, as is the case here. So there is no sense in using the conjunction "but" between the two parts of the sentence to indicate contradiction. In any case that the Ancient Macedonians had Greek culture is covered well in the article, so the sentence: "their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics" is redundant. So we are left with the sentence: "The ancient Macedonians probably had some Illyrian roots", but this also covered at the lead of the article. The lead says that the Ancient Macedonians "absorbed or drove out neighbouring tribes, primarily Thracian and Illyrian.". I am not opposed to adding a suitable non-copyvio version of that sentence, without the "but" and the second part about the ruling classes, even though as you say, the source used is unattributed to an actual author. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 17:13, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

• To be clear: I just reverted the following passage which was edit-warred into the article by the probable sock:

  According to another theory, the ancient Macedonians possibly had some [[Illyrians|Illyrian]] roots, even though their ruling class adopted Greek social, cultural and political characteristics and organisation.<ref>http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+al0014)</ref>

• In the sock's quest to change the sentence s/he added: According to another theory which of course is pure WP:OR and not found in the source. It is not a "theory" but some summary by unattributed authors. The second sentence is also pure OR not found in the source: "their ruling class adopted Greek social, cultural and political characteristics and organisation." The source refers only to "cultural characteristics". All the other additions are not supported by the source. The statement is also misleading because the ruling class was also Greek and did not "adopt" anything. It (Greek Culture) came with them by virtue of the fact that they were Greek, a fact which also applied to their subjects. Please see also Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/RcLd-91. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 22:49, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

You demanded alterations to the original text for copyvio reasons, but complain that the alterations made to that original text make it OR. Sounds a bit like wanting to have your cake and eat it! The theory is obviously a "theory", so can be called that, and extrapolating "cultural characteristics" to mean "social, cultural and political characteristics and organization" does not seem unreasonable - though I think it would have been better just to have kept the original wording. Your assertion that the ruling class was Greek is an unproven theory, so can't be used to discount another unproven theory. The problems are with the unattributed nature of the source - if this theory is a real theory, held to have substance, then it will be found in other sources. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:53, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

You demanded alterations to the original text for copyvio reasons, but complain that the alterations made to that original text make it OR. Sounds a bit like wanting to have your cake and eat it! Do you think that adding more unsourced words to a copyvio sentence hides its grammatical structure and the words that you did not remove? That's an exercise in intellectual dishonesty. As I said before this editor is a sock who came here to edit-war in a rapid-fire way without waiting for consensus or advice. If you check the timeline of his discussion you can see that his method of editing was to add some comments, usually nonsense, and then immediately announce that s/he was going to revert. He didn't wait for any input before reverting. Do you think that I could do anything to prevent that, other than react after the fact, when the sock had already made the revert? I was not given the chance to properly formulate an alternative sentence through calm discussion because the sock was not interested in one. Plus the source he submitted was very problematic and not of good quality. So, please do not talk about cakes. I was not given the chance or the time to bake one in the first place. The theory is obviously a "theory", so can be called that,... A theory with no recognised expert author based on the conjectures of some anonymous guy with no known credentials, is of the lowest academic quality. Do we want to make the article the depository of such untried speculation? Your assertion that the ruling class was Greek is an unproven theory, so can't be used to discount another unproven theory.: Wasn't the Argead dynasty which ruled from 700 to 300 BC a Greek Royal house? Just clicking at the link you get the answer. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 22:37, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

WP: OR ?

Hi Athenean Let us discuss the issue of the cited Livy source. You appear to be troubled by the fact that Im pointing out some logical fallacies in the version of the sentence you are attempting to defend.

• The first part states "Moreover, according to the Athenian orator Aeschines,[137] Macedonian ambassadors appeared before the Athenian Assembly, attended by all male citizens over the age of 18, without interpreters"

- referencing Worthington (an unabashed Hellenophile of the outdated 1950s fabric), he in turn quotes Aeschines (3.72), which states:

"For he said we must not—I remember the expression he used, for the word was as odious as the man—he said we must not “rip off” the alliance from the peace, nor wait for the slow decisions of the other Greeks, but we must either fight ourselves, or by ourselves make the peace. And finally he called Antipater1 to the platform, and proceeded to ask him a certain question—he had previously told him what he gas going to ask, and had instructed him what he was to answer, to the injury of the state. Finally this thing prevailed, Demosthenes forcing you to it by his talk, and Philocrates moving the resolution."

So Antipater, a Macedonian noble and Ambassador could speak Attic Greek fluently and without translators ? Wow that's amazing! Kind of like modern Ambassadors are also multilingual ?

In any case, neither the quoted primary text nor the supporting secondary one actually sheds any light on the nature of Macedonian dialect, as its clearly referring to Attic Greek being spoken in the Athenean assembly (as ref in Badian "Macedonians and Greek", p 39-40; and Jonathan Hall "Contested Identities" pg 162 - "None of these examples provides the terminological clarity to determine whether Macedonian idiom was envisiaged as a (Greek) dialect or a non-Greek language".)

• The second part of the same sentence then states "and Livy wrote that when Aemilius Paulus called together representatives of the defeated Macedonian communities, his Latin pronouncements were translated for the benefit of the assembled Macedonians into Greek."

- Livy lived in the mid 1st century BC, so it's doubtable as to how exactly accurate his recollections and secondary sources about events 200 years earlier would be. Whatever the case, the source actually states

"After the herald had called for silence Paulus, speaking in Latin, explained the arrangements decided upon by the senate and by himself in concert with the ten commissioners; Cnaeus Octavius, who was also present, translated the address into Greek".

