Talk:Macedonia (ancient kingdom)/Archive 12

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Legitimizing Wikipedia Vandalism by Illegitimate Voting

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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• I Support the use of 'Ancient Greek Kingdom', but I would like it noted that I do not support this vote, but in fact oppose it as illegitimate. Wikipedia editors have NO STANDING to vote on the historicity and culture of ancient Macedonia and I find it ludicrous that Wikipedia should allow for the vandalizing of its own pages instead of correcting vandalism. Vandalism itself is not legitimized by a simple vote and as such this vote has zero credibility.

When every reference in the ancient world refers to Macedonians as Greeks we must then question what it is that this vote is trying to achieve? Is the aim to bring into question the authenticity of ancient sources? The bible? The Roman writers? The letters from Darius and Porus? The archaeological discoveries that verify the literary sources?

If that is the intent, then the remedy is for whoever is bringing the aforementioned sources and archaeological discoveries into question to write a paper and submit it to peer review and not to try to legitimize a political point of view that is baseless and which amounts to nothing more than vandalism of Wikipedia and propaganda being legitimized by way of a disingenuous vote.

If the intent is to bypass credible academia and overlook the Greek culture, language, religion, toponyms, onomastics, calendar, and native and foreign ancient references in order to agree with the opposition then Wikipedia must also be prepared to change 100’s of historical and religious references as well as the entries for all Greek states that at different stages of their development have at one time or another been kingdoms themselves. Wikipedia must also be prepared to allow for similar changes of the Roman Republic provinces and it must be prepared to erase all the Jewish kingdoms from existence because they only exist in the bible and it is not a historical document.

As you can see, if this absurd vote is allowed to proceed Wikipedia will have ZERO credibility because there is a lot more history that pertains to other areas of the world that they will have to allow to be vandalized to match contemporary political propaganda in which case it should change its name to “Wikiprop” instead of Wikipedia. --Vergiotisa (talk) 17:26, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

You clearly don't know anything about what is happening here.

1) As is typical of many here, you think we are trying to change the text of the article as a whole. That is simply false. The only sentence in the article under question is the first one. The full text of the article, describing the complex relationship between ancient Macedonia and ancient Greece remains outside the scope of this discussion.

2) You think it is a "vote". It is not. It is gauging WP:CONSENSUS. Read about it.

3) You think that we are trying to "remove" something from the article. We are not. The editors who want to unnecessarily and WP:POINTedly add "Greek" to the first sentence are trying to ram their POV down our throats in violation of WP:CONSENSUS. They have been unsuccessful. --Taivo (talk) 18:58, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Yea. Well done with your propaganda Taivo... NickTheRipper (talk) 21:16, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

"Propaganda" means false information. Not a single word of "Macedon was a kingdom on the periphery of Classical Greece that later became the center of Hellenistic Greece" is false. Not one single word. So your claims of "propaganda" are utterly false. --Taivo (talk) 23:13, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

--Taivo wrote “add "Greek" to the first sentence are trying to ram their POV” - Are you implying that the kingdom’s Homeric Greek character similar to that of Thessaly or of pre-democracy Athens etc. is not a factual Greek Kingdom with real borders, but a point of view and that its inclusion to clarify needs “consensus”, lest it corrupt public opinion from understanding that “periphery” instead, implies borderline fluidity? Should we then also take out "are a Native American People" from the Navajo wiki article? Propaganda is also the omission of truth. By not allowing the term "ancient Greek Kingdom", you are disallowing the contextual clarity that is afforded every other Wikipedia article, which then makes this "consensus" nothing more than a political directive aimed at establishing precedent to disassociate Ancient Macedonia from Greece and thus its future definition. Macedonia was not an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Greece it was an ancient Greek kingdom period and anyone putting such effort into prohibiting this relevant cited and factual information from an article should not be allowed to edit wikipedia. If removing the one most relevant fact about the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and its Greek people from Wiki is not Vandalism...I don't know what is. Vergiotisa (talk) 02:13, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Nothing is being "removed". If you think that's what this is about then you need to do your homework. This article was written years ago without the word "Greek" before "kingdom" and it has stayed that way for over a decade. It was written by an editor with a distinct pro-Greek POV as evidenced by his calling the Republic of Macedonia "FYROM". This is about whether a group of POV-pushing editors can build an consensus against the current WP:NPOV wording. They are failing because the issue of how "Greek" Macedonia was changed over time and was not always clear-cut. Even scholars admit as much. So your bogus implication that somehow we are "removing" something from the first sentence is utterly false. --Taivo (talk) 03:43, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Now you are being disingenuous. I wrote ‘disallow’ not “remove”. And the kingdom of Macedonia being a Greek kingdom is an established fact, there is NO dispute about that. Who resided in the kingdom and what people came and went is anyone’s guess but there is NO DOUBT it was a Greek kingdom under Greek Dynasties. No scholar disputes that. Is wiki about POVs or is wiki about factual truths? And are you implying that this article is not allowed improvement to align with facts as it is afforded every other article?

