It\'s all Greek to me (Makedonians included) ...

[Paralus]

There was no such thing as "standard Greek" [...] "makedonisti" only means " in the Macedonian manner of speech" and is standard Greek use...

To channel Vinnie Barbarino: "I'm so confused..."

The example you offer does not mean that Macedonian Greek was not understandable to the average Dorian or Ionian. You know very well that "makedonisti" only means " in the Macedonian manner of speech" and is standard Greek use for any dialect without any criticism as to how understandable it was. As to the Eumenes incident, of course you do understand that what you offer is just your interpretation of the story and nothing of the sort is being said in the account?

Curtius clearly implies that it was difficult to understand. The fragment of Arrian deals with the battle between Neoptolemus and Eumenes. The relevant lines deal with the approaches made by Eumenes before battle. The last approach, noted above, is to the Macedonian phalanx infantry. Eumenes ensures it is made by a man of the "Macedonian tongue". It is not simply an interpretation nor is it conjecture to see that one very good reason for that officer being chosen is that he would not fail to be understood. Given what we know from the extant sources, he was clearly understood: there was no infantry clash.

Come on Michael... if you want to claim that the Macedonian language was not easily understood by an Attic Greek or even that it was a barbaric language, you should explain why it is so darn difficult to find evidence...

George, where have I claimed "that it was a barbaric language"? I have claimed, based on the few attestations, that it was difficult for southerners to understand. Whether it be this site or another (I'm engaged in a similar discussion elsewhere), my metaphor remains: put an Orkney Islander and a Londoner in a bar and see how they communicate. Some will manage many will have difficulty.

As for the evidence, ancient writers do not bother to fill us in - on a great many things we'd like to know more of - about matters that they considered well understood by those for whom they wrote. There is no need for reporting today to note that sessions of the UN have real time translation for those involved because they all speak differing languages. When, in the ancient sources, such attestations do appear it is instructive how directly and strongly they are attacked or depricated.

I hope you do understand that I do not insist that these stories are true... but insisting that they are just convenient political fabrications...

Such fabrications were, as I noted, par for the course in ancient times. When it mattered, the ruling family of Lynkestis called the Argead Temenid hand and attempted to trump them with a royal lineage srpung from Corinth.

An Argive royal lineage - promulgated in the shadows of a Greek victory in the Persian Wars, a conflict in which Macedonia was a Persian "ally" having been a Persian vassal for some decades, cannot help but have political overtones. To say otherwise flies in the face of reason.

is also as unsubstantiated as is your very bold criticism of the games at Dion

I don't believe I "criticised" these games. Devil's advocate and all.

Methinks Macedon protesteth too much....