So the addition "for the benefit of the assembled Macedonians" is clearly OR, is moreover unreferenced (merely resting on a *misrepresented primary source*). This basic requirement should be well known to a seasoned editor like yourself [1]

So your revert was partly correct, but you messed up the directions. Rather it's you who is "WP:SYNTHing and falsifying sources". Just keep an eye out in the future :) Slovenski Volk (talk) 23:21, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

First, your mis-characterization of Worthington as "an unabashed Hellenophile of the outdated 1950s fabric" shows your slant regarding this article, though that's nothing new by now. Your above post contains nothing but your own original research and your typical "creative" re-interpretations, and as such is not interesting. You also deliberately made stuff up out thin air, and falsely added sources to make it seem legit. There is nothing, nothing in Borza p. 306 [2] or p. 94 [3] regarding the quote from Livy - nothing at all. You just made that up to make your own WP:OR look respectable. Ditto for that other source you added ([4]). You are just adding your own original research and commentary to the article, and faking sources to make it look respectable. This is intellectual dishonesty of a high (or rather, low) order. I have very little time for these gimmicks. Given your already very loaded history regarding this article, it would be prudent for you to cease and desist. As it also would also be prudent from you to cease and desist from the usual personal attacks. Athenean (talk) 23:53, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I shall reply:

First, your mis-characterization of Worthington as "an unabashed Hellenophile of the outdated 1950s fabric" shows your slant regarding this article

Nope. It's my slant on the aforementioned author, not this article. He is of a generation of scholars biased by a Romantic visions of Hellas rather than sound science and methodology. There are ample literature on this actually, so I'm justified. But let's not deflect the discussion.

"Your above post contains nothing but your own original research and your typical "creative" re-interpretations, and as such is not interesting. You also deliberately made stuff up out thin air, and falsely added sources to make it seem legit. There is nothing, nothing in Borza p. 306 [5] or p. 94 [6] regarding the quote from Livy - nothing at all. You just made that up to make your own WP:OR look respectable.

Whhooooooaaaa. The double standards are shocking. So *you* blatantly violate [7], what's more misrepresent the source, and then critique me for acutlaly providing an academic reference which states that by the 4th century Attic Greek had come to almost wholly supplant local Macedonian? If not an oxymoron, is it that you require me to provide a reference to "prove" that 300 BC came before 59 BC ?

The simple remedy might be to wholly exclude the final sentence of the article which adds nothing to what is already a fair summary ("the available literary evidence has no details about the exact nature of Macedonian; however it suggests that Macedonian and Greek were sufficiently different that there were communication difficulties between Greek and Macedonian contingents, necessitating the use of interpreters as late as the time of Alexander the Great.[131][132][133] Based on this evidence, Papazoglou has written that Macedonian could not have been a Greek dialect,[134] however, evidence for non-intelligibility exists for other ancient Greek dialects such as Aetolian[135] and Aeolic Greek").

"Ditto for that other source you added ([8])."

How's that ?

Hall clearly illustrates in his analysis of 5th and 4th century sources, that Greek sources - on the whole - did **not** see Macedonians as fellow Greeks. As does Badian "they were regarded as clearly barbarian, despite the myths that had at times issued from the court and its Greek adherents” (page 42), as does Danforth "it is only with the emergence of ROme..that the Macedonians came to be regarded as northern Greeks" (pg 168-169 [9])

So who is OR'ing. ?

"You're just adding your own original research and commentary to the article, and faking sources to make it look respectable. This is intellectual dishonesty of a high (or rather, low) order. I have very little time for these gimmicks. Given your already very loaded history regarding this article, it would be prudent for you to cease and desist. As it also would also be prudent from you to cease and desist from the usual personal attacks."

Personal attacks ? Where ?

"Cease and desist"? from what - pointing out the logical fallacies of your arguement on a talk page ?

You're clearly hiding behind meaningless words, and have said nothing to rebuke the justified concerns about your slanted and OR edits.

So please stop pontificating about my intentions, for you have no credentials to do so. Rather, i ask out of good faith and Wikipedia rules that you correct your poor editing.

Address the inconsistencies in you're edits:

- using a primary source prima facie , unreferenced, out of context and in OR/ synthesist manner

- its dubious relevance . In fact, outright OR and misrepresentation (Livy merely states that Latin laws were translated into Greek. it's your view/ belief that this was to help the Macedonians , for nothing to that effect is stated anywhere. In fact references cited herein and the article clearly dismiss this evidnece as unequivocal, and not shedding light on Macedonian per se.

- define the relevance of one Ambassador speaking fluent Attic on the paragraph discussing Macedonian language. WP: POINt and WEASAL come to mind

Thanks in advance Slovenski Volk (talk) 01:29, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Regarding Prof. Ian Worthington, he is a reliable source, and your colorful aspersions are just that, colorful. He fulfills wikipedia's criteria for being a reliable source, and it ends there. It is not for you or me to question him, so save your "analysis" for your blog. As for Livy, I'm not the one who added him, but I checked and he is faithfully quoted in the article, though I agree he is a primary and not a secondary source, and as such not ideal. On Worthington however, I am not going to budge. Athenean (talk) 05:10, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

And regarding this [10] (you're the one who brought it up), perhaps you should read before editing, yes? The passage is about the Argeads, not the Macedonians in general. I'm changing it back. Athenean (talk) 05:14, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I do agree that Livy's assumption is for a late period. But probably the wording of Slovenski Volk needs to be changed. Attic Greek as a lingua franca of the Balkans was the only writing language that was used in the Macedonian state so I don't see any reason disproving the everyday usage of Macedonian by the ancient Macedonians only because the Macedonian officials send in Athens can read Attic Greek better than Latin. Attic was simply the lingua franca what is English today. The earlier usage of Macedonian is well evidenced. For example Alexander the Great in India hold a conversation with his relative in Macedonian and Alexander said that one of his Macedonian friends is getting more distanced from their traditions by speaking in Greek. There were also multiple cases when Athenians used translators when speaking to the Macedonians. Excluding all this, but including the statement that Macedonian ambassadors did not use translators in the Athenian Assembly quite misleads the reader. None of us can dispute that ambassadors actually speak only one language. Ambassadors are always polyglots and the ambassadors' inclusion is weaselish. All that has been detected, excellent revision, Slovenski Volk, well done. Judist (talk) 21:36, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Their language was certainly a variety of Pelasgian. Greek writers claim that even the earliest inhabitants of Attica and southern Greece were Pelasgian speakers but later adopted the Greek through officialisation. I'd appreciate the inclusion of something similar here.Judist (talk) 21:55, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Their language was certainly a variety of Pelasgian. This needs a rather industrial-strength citation. Otherwise please leave your WP:OR/WP:FRINGE-WP:REDFLAG theories out of this article. Dr. K. 22:08, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Sources can be found easily, here is one: Detrez, Professor Raymond, Developing Cultural Identity in the Balkans: Convergence Vs. Divergence, ISBN 9052012970.