Ten years ago the politically motivated editing of Macedonia that had gone on in Wikipedia was not evident nor was there the insurmountable propaganda on the internet that necessitates this clarification. Therefore, anything relating to Macedon in wiki should refer to it as the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon to avoid confusion with the Slavic claims north of historical Macedonia. I now wish to change it to 'ancient Greek kingdom' which is a historical fact, to differentiate between the two and to stop confusion. Are you saying that you are the gatekeeper to this article and will not allow me to add a historical fact? Vergiotisa (talk) 04:54, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Read the final sentence of your previous post. Perhaps the verb "remove" means something different to you than it means to the rest of us. I was merely quoting your own word right back to you. And I am not "the gatekeeper". You ignore the simple fact that during the formal RfC above, the majority of actual Wikipedia editors opposed the insertion of the word "Greek" in the first sentence of this article. Wikipedia doesn't run on "majorities", but on WP:CONSENSUSes. Without establishing a consensus for change, change isn't going to happen. There is no consensus to insert the word "Greek" in the first sentence here. --Taivo (talk) 06:49, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Taivo, you really don't need to respond to all this. Let's keep the noise down, shall we. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:26, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Taivo may not need to respond but you have no place denying me my due civil redress to the comment he made, by claiming it is noise because it doesn’t fall in line with your point of view.

Clearly Taivo you do not understand the rhetorical inference of my last sentence. Instead, you are intent on evading addressing my response that the proposed edit is not, in your words “ramming a point of view”.

I will reiterate: It is historical fact that Ancient Macedonia is an ancient Greek kingdom in the northern Greek Peninsula and not a kingdom on the ‘periphery’ of the Greek world. Your accusation that someone is ‘ramming their POV” then is false. Therefore, objecting to a simple edit to improve the context of the article, which is done routinely in every other article on Wikipedia equates to academic dishonesty, and propaganda by omission and has absolutely no logical objective other than to set the precedent to disassociate Macedonia from Greece.

Ultimately, the goal of writing a reliable encyclopedia is one that cannot be left to the arbitrary consensus of editorial biases. A reliable encyclopedia must keep to verifiable facts and in this case, the academically verifiable fact is clear and not in need of consensus. Ancient Macedonia is an ancient Greek kingdom in the northern Greek Peninsula and its historicity must be completely distinguished from the Slavic Republic to the north to avoid confusion. Wikipedia has a duty to clarify supported academic truth, not to complicate it. Vergiotisa (talk) 14:34, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposal for solution

Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient Greek kingdom that emerged on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece.

Everyone agrees the state ended up Greek culturally and linguistically by the end of the Classical Period, it is its origins that appear ever so slightly misty in terms of its Hellenism. If anyone debates that Macedon was a Greek state by the time of Philip II (culturally, religiously, linguistically and via self identification), please explain why. Reaper7 (talk) 03:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. As above. Again. This is no solution, this is simply restating your uncompromising POV. Again. --Taivo (talk) 07:15, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

This is, however, no "proposal for solution". It is the same old sledgehammer to pound "Greek" into every possible position before the word "Macedonia(n)" here and elsewhere. It makes the same tired and false assumption that the article doesn't exist and that this one sentence must reflect a simplistic view of everything there is to say on the subject. --Taivo (talk) 15:09, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Self-determination is not POV, is universal right, my friend. Editors and the scholars have nothing to do with that, how can self-determination of Macedonia be considered a POV, escapes me. It was their choice and we should respect it. -- SILENTRESIDENT 15:44, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. Seriously, these "proposals" are getting worse and worse. This one implies that the kingdom only became what this article is about at the time at which it became fully "Greek" (whatever that might mean), and that any earlier stages aren't even part of our coverage. Nonsense, of course – a great deal of what we have to say about its history concerns the time in which contemporary observers routinely contrasted "Greek" with "Macedonian" as mutually exclusive ethnic attributions (i.e. up and including the time of Alexander). Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:18, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Dear Future Perfect, while the article takes note of the reliable sources by scholars, it makes no mention of the kingdom's cultural identity. The kingdom considered itself as having Hellenic cultural identity but this information was, for 7 years, denied or opted out of the article due to editorial POV. You see that this isn't working and people all these years have been urging for this information to be added. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not politics. WP:CENSOR and Cherry picking of information should be avoided even if some editors here do not like it. -- SILENTRESIDENT 16:06, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

