Talk:Macedonians/@comment-120.146.92.63-20150318091256/@comment-2601:2C7:8980:430E:A5A6:A433:4FF8:3AB7-20180901043633

No one knows what language the Macedonians spoke. Most experts speculate it might have been a Greek dialect while others see it as a seperate langauge all together. The Greeks themselves never saw Macedonians as Greeks and this is reflected in their works. The Macedonians, the non-royal ones, were not allowed in the Olympics until some time after the conquest of Greece by Macedon.

However, and this is important, the royal house of Macedon claimed to be Greek ((Hdt. 5.22.1). It should be noted that Herodotus claimed to have proof that the Macedonian king was a Greek, and the fact that he had to prove the Greekness of the Macedonian royal house speaks volumes about how their rulers were perceived in the Greek world. In fact as Herodotus alludes not everyone was willing to entratain the notion that the Macedonian nobles were Greeks. In Hdt. 5.22.2 we see that Alexander I of Macedon was denied entry into the Olympic race on the grounds that he was a foreigner, and this is despite the fact that he had a Greek name. Demosthenes calls Philip II of Macedon a barbarian, Thrasymachus in the 5th century BC calls the Macedonian king a barbarian. Aristotle in politics (Aristot. Pol. 7.1324b) lists the Macedonians among the non-Greek people and lists them among barbarians. Some were willing to accept that claim like Isocrates.

Another critical point to take note of is that Herodotus writes (Hdt. 5.22.1) about the proof of the Greekness of the Macedonian rulers as "as they themselves say". Meaning that this was a claim that the Macedonian kings were making and Herodotus is acting as a mouthpiece for pro-hellenic propaganda.

Even so at the time of Alexander some of the supposed pro-Macedon writers still excluded the Macedonains from the Greeks. Aristotle has no problem sandwhiching the Macedonians in-between the Carthaginians and the Persians when describing war-like habits of nations and Isokrates, who calls Philip II a "son of Argos" recalling back to Herodotus story, claims Philip II is a Greek ruling over non-Greeks, ala the Macedonians.