This source mentions the theory of Johann Georg von Hahn that Illyrians, Epirotes and Macedonians descend from Pelasgians who the source says were not Greek. Judist (talk) 22:27, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

That "theory" is 19th century bunk, and is now only pushed in the dark recesses of various Balkan conspiracy forums. You should familiarize yourself with more contemporary scholarship. And learn to indent your comments while you're at it. Athenean (talk) 22:35, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

You propose an obsolete 19th century source after I asked you for an industrial-strength source? Dr. K. 23:24, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, I agree here with Dr.K. I suggest applying the same sense at Argead dynasty where claims of Herodotus(lived in some century BC) are the ones backing the route of mythological heroes.23:59, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

The "Pelasgian" crap is just fringe cruft, and also-completely off-topic, so it does not merit further consideration. Regarding the ambassadors, this is sourced to Prof. Ian Worthington, a most reliable source. Any Wikipedia user's analysis is a bunch of original research and thus worthless. Wikipedia policy is to follow reliable sources, and it ends there. If anyone has any problem with this passage, they could perhaps e-mail professor Worthington (if you ask nicely, he might reply). Until then, any "analyses" by wikipedia users are just white noise as far as I'm concerned. Athenean (talk) 22:20, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm honestly I have never heard any serious cases of Macedonian bilingualism or Macedonian-Athenian non-mutual language intelligibility, to the level of them being clearly two different languages instead of two different or distinct localizations of the same language (aka dialects). First of all, there have been absolutely no records indicating that the Ancient Macedonians were having issues of mutual language intelligibility with their fellow Epirotan and Thessalian neighbors whose the languages were dialects of the Ancient Greek. Furthermore, the unearthing of texts/inscriptions in archaeological excavations around the Pella and Imathia regions pointed out to the otherwise from the unproven claims that "the Ancient Macedonian was unrelated to Ancient Greek language". We shall note that even if the Ancient Macedonian tribe was a bilingual people, the Attic Greek was standardized as the language of the Macedonian court, Macedonian formal discourse and Macedonian diplomacy from at least the 5th century BC, before Alexander the Great was even born. Also, there is an absolute lack of any historical sources or documents indicating that the Ancient Macedonian society was facing serious problems in transiting itself from the use of Ancient Macedonian language to the use of Koine Greek, the then lingua franca of the world. Honestly the theory of Ancient Macedonian language being a totally separate language and unrelated to the Ancient Greek language sounds to be contradicting the established facts, and if such a theory/claim has to be promoted/adopted, it will have to be backed by strong sources, otherwise it only can leave many holes and open the ground for endless political debates which only can make Wikipedia suffer. I am already concerned enough with how Wikipedia had to maintain its balance in the shadow of the politics of both sides (especially Greece and the Republic of Macedonia) and how this whole dispute isn't being brought to an end for various reasons. The worrisome fact that there were recorded political attempts by certain nationalist circles to promote first the idea that the Ancient Macedonians were completely different/separate people and culturally isolated from their influential neighbors, and now the idea that the Ancient Macedonians were having issues in understanding (even to an extend at least) the language their neighbors spoke, only raises eyebrows, given the historical reality and local diplomatic affairs of the region, which point out to the otherwise: that even if there was any real distinction of Ancient Macedonian from Attic Greek, this distinction was manageable for both sides, and not something that could hamper the total assimilation/absorbion of the Ancient Macedonians to the Greek culture, at the later centuries. If such a claim/theory had to be promoted/adopted, it should be done cautiously and with strong historical sources backing it (and when I am saying sources, I am suggesting something solid, like data about the very language itself - texts and inscriptions of the Ancient Macedonian language, instead of sources citing a mere person's claims or records, because it is evident that different people of different backgrounds also happen to claim different things about the Ancient Macedonians. Information about the language itself is the key in solving this dispute once and for all - and so far, the inscriptions and texts found in the region of the Kingdom of Macedon, are all in the Ancient Greek language. Only the language itself (or what evidence we have of it) could clear things out, not what other people say about it. --SilentResident (talk) 14:40, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Request for comment on Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

There is a RfC here, if you are interested in the subject please feel free to participate. Macedonian (talk) 18:59, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Opinion?

According to Serbian and few Eastern European Wikis Macedonians were mix of Illyrians and Thracians and some old tribes [[11]]. Any Comments?93.87.185.49 (talk) 01:37, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

According to them the ancient Macedonians were anything but Greek. :) The truth is that the ultra-nationalists of the Republic of Macedonia - not of the Republic of Macedonia collectively - are trying to dissociate ancient Macedonia from anything Greek and associate it with the modern Slavic country of the RoM. However the vast majority of primary, secondary and tertiary sources agree on the Greekness of Macedonia. Ian Worthington ("Alexander the Great: Man and God", 2014) correctly argues that: "There is still more than enough evidence and reasoned theory to suggest that the Macedonians were racially Greek". Macedonian (talk) 08:51, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

What the other Wikipedias are doing is of no concern to us, and there's no point discussing that here, especially if it's only as a pretext for exchanging the same old worn-out talking points we've all heard millions of times. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:06, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Disruptive edits to the lead

Recently, User:Judist (User talk:Judist) has reverted tons of changes I have made to the Wikipedia:Lead section of this article (and made another attempted revert on the previous day as well). While seeming to focus his exclusive attention on one (incredibly well-sourced) sentence of the lead that states the Macedonians were "essentially an ancient Greek people", Judist has nevertheless eliminated entire paragraphs explaining other content in the prose body of the article, including information on literature, philosophy, artwork, religion, burial practices, the Macedonian aristocracy, economics, the foundation legend, the Macedonian language, and their leisure activities and pastimes. Unexplained removal of this content is unacceptable, especially while this article is currently undergoing a Wikipedia:Good articles nomination process. If you have a grievance about the sentence asserting the Macedonians as "Greek people" then address it here. DO NOT simply erase entire paragraphs about Macedonian culture and society that have nothing to do with your particular grievance and tangential niche concern. You also inadvertently reverted the explanation of the article's discussion about the ongoing debate in academia over the Macedonian ethnic identity and classification of the Ancient Macedonian language. Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:19, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