You are wrong, SilentResident, and you have clearly not researched this. This article never had the word "Greek" in the first sentence. Ever. And it was originally written by an editor who called the Republic of Macedonia "FYROM", so he was hardly a "Slavo-Macedonian". You are simply projecting your bias into the history of this article. --Taivo (talk) 17:41, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I see. To clarify myself: it is the past 7-8 years that I am more familiar with. There are thousands of entries. Checking just 7 years-long logs took me lot of time to do and didn't processed beyond that point, my dear. -- SILENTRESIDENT 18:08, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support. This was my proposal on the first place, per WP:RS (we have reliable sources name Macedonia "a Greek kingdom") and WP:CENSOR (we shouldn't worry if ethnic Macedonian editors find the word "Greek" disturbing). The vast majority of primary, secondary and tertiary sources agree more or less on the Greekness of ancient Macedonia. Macedonian (talk) 08:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose per Fut.Perf. I'd still support a more nuanced ethnic description. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:21, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Conditional support: as I've carefully outlined above, there are more than enough WP:reliable sources to support the notion that the Macedonians are to be considered ethnically Greek. However, since there is still scholarly debate on the matter, I would only support this wording if it was immediately followed by a giant footnote listing many if not all the sources I've shared above in an annotated fashion or with direct quotations from their authors providing input on the nature of the Macedonian ethnic identity and native culture. I know that it is given a good amount of coverage in the article "Ancient Macedonians", but this article could also be serviced by a small section, perhaps towards the end, highlighting this ancient and modern controversy about the Macedonian identity and spoken language. Pericles of Athens^Talk 09:43, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree, I have suggested the same here. Macedonian (talk) 10:15, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose as earlier "proposals". The "conditional support" from Pericles of Athens illustrates the point. The need for a "giant footnote" shows that the "Greekness" of the Macedonians is far too complex to present in one word in the lede. That analysis could, of course, absolutely be expanded in the article itself. --T*U (talk) 10:27, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support.Conditional Support: Cultural identity and self-determination are a principle and value of humanity. No one, especially no editor here, has the right to deny the ancient Macedon its rights. The kingdom self-defined itself as "Hellenic", not as "Non-Hellenic" or as "Barbarian" or whatever. Only Hellenic and only that. This should be reflected on the article since this article is about them. Either on lead, either on lower sections of the article. If Wikipedia recognizes the right of self-determination for i.e. the Republic of Macedonia, but denies it for the Kingdom of Macedon, then we have double standards and a serious case of WP:CENSOR and WP:NPOV violation. Period. -- SILENTRESIDENT 16:17, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

EDIT: I changed my Support to Conditional Support: If Pericles of Athens's suggestions for improving the proposal by adding more information on the lead are taken in account, i will support it. -- SILENTRESIDENT 00:00, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support: As proposed by Pericles and supported by mainstream bibliography. Apart from being part of the Greek world all entities in this part of the globe had also distinct local features: in dialect/politics etc., but the available archaeological data clasifies them as part of the Hellenic/Greek group.Alexikoua (talk) 12:19, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support. Blind Support: For the reasons described by SilentResident, Macedonian, Alexikoua and of course supported by the mainstream scientific community. NickTheRipper (talk) 13:18, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• I struggle to see at what point I am supposed to be persuaded that this proposal is better than or even significantly different to the proposal rejected at RFC above.

This proposal does precisely what I said I felt shouldn't be done in the RFC. It removes the nuanced text "...and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece." and replaces it with the word "Greek". The former - the status quo text - is far more useful to the reader. That is the most important qualification here. Not what the ethnicity of the Macedonians was. That should be well down the list of priorities. We don't need to go into that at this stage at all. The key question is how can we best introduce the topic Macedonia (ancient kingdom) to our readers, and this proposal removes useful introduction without adding anything useful in its place. I oppose.

As a side point, I would note that when an argument takes as its premise that anyone who does not support this particular turn of phrase is some kind of pro-Slavic POV pusher it is very difficult to take it seriously. Kahastok talk 21:50, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

@Kahastok: I offered conditional support with the belief that the final portion of the statement "...and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece" would be preserved in the lead section. If that is to be removed for some odd reason then I would certainly have to retract my approval, since it is imperative to mention Macedonia's prominent place in Greece during the Hellenistic period, an era that Macedonia (through the conquests of Alexander) was directly responsible for ushering in. Aside from that, I stand by the idea of offering a detailed footnote that provides the reader with a litany of annotated sources describing the debate about the Greek identity of Macedonians. Pericles of Athens^Talk 23:41, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Kahastok got a valid point. This additional information suggested by Pericles of Athens is much-needed on lead. -- SILENTRESIDENT 23:57, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

If we take the proposal as being to keep the text "...and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece" then how is it relevantly different from the proposal at RFC? I opposed in the RFC. I don't see any good reason to reconsider. Why should or would I?

