Paeonian language

Paeonian
Paionian
Region	Paeonia (Modern North Macedonia, northern Greece, south-western Bulgaria)
Ethnicity	Paeonians
Extinct	Late antiquity
Language family	Indo-European (unclassified) Paeonian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Linguist List	0iz
Glottolog	None

Paeonian, ^[1] sometimes spelled Paionian, is a poorly attested, extinct language spoken by the ancient Paeonians until late antiquity.

Paeonia was located to the north of Macedon, south of Dardania, west of Thrace, and east of the southernmost Illyrians.

Classification

Classical sources usually considered the Paeonians distinct from the rest of the Paleo-Balkan people, comprising their own ethnicity and language. It is considered a Paleo-Balkan language but this is only a geographical grouping, not a genealogical one. Modern linguists are uncertain as to the classification of Paeonian, due to the extreme scarcity of surviving materials in the language, with numerous hypotheses having been published:

• Wilhelm Tomaschek and Paul Kretschmer have put forward an "Illyrian" hypothesis (i.e a part of the linguistic complex of the ancient north-western Balkans) which, according to Radoslav Katičić, seems to be the prevailing opinion. ^[2]
• Dimitar Dečev and Susan Wise Bauer proposed a Thracian hypothesis. ^[3]
• Vladimir I. Georgiev suggested a Phrygian affiliation. ^[2]
• Karl Beloch, Ioannis Svoronos and Irwin L. Merker consider Paeonian an ancient Greek dialect, ^{[4] [2]} or a lost Indo-European language closely related to Greek, i.e. a Hellenic language, ^[5] with a great deal of Thracian and Illyrian influence. ^{[4] [2]}
• Radoslav Katičić has said that "we know so little about their language that any linguistic affiliation seems meaningless". ^[2]

Athenaeus seems to have connected the Paeonian language to the Mysian language, for which Strabo noted that it was, "in a way, a mixture of the Lydian and Phrygian languages". ^[6]

Paeonian vocabulary

Several Paeonian words are known from classical sources:

• μόναπος (monapos), the European bison ^[7]
• τίλων (tilôn), a species of fish once found in Lake Prasias ^[8]
• paprax, a species of fish once found in Lake Prasias. Paprakas, masc. acc. pl.

A number of anthroponyms (some known only from Paeonian coinage) are attested: Agis (Άγις), Patraos (Πατράος), Lycpeios (Λύκπειος), Audoleon (Αυδολέων), Eupolemos (Εὐπόλεμος), Ariston (Αρίστων), etc. In addition several toponyms ( Bylazora (Βυλαζώρα), Astibos (Άστιβος) and a few theonyms Dryalus (Δρύαλος), Dyalos (Δύαλος), the Paeonian Dionysus, as well as the following:

• Pontos, effluent of the Strumica River, perhaps from *ponktos, 'boggy' (cf. German feucht, 'wet', Middle Irish éicne'salmon', Sanskrit pánka'mud', 'mire', Greek pontos'passage', 'way');
• Idomenae (Ιδομένη) (nowadays near Gevgelija), name of a city (cf. Greek Idomeneus , proper name in Homer; "Ida", mountain in Crete);
• Stoboi (today Gradsko), name of a city, from *stob(h) (cf. Old Prussian stabis'rock', Old Church Slavonic stoboru, 'pillar', Old English stapol, 'post', Ancient Greek stobos, 'scolding', 'bad language');
• Dysoron (Δύσορον and Δύσωρον, ^[9] nowadays Dysoro, Δύσορο), name of a mountain, from dys-'bad' (cf. Greek dyskolos'difficult'), and oros'mountain';
• Agrianes , name of a tribe, possibly from *agro-'field' (cf. Latin ager, Greek ἀγρόςagros, English acre) with cognates in the Greek tribe of Agraioi who lived in Aetolia, and the name of the month Agrianos which is found throughout the Dorian and Aeolian worlds. ^{[4] [10]}

References

1. Harry van der Hulst, Rob Goedemans and Ellen van Zanten as ed., A Survey of Word Accentual Patterns in the Languages of the World, Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, Walter de Gruyter, 2010, ISBN   311019631X, p. 433.
2. Radoslav Katicic, (2012) Ancient Languages of the Balkans: n.a. Volume 4 of Trends in Linguistics. Walter de Gruyter, p. 119, ISBN   3111568873.
3. Susan Wise Bauer (2007). The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome. ISBN   0-393-05974-X, page 518: "... Italy); to the north, Thracian tribes known collectively as the Paeonians."
4. Merker, Irwin L. (1965). "The Ancient Kingdom of Paionia". Institute for Balkan Studies (Greece) . 6 (1): 36–37.
5. Blažek, Václav (2005). "Paleo-Balkanian Languages I: Hellenic Languages" (PDF). Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty brněnské univerzity. Vol. 10. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. pp. 15–33. ISBN   80-210-3784-9.
6. Strabo. "Geography, Book XII, Chapter 8". LacusCurtius.
7. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2368440 monapos
8. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%23103959
9. Suda, delta, 1679
10. Cuche, Vincent (2017), "Dorian festivals" , The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 1–2, doi:10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah30116, ISBN   978-1-4443-3838-6 , retrieved 2021-01-02, ... an Agrianos month is found throughout the Dorian and Aeolian worlds. (Burkert 1983: 168–79).

Further reading

• Francisco Villar. Gli Indoeuropei e le origini dell'Europa. Il Mulino, 1997. ISBN   88-15-05708-0
• Kevin Hodges (November 2010). "Fluent in 60 Seconds: Learning a new language is a breeze—as long as it's Paionian". Smithsonian magazine. Archived from the original on 2012-06-25. Retrieved 2013-05-11.