@Judist: as you can see here my latest edit to the article, I have pretty much addressed your concerns by once again noting the ambiguity of the Macedonian ethnicity and language. I think this compromise is more than suitable if not pedantic. Further editing of the lead section during a GA nomination is not welcomed unless you are willing to build Wikipedia:Consensus on making further changes to it, without engaging in Wikipedia:Edit warring or unhelpful, unexplained removal of vital content. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:38, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Dear Judist, I have reverted your highly POV edits on Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia just now. Please refrain from similar kinds of disruption in such sensitive articles. It is unfortunate that you have resumed now this kind of disruption, only less than a year since the last time you got blocked by the Administrators for similar incidents in which you were involved. I hope this time you will adhere to Pericles of Athens's advises here and reconsider your approach to the article. If you want to contribute, you are welcomed to do so, as long as you follow Wikipedia's guidelines and refrain from such WP:POV edits in the future. --SILENTRESIDENT 11:44, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Dear Pericles of Athens I strongly object to your changes on the lead, which you have made in response to Judist's concerns: [12] as they do not reflect the archeological findings and the established facts regarding the Ancient Macedonians (which too are mentioned on the Language and identity sections). And therefore, I had no other option but to restore the lead back to its last stable version: [13]. Please if any changes are to be made on this extremely sensitive section, they should be done carefully with the aim of balance and neutral point of view, not with the aim of making compromises to disruptive editors who are pushing a certain POV around... I hope you will be more careful next time, and I highly recommend that any similar changes to these sensitive sentences, are discussed here in the Talk page first before they are applied on the article. Thank you. --SILENTRESIDENT 12:13, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

@SilentResident: hi. The way it reads now is fine (i.e. the way it read before Judists' revisions), although I did like my most recent version a bit more since it placed the question of ethnic identity down in the appropriate paragraph on that subject (i.e. the third one of the lead section). I totally agree about the ancient Macedonian language, but as the language section of this article and the separate language article explains, there is still disagreement among scholars about the appropriate classification of the ancient Macedonian language as either a dialect of Greek or a sibling language to Greek as one of the Hellenic languages or even a non-Greek language influenced by Greek. Mind you, only a small fringe group within academia supports the latter, third idea, namely Meillet (1913), Russu (1938), and Bonfante (1987). Their outdated work is also contradicted by new evidence and the growing consensus of mainstream academic sources on the matter, such as the major "Companion" publications by Brill and Blackwell, respectively. I am worried that if these details are not given a clear venue in the lead section then it is only an invitation for POV pushers to come and make further disruptions with edit warring. Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:04, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

This is true. However, I suggest that this growing academic consensus is reflected better on this without WP:RSUW; while the following sentence: "Their native spoken language has been poorly preserved, difficult to classify, and may have been a northwestern dialect of Greek, although the lingua franca of the region was at first Attic and then Koine Greek" isn't bad by itself, it feels like the combination of the following sentences: "difficult to classify" and "may have been a northwestern dialect of Greek", gives the third opinion a WP:RSUW, because it leaves open speculation about where this language belongs to. Which according to Wikipedia's rules, does not have place here. I believe the sentence needs to be re-written to include the Hellenic branch in the sentence, which is the common point between the two leading scholarly opinions; while there is no academic consensus regarding the Macedonian being a language or a dialect, there is consensus on its position in the Hellenic branch.

My position is that we should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. Opting the term Hellenic out of the Lead's single sentence about the language, leaves room for such WP:RSUW problems, while its inclusion to the sentence, helps avoiding them all together. If it is necessary to have any mention of these minority fringe views (aka the language/dialect being not Hellenic at all), then this should be done only in the Language article or in the current article's Language section, not in the brief summary of the Lead.

My proposal is to reword the "difficult to classify, and may have been a northwestern dialect of Greek" to have the term Hellenic included, which is something the two leading scholarly views agree on, at least.--SILENTRESIDENT 17:44, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

@SilentResident: in that case there's probably no need to talk about language at all in the opening paragraph, since the third paragraph discusses the ancient Macedonian language and even mentions the idea that it could be either a dialect of Greek or its own branch of the Hellenic languages that include Greek. Or we could just leave the article as is, because everything that we need to mention is already mentioned, albeit in two different paragraphs instead of being condensed into one area of the lead. Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:10, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

@PericlesofAthens: exactly that is why I have reverted it to the last stable version; it may not satisfy everyone (and especially the usual POV-pushing suspects) but at least it reflects the majority of the academic views and the archeological evidence, and this is what really matters here, especially if we want this article to succeed in gaining a GA status. But also the other idea (about mentioning its classification as language or dialect) is an equally good idea. I don't mind either way. Just in case we try the second idea, we will have to make sure that the wording is careful to avoid misperceptions that could hint towards fringe theories and POVs. --SILENTRESIDENT 20:03, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

I am really looking towards seeing Pericles of Athens's tireless efforts in improving this article to pay off and the article to gain a GA status. But, like how Pericles of Athens said, this is not enough by itself; edit warring and disruptions are not helpful for GA. I hope Judist will heed to admin EdJohnston's formal ARBMAC warnings [14] for today's incidents and refrain from any misconducts in the future. Pericles, may I ask if there is any else about the article before review progress begins? --SILENTRESIDENT 22:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

@SilentResident: no, I don't think there are any more outstanding issues aside from those in the lead. I tried to balance everything in the body of the article appropriately, although the ethnic identity section is somewhat larger than the others. That's not such a big deal, though, because its length is easily justified by the sub-sections covering historiography, ancient sources on the Argead dynasty, ancient sources on the ancient Macedonian people themselves, and modern discourse utilizing the precepts of cultural anthropology to discern their ethnic classification. The article is also within readable prose size per Wikipedia:Article size. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:29, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

I checked the size of the article and honestly at no point ever felt being bigger than needed. And it is more complete with these sections in than out. --SILENTRESIDENT 13:07, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ancient Macedonians/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Iazyges (talk · contribs) 02:24, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

• Will start soon. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 02:24, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Criteria

GA Criteria
GA Criteria: 1 1.a Y 1.b Y 2 2.a Y 2.b Y 2.c Y 2.d Y 3 3.a Y 3.b Y 4 4.a Y 5 5.a Y 6 6.a Y 6.b Y

• No Copyvio Y
• No DAB links N

Macedonian (disambiguation) redirects to Macedonian.

Magnes is a SIA page.

• No Dead links N

The Worthington, Ian (2008). Philip II of Macedonia. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-12079-6. source's link is dead

The "lecture 24" link in Twilight of the Polis and the rise of Macedon (Philip, Demosthenes and the Fall of the Polis). Yale University Courses, Lecture 24. (Introduction to Ancient Greek History) is dead.