Another side point. Insofar as the ethnicity of the Macedonians is relevant, the impression I'm getting on the substance of that question can be summed up as, "the lady doth protest too much, methinks". Kahastok talk 21:35, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Kahastok: for some users here that might be the case, but this is no place for such speculation and/or insinuation about other editors' motives (see Wikipedia:No personal attacks). In either case, mentioning the majority ethnic makeup of certain historical states and societies is fairly common on Wikipedia. Take for instance the article on the Novgorod Republic, which specifically calls it an "East Slavic" country of the 12th-15th centuries. Or other examples, such as Francia (preceding the Carolingian Empire) being ruled by the Franks, or the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) of northern China referred to as the ethnic "Jurchen" dynasty right in the first paragraph of the lead. Mind you, I'm not saying this article has to conform to that convention, but it's not as if mentioning ethnicity in regards to historical countries is without precedent. Regardless of how this consensus and vote pans out, I will be adding a well-deserved section to this article about the ethnicity and language of the ancient Macedonians. Pericles of Athens^Talk 23:56, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support: Facts are facts. Tiberius Rex (talk) 15:02, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Unnecessary proliferation of photos

Photos should not be just eye candy. The language section is three sentences long, less than a half-inch of text on my screen. A photo of a stele illustrating the fact that the Macedonians used the Greek alphabet (as if there were other options at the time), is rather unnecessary. I've left it in for now, but am against using photos that illuminate nothing whatsoever just because we can. --Taivo (talk) 10:52, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

In fact its essential for this article to have at least one image about how the people in this state wrote down their language. Any deletion would be simply disruptive. (...as if were other option that time? doesnt sound like a decent argument, I can name various ancient s.european & non Greek scripts).Alexikoua (talk) 11:02, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

You can't name any "ancient s.european & non Greek scripts" that existed in the southern Balkans at the time and were used to write Greek. If you were writing Greek (which this inscription is) next to Greece you don't use the Etruscan alphabet or the Old Latin alphabet or the Hebrew abjad, etc. You write it in Greek. When's the last time you wrote Russian in the Roman alphabet? It's like saying "Here is Japanese written in Japanese". The point is that two sentences do not need an image to prove them. Are you going to put a photo for every two sentences in the text? It's pointless and overwhelming to the reader. There is a fine line between having illustrative photos to demonstrate key points, and filling the page with eye candy so the reader doesn't even look at the images--even the ones that matter. This image for "language" is utterly pointless and it actually forces the following images to move down so that they no longer line up with the paragraphs they illustrate. --Taivo (talk) 15:29, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Taivo: I appreciate the concern, but please, take a deep breath, and then exhale. Slowly. Drink some tea or do some relaxing yoga in the meantime, because I explained to you above that I'm not finished writing this section. For starters, additional text will be added, and I assure you the pictures will align more accurately with the sub-sections. More importantly, I added this picture not only because it illustrates Macedonian writing in the Greek alphabet, and not only because it is sweet "eye candy", but because the religion section is just below it, and I plan on discussing religious practices such as funerary rites, burials and steles. Given how you were eager to delete the map picture I offered with the territories using different alphabets, I had a feeling this would also happen. I ask you to suspend judgment about further pics or text, and recognize that the task is still incomplete so long as the "under construction" tag is at the top of the culture and society section. And yes, I do plan on speaking a bit about Dion, given the image from the Archaeological Museum in the religion section. Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:35, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

If this image is tied to the religion section in the caption, then I have no objections to its inclusion (religion is a "meh" issue for me). Tying it to the two sentences of the language section is the problem and what I consider to be overkill. --Taivo (talk) 17:44, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

I'll admit that the map showing the proliferation of different variants of the Greek alphabet in antiquity was pushing it and somewhat irrelevant, but once the "religious beliefs" section is fully fleshed out, the funerary stele will be entirely justified, if not already justified by the content of the "language and dialects" section. Keep in mind also that some of these pictures are meant to illustrate points that are made in multiple sub-sections, especially with statements from sources taking an interdisciplinary approach by discussing a combination of subjects, such as artwork & religion, or religion & politics, or material culture & burial practices, etc. Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:12, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

New sections on culture, society, technology, engineering, and currency

After all these years this article seems pretty undeveloped, so I decided to be WP:BOLD and took it upon myself to create these new sections. User:Macedonian saw fit to help out thus far, but I could use some help in terms of gathering and citing reliable sources for this diverse array of topics. If you ladies and/or gentlemen are quite finished arguing over the semantics of the first sentence of the first paragraph in the lead, I would greatly appreciate your input, advice, and additional content for these new sections. I've been relying mostly on the chapters by Hatzopoulos in Brill's Companion to Ancient Macedonia (2011), although I've cited other works such as Badian (1982), Sakellariou (1983), and Anson (2010). My knowledge of Macedonian architecture is rather slim, so I certainly need some assistance there. Aside from artillery and siege engine technology, I also don't know much about native Macedonian contributions to science and technology, or how many original inventions they made. Their royal court certainly sponsored literary and technical pursuits. Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:45, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

You have our full support on this. I remember I had some sources especially on ancient Macedonian architecture, currency and pottery. I will see if I can get them in English. -- SILENTRESIDENT 18:19, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers. Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:01, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Just today User:Judist (User talk:Judist) tried reverting edits User:Macedonian and I have made to the new section on ethnic identity. I invite Judist to come here to the talk page to air his views, although I find this reasoning to be highly problematic: "(several reasons - ethnic is unscientific title for an ancient state or people that may not have such identity; pushing modern Greek author Hatzopoulos is deceiving not helpful; addition is undiscussed." For starters, the concept and discussion around ethnic identity is absolutely scientific, since ethnology is a core topic of cultural anthropology (and social anthropology). You're perhaps confusing ethnology for something like Race (human categorization), which is indeed seen by the academic community as being unscientific. The section I started and that User:Macedonian has contributed to discusses this topic using only academic sources published by academic presses, which for some reason you find "deceiving not helpful" because one of those scholars happens to have a Greek surname and is a Greek national. That is not a legitimate reason to revert cited material, especially when it is from a publication like Brill's Companion to Ancient Macedonia from Brill Publishers.

