Paeonian language

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

Paeonian
Paionian
Region	Paeonia (Modern North Macedonia, northern Greece, south-western Bulgaria)
Language family	Indo-European Paeonian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Linguist List
Glottolog	None

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]
• Francesco Villari proposed a Thraco-Illyrian hypothesis.^[4]
• Karl Beloch, Ioannis Svoronos and Irwin L. Merker consider Paeonian an ancient Greek dialect (or a lost Indo-European language very closely related to Greek, i.e Hellenic) with a great deal of Thracian and Illyrian influence.^[5][2]
• Vladimir I. Georgiev suggested a Phrygian affiliation.^[2]
• Athenaeus seems to have connected the Paeonian language to the Mysian language, which was possibly a member of the Anatolian languages, or of the Armeno-Phrygian languages.^[6][7][8]
• Radoslav Katičić has said that “we know so little about their language that any linguistic affiliation seems meaningless”.^[2]

Paeonian vocabulary

Several Paeonian words are known from classical sources:

• monapos, monaipos, the European bison
• tilôn, a species of fish once found in Lake Prasias
• 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" Greek oros, "mountain");
• Agrianes, name of a tribe, possibly from *agro- "field" (cf. Lat. ager, Grc. ἀγρός agros, Eng. 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.^[5][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. Francesco Villari. Gli Indoeuropei e le origini dell'Europa. Il Mulino, 1997. ISBN 88-15-05708-0.
5. Merker, Irwin L. (1965). "THE ANCIENT KINGDOM OF PAIONIA". Institute for Balkan Studies (Greece). 6 (1): 36–37.
6. cite journal|Hrach Martirosyan “Origins and historical development of the Armenian language” in Journal of Language Relationship, International Scientific Periodical, n.º10 (2013). Russian State University for the Humanities, Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
7. Martirosyan, Hrach (2014). "Origins and Historical Development of the Armenian Language" (PDF). Leiden University: 1–23. Retrieved 5 August 2019. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
8. I. M. Diakonoff The Problem of the Mushki August 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine in The Prehistory of the Armenian People
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). . Smithsonian magazine. Archived from the original on 2012-06-25. Retrieved 2013-05-11.