@Iazyges: I have fixed the DAB link for Macedonian and removed the dead link "lecture 24", although there is no link in the article for "Magnes", yet there is one for "Magnes (mythology)". Your assertion that Worthington 2008 is a dead link is absolutely false. It works. Try it again. It brings you to Google Books and the edition that was used. Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:33, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Prose Suggestions

Origins

• that were discontinued" I'd recommend "that had ceased"
• It has been hypothesized that the cause of Macedonian expansion was demographic pressure. Because pastoralism and highland living could not support a very concentrated settlement density, pastoralist tribes often searched for more arable lowlands suitable for agriculture." You may wish to merge these sentences together, to improve flow.

Culture

• "This did not necessarily symbolize a sharing of identity or political allegiance between these regions." Perhaps "This did not necessarily symbolize a shared cultural identity, or any political allegiance between these regions"
• "favored the development of a native aristocracy with a wealth, which at times surpassed the classical Greek poleis." May wish to restructure sentence, perhaps "favored the developement of a native aristocracy, with a wealth that at times surpassed the classical Greek poleis."
• " the Macedonians generally possessed use of slaves" perhaps "the Macedonians generally possessed slaves" or "the Macedonians generally used slaves".
• "One viewpoint sees it as an autocracy, whereby the king held absolute power. Any other position of authority, including the army," this comes one paragraph after an entire paragraph about how he is an autocrat. I would reccomend rewording one of them, and perhaps switching the two.

End

• @PericlesofAthens: That is all my comments. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 23:36, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

@Iazyges: hi! Thanks for reviewing the article! I have amended the article per each of your suggestions. I hope you find the changes to be suitable enough to give this article a passing grade. Cheers! --Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:54, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Congrats. :-) --SILENTRESIDENT 23:59, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm nominating this for GA status

Although half the material in this article is not mine, I am nominating it for Wikipedia:Good articles status after massively expanding it, improving the prose, removing non-cited material, and adding tons of newly-cited sources. I was able to shift a lot of material from the main article Macedonia (ancient kingdom) into this one, using Wikipedia:Summary style. I'll be fixing some citations in a moment, but overall the article looks good enough for GA material. Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:05, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Thats excellent. Sure, go ahead! --SILENTRESIDENT 17:02, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

I think after last edits in the lead of this article made by SILENTRESIDENT, it became biased and already lacks neutrality. Jingiby (talk) 14:35, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

I think you will need to check the revisions more carefully: this information which I restored and which you call "biased and lacks in neutrality" was not added by me, but by other editors. Second, this information was restored because it has been removed without any prior consultation in the Talk page. Third, you should explain your statement. Just popping up here and claim "this is biased" without providing any details on why the restored content seems biased to you, is not very helpful. Try be more descriptive in your statements so we can understand what exactly is the problem for you. And last, I highly recommend that everyone is very careful when editing in WP:ARBMAC-protected articles such as this one, here. As you probably know already, the article Ancient Macedonians is subject to Discretionary sanctions and any forms of disruption will not be tolerated and may result in blocks or bans. --SILENTRESIDENT 16:49, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Jingiby is right, I prefer the unbiased version of Pericles.--Judist (talk) 14:45, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Judist, do not ever misread Pericles of Athens's efforts to save the article from your constant disruption as being "an unbiased version of Pericles". How I read the events that unfolded after your disruption, is that Pericles tried to stop you, not made a "more unbiased version". Pericles rightfully tried to save the article from being bulldozed and the hard work undone due to your bias and disruption: [15] where he told you: "You cannot just bulldoze the lead section after it has been carefully constructed to reflect the content of the article during a GA nomination. Take your concerns to the talk page if you must and we will hash it out there." but you couldn't listen to him and take your concerns to the talk, and rather you resumed your disruption: [16] but Pericles again reverted your edits: [17], having had enough of this. The fact that Pericles did have it moved elsewhere to save the content from you, has nothing to do about your perceptions of "Pericles's unbiased version". After admin EdJohnston intervened and warned you for all this disruption on your Talk page, I stepped in and restored the article back to the normal. Do not even pretend that you aren't aware of what really happened. We have had enough of you and your editorial bias here and on Macedonia-related articles for years now. When will you ever stop??? Bulldozing the GA efforts by Pericles and deleting the well-sourced material from the articles, is just poor editorial performance of your part and one could assume WP:BADFAITH. Such actions and behaviors are damaging Wikipedia very very much.

Also, something about your so-called "neutrality": In your revision here: [18] you have stated: "It is not accepted that Ancient Macedonian language was a Greek dialect." However, this is mere your opinion and is contradicted by the vast majority of the academics and scholars who classify the Ancient Macedonian language as being either a language related to Greek, or a dialect of it. Needless to say, as per WP:NPOV, all viewpoints regarding the classification of the Ancient Macedonian language, not only have been covered here in the Language section of the main body of the Ancient Macedonians article (thanks to Pericle's efforts), but also on the article Ancient Macedonian language which is about it.

Last. I highly recommend, if you have any objections regarding the Ancient Macedonian Language, that, as per WP:TALK, you take it to that talk page: Talk:Ancient Macedonian language, which is specifically about that language, because this Talk here is only about the Ancient Macedonians and nothing else. Discussing here about a language and other matters unrelated to the article about Ancient Macedonians, goes against Wikipedia's rules. --SILENTRESIDENT 16:20, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

That the Ancient Macedonians and their language was something other than mainly Greek is backed by a sufficient amount of reliable authors, who adhere to the view to make it a WP:DUE weight according to Wikipedia standards. Pericles greatly balanced the views with his revision, but SilentResident with her biased agenda completely violated WP:NPOV, according to which due weight and alternative views should be added to balance. If her biased agenda of blanking any due weight, that may not suit with the usual Greek view, continue to be imposed in the lead, I would object of this becoming a good article. Wikipedia is not for propagandary purposes of one specific view and the lead should present neutral summarization.--Judist (talk) 06:03, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Resorting to WP:FORUMSHOPPING like how you did here now: [19], isn't going to help you. If you believe you can get consensus for passing your biased edits into the article this way, then I am afraid you are wasting your time. --SILENTRESIDENT 08:46, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Judist, you are basically coming dangerously close to blackmailing the GA nomination ("If my demands are not met, I will sabotage the GA nomination"). If you do such a thing, be aware that I will make the case for you to be banned from this topic area. Considering your already loaded history, I believe such a request will have a high likelihood of success. You have been warned. Khirurg (talk) 17:56, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Pericles reply to Judist on the Ancient Macedonian language and issues of ethnic identity

@Judist: firstly, in regards to the Ancient Macedonian language, despite the scanty archaeological evidence available and the unreliability of hostile, polemic authors from Antiquity such as Demosthenes, a majority of academics working in this field now consider it a dialect of Greek or a sibling language with Greek (forming one of only two languages in the Hellenic languages branch of the Indo-European family). The only notable academics in the past century or so who consider it a language other than Greek (but nevertheless thoroughly influenced by Greek) include Meillet (1913), Russu (1938), Schwyzer (1959), Bonfante (1987), and Papazoglu (2000).