Among the topics you deemed fit to revert:

• M. B. Hatzopoulos' (2011) discussion of the political influence on contemporary Greek views of Macedonians and their ethnicity (and the level of their alleged barbarianism), which is backed up with citations by Sakellariou (1982), Errington (1994), and Champion (2004);
• the geographical definitions of Hellas presented by ancient authors;
• the comparison of Macedonians to other marginalized Greek groups in antiquity such as Epirotes and Cypriots
• Edward M. Anson's (2010) summary of the mythological genealogy constructed by other Greeks for Macedonians to show the shifting views about their inclusiveness within the Greek world;
• discussion of classical authors ranging from Hesiod to Hellanicus, Plato to Aristotle, and Herodotus to Thucydides;
• Ernst Badian's (1982) input about the works of Arrian
• and finally, the political nature of Athenians comparing ancient Macedonians of the Lamian War and Chremonidean War to the earlier Persians of the Greco-Persian Wars.

I'm not sure how or why you thought these were illegitimate topics for discussion and how the nationality of one of the scholars and authors of secondary source material here was relevant, so I'd like to hear you elaborate on that one. Keep in mind that when we discuss the sources above, we are doing so with the fact that these publications are WP:Reliable sources, and none of these academics are considered by the scholarly community as WP:FRINGE authors of any sort. In the meantime, I think you should also take the opportunity to familiarize yourself again with other Wikipedia guidelines, such as Wikipedia:Edit warring and Wikipedia:No personal attacks, since you have a history of engaging in these in regards to articles involving the topic of ancient or modern Macedonia in particular. I would advise you to enter this conversation with a cool head and to present your ideas calmly, because they will be given serious consideration and follow-up discussion. Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:01, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

As for your claim that this addition has not been discussed on the talk page, I would direct you not only to the present section here, but also the section I began above about reliable sources, as well as the "Proposal for a solution" section. Others were welcome to comment, they did, and yet somehow you viewed this as a lack of discussion. Mind you, the main discussion of this talk page has thus far been about how to manage one particular sentence in the lead section, but that does not negate the fact that I have been discussing adding these new sections for several days now. I know it is cumbersome to tread through large talk page discussions like this and to follow everything that is being discussed, but if you are going to raise an accusation about this, at least be prepared to defend your assertion. Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:24, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the sources I had about the architecture, I can no longer locate them, so I looked abit on internet to find new ones, especially in the English language: [1], [2], [3]. About coins, found a list depicting the coinage of the ancient kingdom: [4] [5]. I remember there was some bibliography about the architecture in Dion, Pella and Vergina. If I manage to locate it on Google Books, I will let you know. -- SILENTRESIDENT 13:08, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

@SILENTRESIDENT: thank you very much for sharing these! I'll try to look into these sources immediately to scour info for our article here. Excellent work.Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Be careful to make a distinction between the kingdom and the people here. This article is about the kingdom not the people (who are described at Ancient Macedonians). Cultural topics should be balanced with their relative value to describing the kingdom versus describing the people. The issue of the ancient Macedonian language is not so clear-cut as the paragraph you wrote implies. No one disputes that the language was (closely) related to Greek, but there is a question over whether it was "Greek" (a northwestern dialect) or closely related to Greek. The last two sentences were too definitive and too detailed on one side of the issue to be useful here. That information is better left in the Ancient Macedonian language article. A broad summary is better here and interested parties can look to the other article for further reference if they care. So I've edited it to say 1) the written language of the late kingdom was exclusively Koine, 2) the sparse epigraphic evidence indicates either a dialect of Greek or a closely related language. That's a summary of what is known. The interpretation that I removed is just one way of interpreting the facts. The discussion of competing interpretations belongs in the language article, not here. --Taivo (talk) 16:04, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Replacing a conlusion based on up to date SECONDARY bibliography with a tertiary Encyclopedia isn's a sound approach to improve this project [[6]]. However, if additional interpretations about the recent archaeological evidence in ancient Macedonia (incriptions ect), have been published these can become part of the article.Alexikoua (talk) 16:35, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Nothing was "replaced". Both conclusions are mentioned briefly without coming down on one side or the other or steering the reader in one direction or the other. The subtlety of the debate from all reliable sources doesn't belong in this article, but at Ancient Macedonian language. The "conclusion" that you mention is just one option among scholars. The issue is not clearly decided. I chose Woodward as a source here since it mentions the options and the debate, not because it takes a position on one side or the other. In this article, the fact that there is a debate about what the facts mean is all that is necessary to mention. The debate itself, and the arguments surrounding each point of view, should not be here, but in the other article. --Taivo (talk) 16:40, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