Notice how only two of these sources were published within the past 30 years; there's a reason for that: relatively new evidence has surfaced seeming to confirm the northern Greek dialect theory. For instance, the 4th-century BC Pella curse tablet was only unearthed in 1986, a year before Bonfante's publication and hence not a lot of time for him to appreciate the impact this would have on ancient Macedonian linguistic studies. While Illryian and Thracian seem to have had a strong influence on the ancient Macedonian tongue, this seems to have largely entailed the simple borrowing of loanwords and the use of cognates with similar etymological origins, much how 60% of Modern English vocabulary stems from Latin (and Greek) yet it is classified as a West Germanic language.

Aside from a litany of scholars I could cite who assert that ancient Macedonian should be classified as a Greek dialect, it is telling that the major academic compendiums and companions to Macedonian history published within the last decade contain book chapters by various authors who side with the Greek dialect theory. That includes Blackwell's Companion to Ancient Macedonia (2010) and Brill's Companion to Ancient Macedon (2011). These authors include some of the most prominent authorities on the subject matter: Miltiadis B. Hatzopoulos, Johannes Engels, Roger D. Woodard, and Edward M. Anson. These are academics who are currently writing on the subject matter, whereas most of the scholars who have argued for the non-Greek origins of Ancient Macedonian are now dead or long since retired. Please feel free to locate Wikipedia:Reliable sources that contradict what I'm saying, but I don't think you'll find any. I think the best you could do in this regard is come across some musings by scholars like Ernst Badian and Eugene Borza about the ethnic identity of the Macedonians as supposed non-Greek tribes who became gradually Hellenized (as mentioned in the "Modern discourse" sub-section).

As for the Greek ethnic identity issue, that's a complicated one and it is explored extensively in this article. It is even mentioned very prominently in the third paragraph of the lead section, noting the ambiguities presented by modern and ancient authors. I think the academic discourse and disagreement on the matter is presented fairly and accurately in the prose body, while this material is sufficiently summarized in the lead. It nevertheless doesn't change the overwhelming academic consensus that the Ancient Macedonians possessed more or less identical religious beliefs as the Greeks, worshiped the Greek pantheon of Gods, buried their dead according to rituals fitting for Archaic Greece, participated in pan-Hellenic games with other Greeks such as the Ancient Olympic Games, argued for an Argive Greek lineage for the royal Argead dynasty, contributed to Greek intellectual discourse, literature, material culture and artistic trends, possessed many of the same refined dining habits as other Greeks, and were the chief facilitators of the development of Koine Greek as a universal lingua franca. This collection of facts regarding ancient Greek culture alone should merit the chosen phrasing that the Ancient Macedonians were "essentially an ancient Greek people." However, contradictory evidence and differing scholastic opinions about that should be given consideration. Perhaps the first paragraph could be worded better to reflect this, but you should acknowledge and appreciate that the third paragraph of the lead section, in my opinion, does a fine job of representing the ancient and modern discourse about culture and ethnicity.

I'm all ears for a potentially better suggestion on how to word certain parts of the first paragraph, but this does not remotely allow for you to bulldoze two thirds of the entire lead section because you dislike one or two words in it (as I have complained about and explained exhaustively in the talk page section below). Refrain from doing that and we can have a civil conversation about how to accommodate the contrarian views of certain scholars like Borza and Papazoglu. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:34, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I thank you for this explanation and sorry for being late. You are well informed on the subject. The only problem is that one theory shouldn't be mentioned as a claim of Wikipedia. Unless there is representation of other WP:DUE weight the lead would be biased. As with Latin and Greek vocabulary in English, similar is with the ancient peoples and languages, for which the ruling class and influences may be of separate origin. Your revision had been perfectly fine before the editor SilentResident reverted. The edits of this editor are biased and must be reverted, as elsewhere noted by others, so I don't have any problems with your edits in the article, Pericles, and I don't have any better suggestions. Good luck! Your revision perfectly corrected the WP:WEASEL wording "generally considered" and "essentially", for which there was no consensus. "Essentially" is still a weasel word and not a view of the majority of authors and even "generally considered" but the latter would be less of a weasel word.

Weasel words are words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated. They may disguise a biased view.; Words to watch: ... some people say, many scholars state, it is believed/regarded, many are of the opinion, most feel, experts declare, it is often reported, it is widely thought, research has shown, science says, scientists claim, it is often said ... --Judist (talk) 06:29, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

I am afraid your argument is unrelated to WP:Weasel and more relates to WP:OR, Judist. Nowadays only a tiny minority of scholars supports your claim that the Macedonians were not Greeks. Wikipedia is rather clear on what views should be present here: when a viewpoint is not significant and not supported by at least a significant minority among the scholars, then it should not be given more weight than it deserves; in fact, it should not be mentioned in Wikipedia at all. As per WP:OR, the inclusion of such views backed only by a very small number of Scholars, may constitute original research.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia has said:

If your viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;

If your viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;

If your viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, then—whether it's true or not, whether you can prove it or not—it doesn't belong in Wikipedia, except perhaps in some ancillary article. Wikipedia is not the place for original research.