And your comment that Pericle's text was a "stable version" is simply false. It was a recent addition to the article. --Taivo (talk) 16:48, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Pericles' addition is useful to an extent, but it went too far in relying on a single source and landing on a single conclusion. I simply backed it up a step to make it more of a summary and added in the other possible conclusion. --Taivo (talk) 16:50, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

If you were worried about it relying too much on a single source (M. B. Hatzopoulos), then I'm confounded as to why you thought it best to remove Edward M. Anson's (2010) input about epigraphic evidence and inscriptions in the Greek language. Also, Woodard's input is fine (I've retained your edit, but slightly corrected the formatting of your citation) and I agree that there should be some balance to the section if there are differing conclusions among academics about the certainty or ambiguity of the native Macedonian language. Hatzopoulos actually did a fine job in that regard by noting the influence of non-Greek tongues of the original inhabitants such as the Phrygians (whose Indo-European language is indeed related to but not classified as Greek). Also, keep in mind that the section is still under construction (as per the tag in that section), so if there is any information that seems unfinished then that is the reason why. I'm still gathering sources to complete these sections. Thanks for adding Woodard, though. Any additional sources are welcome, so long as they are not WP:FRINGE or belong outside of academia. Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:32, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I assumed you were finished with the language section. I removed the last two sentences because their tone was too definite and didn't leave the door open for other interpretations of the same facts. The non-Greek substratum is just one interpretation, the other is that it reflects the ancient Macedonian language and that the Greek elements were borrowed into a closely-related language. I agree that fringe material doesn't belong here. But my other point remains--this isn't the place for a detailed debate, or even for multiple sources, since there is a far more appropriate article to place those things in. Language, except in a very summary sense, is not an major topic for an article about a kingdom. It's more relevant to the cultural article (Ancient Macedonians) and even then the majority of the detail belongs in the language article (Ancient Macedonian language). So, in a sense, this article is a tertiary article, the ethnicity/cultural article is a secondary article, and the language article is a primary article. --Taivo (talk) 17:40, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I do appreciate your attempt to make the paragraph more inclusive, but the level of detail that you devoted to the "Greek" interpretation was excessive for this article. That's my fundamental point--putting details in the appropriate article. I would also object to an edit that put an excessive amount of detail relevant to the "not-quite-Greek" interpretation as well. It's not about who is right and who is wrong in this case. It's about where the details are appropriate (Ancient Macedonian language) and where they are not (here). --Taivo (talk) 17:46, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

@Taivo: for the time being I've moved the aforementioned material (citing both Anson and Hatzopoulos) over to the article Ancient Macedonian language. However, I have to wonder if this is simply a case of content forking:

There are two situations where spinoff subarticles become necessary, and, when done properly, they create the opportunity to go into much more detail than otherwise permissible:

1. Articles where individual sections create an undue weight problem
2. Large summary style overview meta-articles which are composed of many summary sections

In both cases, summary sections are used in the main article to briefly describe the content of the much more detailed subarticle(s).

Sometimes, when an article gets too long (see Wikipedia:Article size), an unduly large section of the article is made into its own highly detailed subarticle, and the handling of that subject in the main article is condensed into a brief summary section. This is completely normal Wikipedia procedure. The new subarticle is sometimes called a "spinoff" from the main article ("spinout" leads elsewhere); Wikipedia:Summary style explains the technique.

Even if the subject of the new article is controversial, this does not automatically make the new article a forbidden POV fork. However, the moved material must leave a WP:NPOV summary section of that material behind. If it doesn't, then the "spinning off" is really a clear act of POV forking: a new article has been created so that the main article can favor some viewpoints over others and ignore one viewpoint.

A common situation is when a particular controversial incident gets a lot of attention from reliable sources representing different points of view, expanding until every item of evidence is included and referenced. This kind of detailed examination of a single incident in a general article will usually be considered to give undue weight to the incident, so it is more appropriate to break that section out as a separate subarticle and just leave a summary section in the main article.

It is most certainly not the case that the sub-section "language" was getting too large on average, necessitating a fork. I do see your reasoning about Wikipedia:Summary style, but a measly three sentences almost seems to hardly justify the section at all now. There should be a little more meat to that sub-section, in my opinion. In either case, I would like you to clarify or elaborate a bit more about language as it pertains to the Macedonian state/kingdom as opposed to the people, the ancient Macedonians. I would like to flesh out the "language" section in this article a bit more, but I would like to do so while avoiding WP:Edit warring with other editors. Were you opposed to Anson's statement about Greek inscriptions simply because you believed it lent too much weight to the argument that the native ancient Macedonian language was a dialect of Greek? Mind you, Anson's input was twofold: that the native language was most likely a dialect of Greek and that 99% of all 6,300-some inscriptions were written in Greek, meaning both the Northwestern dialect of Greek that was supposedly the native language AND the overwhelmingly larger amount of material written in the lingua franca of Koine Greek. I can understand why you removed Hatzopoulos' input about the Phrygian language influence (a detail perhaps better suited for the article Ancient Macedonian language), but I don't think it is reasonable to remove Anson's quantitative statement about the number of inscriptions found and the percentage of them in the Greek language. It is not some scholar's biased guesswork; it is an archaeological fact. Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

In the meantime, I've also placed the removed cited material into a footnote, which I think is a reasonable compromise for now in addition to moving said material into the related Ancient Macedonian language article. Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:30, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

@Taivo: your latest citation using Eric Hamp & Douglas Adams (2013) needs a page number! Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:51, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

It's separately paginated. --Taivo (talk) 19:13, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Language is only relevant to articles about political units as they relate to written materials, official status, and demographics. The provenance, origin, and genetic affiliation of languages are immaterial to the political question of a state. The fact that Hungarian may or may not be a separate branch of Uralic or related to Mansi and Khanty is immaterial to the issue of the Hungarian state. Thus, the details of whether Ancient Macedonian was "Greek", "a Greek dialect", "a Greek dialect with non-Greek substrate", or "non-Greek with Greek substrate" is irrelevant to a discussion of the Kingdom. The written language that was used in the kingdom was "standard" Greek. That doesn't mean that was the vernacular, just the official language. The meager evidence for the vernacular indicates that it wasn't standard Greek. The debate over what it was is irrelevant to the nature of the kingdom in this article. It's enough to say that the written language was Koine Greek (our first sentence) and that the people spoke something else that may or may not have been "Greek". All the other details about what that spoken language was are definitely relevant to the discussion of the language itself (Ancient Macedonian language) and the discussion of the people apart from their government (Ancient Macedonians). --Taivo (talk) 19:02, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's the first time I agree with something Taivo said. NickTheRipper (talk) 22:19, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Pericles has done excellent work thus far in enriching the article with more information as possible. Taivo got a point that more detailed information should instead be added on the article Ancient Macedonian language and here rather use a summary of what in that article is written about it. The archeological evidence which notes that 99% of the discovered and excavated ancient Macedonian inscriptions are in Greek, should be noted in the Language article and not here. Here in the Kingdom article we just should summarize this information without that many details, with focus given to the kingdom's use of that language instead of detailed description of characteristics of that language. -- SILENTRESIDENT 12:40, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

However, Taivo's statement is partly in wp:OR territory. For example I wonder how can someone conclude that "The meager evidence for the vernacular indicates that it wasn't standard Greek..." First of all there was not a "standart Greek language of Classical Greece". Even a non-linguist would lauph by hearing this one.Alexikoua (talk) 14:39, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

You clearly didn't notice the quotation marks I put around "standard". Perhaps you don't know what that means. Perhaps I should have written "Athenian" or "Attic" or "Greek variety used by the upper literate classes of Athens and Corinth and considered to be the 'best' Greek" so that even you could understand what I was writing. Even a non-linguist would laugh to think that you believe "standard" and standard mean the same thing. --Taivo (talk) 15:22, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