Thing here is: today, the view that the Ancient Macedonians were essentially Greeks (related to Greeks in many aspects, but were not fully Greeks, at least not in every aspect) is supported by the vast majority of the academic scholars and is backed by the archeological findings, while a smaller, but still significant minority of scholars supports the view that the Macedonians were fully Greeks. The third view, that the Macedonians were not Greeks, is only supported by a tiny amount of scholars worldwide, with the fieldwork of most of them being not just old, but also outdated especially after the revelation of the recent epigraphic and other archeological discoveries in the region of Greek Macedonia. Same can be said for the language of these people - only a fringe minority of the scholars today asserts the view that the Ancient Macedonian is unrelated to the Greek. I think you should familiarize yourself with the OR policy. --SILENTRESIDENT 16:30, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

@Judist: @SilentResident: scholars who think the Macedonians spoke a native language other than Greek (yet concede that Koine Greek was at least the lingua franca) aren't exactly WP:FRINGE, since they include the likes of Ernst Badian, Eugene Borza, and Fanula Papazoglu. Yet the problem here is that all of these three scholars are now dead and their work is for the most part outdated. Even Giuliano Bonfante has been dead for over a decade now. Their publications have been superseded by more recent works and were contradicted even in their own time by scholars such as Robert Malcolm Errington (1990, [1986]). The two aforementioned "Companion" books in my previous post seem to convey the idea that the issue is largely settled in academia that they spoke a Greek dialect. As for them being "essentially Greek", I'll admit that this is an odd way of saying it, but there isn't a serious scholar on the matter who refutes the Greek attributes of their culture. I've already mentioned these above, so I won't repeat them here, otherwise we'll be going around in circles. Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:09, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

True. I don't know who added the term "essential" but it is incredibly well sourced and denotes the relations of that tribe with their western and southern neighbors, without implying that they are fully Greeks. Essentially does not mean absolutely, and, I believe, this makes the term a very good compromise among the different scholarly views on the matter, which although they disagree on the identity, they do not disagree on their relation to the Greeks. --SILENTRESIDENT 04:42, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

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Language

That is exactly what the intro of the page Ancient Macedonian language says. Ancient Macedonian, the language of the ancient Macedonians, either a dialect of Ancient Greek or a separate language closely related to Greek... More, the internal links as to Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek dialects and Hellenic languages are very useful for the common readers. Jingiby (talk) 07:12, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

The most important thing to do here is to provide balance, given the various theories about the ancient Macedonian language, noting its relation to ancient Greek as either a dialect of it (of the Doric/Northern variety) or a sibling language in a shared Hellenic sub-branch of the greater Indo-European family. Both theories are valid ones given the paucity of evidence available to us (and ambiguities arising from the hazy, trace influences of the Phrygian, Thracian, and Illyrian tongues). Thankfully it's just the lead section where the battleground over this idea seems to be taking place, instead of the body of the article where things are explained more fully. Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:47, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 May 2018

After searching through the reference provided for this statement, I was unable to find supporting evidence indicating the validity in the remark mentioned below. I encourage you to follow the link provided and when you arrive at the book simply use the tool to search for any segment of the statement made below.

{" Essentially an ancient Greek people,[1] "} 

Please identify and remove any unsupported statements. CancerianOx (talk) 11:01, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

That phrase "essentially an ancient Greek people" is not a direct quotation from the source (i.e. Ian Worthington's Alexander the Great: Man and God), it is a summary of the material found on that page. Do you not know the difference? Most of the statements in this article follow that pattern. Otherwise it would just be copying passages from sources verbatim and would violate WP:Plagiarism. Also, stop randomly removing comments from the talk page from other editors as you did here. That is disruptive behavior to say the least. I'm also somehow not surprised that you've made this silly request here, given how you've made an equally silly request at Talk:Cleopatra to remove the term "Greek" from the article and replace it with Hellen, Hellas, or Hellenic (in violation of WP:COMMONNAME). Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:40, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:09, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Nowhere in the source does it say that the ancient Macedonians were "essentially" Greeks. It does say in chapter 2 that there is no consensus on the ethnicity of the ancient Macedonians, and that the Greeks saw them as Barbarians. It then goes on to theorize that the Macedonians were Greeks without any concrete evidence. The claim they were "essentially Greek" is intellectually dishonest, the source doesn't proof it right and it's probably a result of nationalistic bias. Please change "Essentially a Greek people" to "Scholars disagree on whether the Ancient Macedonians were Greek" or something to that fashion, or remove it all together. Dapperedavid (talk) 11:53, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

@Dapperedavid: even if that's your curious interpretation of Worthington (2014), did you miss the giant train of citations in that footnote providing other sources to reach this conclusion? These include Zacharia (2008), Errington (1990), Hall (1983), Hammond (2001), Jones (2001), Osborne (2004), etc. For that matter, the article painstakingly explains the ambiguities of the ethnic identity of the Ancient Macedonians. Like the OP, you have decided to focus exclusively on this one statement without digesting or acknowledging the nuances of this subject presented in the lead section and the rest of the article. Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:45, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm sure I've put this opinion on the record before, and I regret not defending it more forcefully during this article's FA move, but I'll say it again here that I, too, strongly object to the wording of "essentially an ancient Greek people". Unless you subscribe to the tenets of ethnic essentialism (an ideological fallacy closely allied with nationalism and unfortunately quite common among commentators on these issues), there simply is no such thing as an "essence" of what it means to be Greek (or any other ethnicity for that matter). Nothing about a population's affiliation with an ethnos is ever "essentially" so. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:57, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: that's a fair argument, but what should it be replaced with, then? Thinking of alternatives, for some reason only awkward phrasing comes to mind when trying to accommodate both positions. For instance: "An ancient people of northern Greece" or "A possible Greek ethnic subgroup" just doesn't sound good. If you can come up with something that both sounds better and neutral, I'm all ears and would consider it for the article. Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:21, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Frankly the whole discussion about whether they were Greek or not and the political bs between Macedonia and Greece that comes with it deserves its own subsection. Dapperedavid (talk) 22:59, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Then you clearly haven't read the article, because there is already a large subsection devoted to this very idea, their ethnic Greek identity versus something else (as argued by ancient authors like Demosthenes, who viewed them as barbarians, although this could have just been heated, hyperbolic polemics during a time of war). Mind you, the article doesn't talk about the modern-day FYROM, but that topic falls outside the subject of this article, which is about ancient Macedonians, not the modern naming dispute. There are links for that sort of thing where people can explore that topic in the appropriate places. This article, on the other hand, is not an appropriate venue for that. Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:04, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

In the main paragraph, it looks as if "essentially" means "for all intents and purposes" and nothing more. But even if the word is somehow tied to (ethnic) essentialism, outright dismissing essentialism as an "ideological fallacy" is not a fair argument but instead an ideologically-charged exhortation in favor of anti-essentialism. Agree or disagree, but anti-essentialism is also an ideological fallacy (probably worse than essentialism) because it blatantly denies the historicity of whatever primordial elements ethnic groups have like biological kinship. So "essentially" is neutral and looking to connect the word to essentialism just to get rid of it only serves to drum up anti-essentialist dogma that Wikipedia can do without. Falcon Fist (talk) 03:28, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

@PericlesofAthens:I wanna respond to what you said about my initial comment from June 27th, to which I didn't properly respond back then. What about the interpretation do you disagree with? That it doesn't state the Macedonians were Greeks? That it literally says there is no consensus on the ethnicity of the Macedonians? That it literally says the Greeks saw the ancient Macedonians as Barbarians? Or the part where I say it theorizes the Greeks are Macedonian without real evidence? I'll have to look back into the source for that last one if that's the case, but I trust my past self on the first 3 claims.

Anyway, you're right, I wasn't aware of the fact you can bundle citations back then, but now the problem of citation overkill arises, in my opinion, maybe I'm wrong? Also, the vast majority of those pages cited aren't accessible, with the coincidental exceptions of 2, one being page 8 from Chamoux, which says that the Macedonian Dynasty was considered Greek by the Greeks themselves because they were allowed to participate in the Olympic Games, but that's the dynasty, not the Ancient-Macedonian people which this article is about. On that same page, the following sentences are written: "Alexander was, of course, bilingual. He would address his subjects and his devoted soldiers in Macedonian, a language distantly related to Greek. But it was in Attic Greek [...] that he would converse with his [Hetairoi] and with foreigners." implying that Alexander the Great himself wasn't even fully Greek.

The other one from Katerina Zacharia does say the Macedonians were greeks, I didn't read all of it, but it was documented that the Macedonian settlements were like Greek settlements, and a tablet was found that with a word that apparently is proof of Macedonian being a dialect of North Western Greek. Is this enough to warrant the sentence that the Ancient Macedonian People were essentially Greek? I don't know, I'm not sure how Wikipedia works, initially I just saw a potentially controversial statement and decided to hop into the discussion. Can't the sentence just say that the Macedonians were very similar to the Greeks? Or that they were arguably a Greek people instead of essentially? Help me understand the philosophy of this website better and tell me what's the reason for putting that statement, which scholars are divided over, as if it's uncontested fact on the introduction of the article? If you were to say the Macedonian dynasty was "Essentially Greek" I'd agree with that, because they were in that they were bilingual and were partially of Greek heritage. I'm tired though, and not even particularly interested in the ancient-Macedonians, so I'm not sure if I even wanna continue fighting. Just kindly tell me why I'm wrong and I'll move on. Dapperedavid (talk) 00:15, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: Procedural close of the edit request template. As far as I can tell, everyone involved in this discussion is at least autoconfirmed and has the rights to edit the article themselves. Once a consensus emerges from this discussion, feel free to edit the article. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 16:25, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

References

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Macedonian having a broader meaning

After Future Perfect's input, I propose the following,

Arrian also highlighted that the term Macedonian had a broader meaning at times and encompassed Illyrian, Thracian and Greek subjects to Philip II, in addition to Macedonians themselves. However, these people that fell under the broader term of "Macedonian" could be further distinguished into their respective groups.

instead of,

Arrian also highlighted that subjugated Illyrian, Thracian and Greek territorial regiments were also referred to as Macedonians during the rule of Philip II.

Beat of the tapan (talk) 10:21, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

I still can't read the passage you quoted the way you understood it. As far as I can see, nothing in the description of the standing regiments (which the "all" in that sentence refers to) implies that they included Greek, Thracian or Illyrian units, and the second clause explicitly contradicts your reading, as it clearly says Macedonians continued to be distinguished from the other three groups. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:33, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay I see where you are coming from. If you have any suggestion on how to better use this source then please tell me. Beat of the tapan (talk) 11:46, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 March 2020

I wish for you to edit the author's conclusion in the summary saying "Essentially an Ancient Greek people" - this is misleading and, frankly, quite ill-advised. I feel obliged to remind you that, in the present day of knowledge, our understanding of the ancient Macedonian ethnicity can always be altered by the next turn of the archeologist's spade. The Macedonians show among themselves a cultural diversity that makes it impossible to conclude them a "Greek people". Arkapos (talk) 18:21, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:28, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Arkapos. While the consensus amongst historians is that they were an ancient Greek people, there are still neutral historians (especially in the modern era) who disagree with the notation, stating insufficiency in archeological evidence or complexity of the ancient Macedonian nation. Therefore I view the use of essentially as WP:WEASEL that parallels the likes of "clearly". I think more encyclopedic terminology would be along the lines of "Probably an Ancient Greek people" or just avoid the topic in the lead. Beat of the tapan (talk) 01:39, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree as well. We've managed to keep the definitive label "Greek people" out of the first sentence for years, but only with hard-fought discussions and consensuses based on compromise. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 04:50, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I oppose the change. It's never enough for some people. First, we remove "Greek" from the first sentence, now we are essentially proposing to remove it from the second sentence as well. "Probably" casts too much doubt, it's tantamount to removal, if in more words. There is consensus among historians that they were an ancient Greek people, so the lede should reflect that. Khirurg (talk) 04:59, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Arkapos (talk · contribs) only has 2 edits. The whole thing is extremely fishy. No way. We had a compromise, compromise means compromise. Not "compromise until we decide we don't like it". Khirurg (talk) 05:03, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

"The Macedonians show among themselves a cultural diversity that makes it impossible to conclude them a "Greek people"" they are not concluded as "Greek people", but "essentially as Greek people". There is a big difference. This is the best compromise we had between editors who wanted only "Greek people" and editors who didn't want it and mind you, the consensus was very difficult to reach but ended edit wars and disruption once and for all. This ain't changing just because an WP:SPA account such as yours didn't read the "essentially" part of the text carefully. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 05:50, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

OK. It's news to me that there was a big debate around this specific thing not long ago. Beat of the tapan (talk) 06:12, 9 May 2020 (UTC)