There is no standard, nor "standard", nor "best". Just the extremely mountainous geography of Greece which consists of 80% mountains and only 20% of valleys, is what encouraged not only the sea trade and seafaring among ancient Greeks, but also limited the contacts between local Greek societies, which contributed to this large variety of the Greek language. Now that Athens excelled in literature, does not necessarily made the Attic dialects "best" or "standard". Just the Epirotes and Macedonians, for various reasons, did not had their own dialects more well-known and documented. -- SILENTRESIDENT 22:02, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Apparently the difference in meaning between "standard" and standard is utterly lost on all you non-native speakers of English. By putting quotes around "standard" I imply that there was no official standard (as we all well know), but that there was a level of speaking that was considered "good Greek" by the Athenian aristocracy. Indeed, you all know that there are many comments among central Greek (Athenian, Theban, Corinthian, etc.) authors that the Macedonians didn't really speak Greek, but spoke a barbaric tongue. This is the meaning of "standard"--not that there was an ancient "Academy of the Greek Language", but that the snobs in Athens thought the Macedonian "Greek" was not really good Greek. It's sad that you have wasted all your time to say something that Americans would have understood I meant simply by seeing the quotes around "standard". --Taivo (talk) 22:38, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Taivo: in regards to your recent reversion of material from Edward M. Anson's book chapter (2010), in particular the citation about the Greek alphabet, we are all very impressed with your own personal, extensive knowledge of ancient Greek culture and writing systems of antiquity, but this is Wikipedia, where we cover the basics even if it seems elementary to those who understand history very well. Our article must accommodate a whole range of readers, some of whom are as young as secondary school children. These articles are not written only with you in mind; they are written for everybody (or at least everyone who is literate, possessing an 8th-grade or higher level of reading comprehension). Also, can we say something about your seemingly laser-sharp focus and obsession with policing and micromanaging this one sub-section? It borders on Wikipedia:Ownership of content, in particular the examples provided in the section "Examples of ownership behaviour". Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:06, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Saying that "Greek was written in Greek" is akin to saying that "Japanese was written in Japanese". It's redundant and, therefore, unnecessarily pedantic. Shall we also say that "All Macedonian inscriptions were written with the accusative case on nouns, pluperfect aspect on verbs, and fully declined participles that agree in gender, case, and number with the nominals that they modify or substitute for." There are a number of things that are assumed (and never need to be spelled out) about Greek. Being written with the Greek alphabet is one of them. Find another way to incorporate a reference to Anson if it's that important to you. But just saying that Greek was written in Greek isn't it. My point is, and I'm not alone in this, that the details of language use in Macedonia, other than the brief outline that we've already presented here, is better relegated to the article that specifically refers to the language. Greek of all ages, has always been written in no other way than with the Greek alphabet, so saying that the inscriptions were written in the Greek alphabet is really ridiculous. We don't write for a third-grade reader here, but for a general reader. I daresay that 99.99% of all our readers will know that Greek is (and always was) written with the Greek alphabet. If you find a similar comment along the lines of "All Greek inscriptions in Athens(/Corinth/Thebes/Ephesus/etc.) were written in the Greek alphabet" then you might have an argument to include it here. Otherwise, singling this article out for a redundant statement like "Greek inscriptions in Macedonia were written in Greek" is unwarranted. --Taivo (talk) 03:47, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Mycenaean Greek was written in Linear B, but that is virtually unknown outside the archeological community and irrelevant here. By the 4th century BCE, it was about a millennium in the past. --Taivo (talk) 03:51, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Wait a minute, aren't we saying that Macedonian was somewhat different from Greek? It is therefore not at all redundant or obvious that it would be written in the Greek alphabet. It is informative and useful. And it is also very well sourced. Prof. Anson doesn't seem to find it redundant, he actually finds it important enough to mention in his work. Obfucius (talk) 07:11, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Inscriptions in Macedonia were overwhelmingly written in Greek, not in the vernacular, so, of course, they were written with the Greek alphabet. And the comment that you can find a reliable source that says, "The Greek inscriptions in Macedonia were written with the Greek alphabet" is totally irrelevant. You can also find a reliable source that says "The sun rose in the east in ancient Macedonia" as well. Does that mean that we need to include obvious and totally non-informative information in Wikipedia? No. The only reason that the alphabet would be interesting or even mildly informative here is if the Greek inscriptions were not written using the Greek alphabet. You are declaring that every single time, every...single...time, no matter what the context, the Greek language is mentioned that we must include a reliable source that says, "Greek is written with the Greek alphabet". That's what you are implying. --Taivo (talk) 07:34, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, if you hadn't gutted Anson's fully-elaborated point with your crusade to trim the "language" sub-section down to two neutered sentences, you would probably have remembered that Anson's original point was that 99% of all inscriptions were in the Greek language and 1% of them were not. By default that means we're not just talking about Greek, are we? And no, no one implied that the Greek alphabet must be mentioned in every instance where the Greek language is also mentioned; it is important to mention it here given the ambiguity about the Macedonian language introduced by the sources you've cited arguing that it was merely a language that was close to Greek (a creole language, if you will), not an actual dialect simply belonging to Greek. And you keep assuming everyone who comes across this article understands how things were written in antiquity. I hate to break it to you but most people are not that bright or well-informed; there are some people who don't even know the Greeks have a separate alphabet from Latin (take for instance my brother, who's otherwise a brilliant automotive technician and can reassemble a Chevrolet from scratch, but doesn't know much at all about foreign cultures let alone the history of them). Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:57, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

First, of all, you don't seem to know what a creole language is because Ancient Macedonian definitely was not a creole. And you know very well that I am not the only editor here who thinks your original paragraph was excessive and that the information that was cut does not belong here, but in Ancient Macedonian language. But you use that tired old argument that "people who come here may not know that Greek was written with the Greek alphabet and has been continuously for about three thousand years". If that is true here, then why isn't it true everywhere you mention Greek in the context of writing or inscriptions? I looked specifically at Rosetta Stone. You'd think that some readers going there would not know that Ancient Greek was written with the Greek alphabet, but there is not a single, solitary mention of the Greek alphabet. What makes that different than here? Not a single thing. It mentions Egyptian hieroglyphic script, it mentions Demotic script. You'd think that in the context of scripts, the Greek alphabet would be mentioned. But it is not. Your argument just seems to be a way to make sure that Anson is referenced in some way because it makes no sense whatsoever to mention the Greek alphabet here. Your argument is not backed up by Wikipedia's utter "failure" to remind readers that Ancient Greek was written in the Greek alphabet even in contexts where it would be appropriate. --Taivo (talk) 17:07, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Some people don't know that the earth revolves around the sun. Does that mean that each and every time we mention a "day" or "year" we have to inform those readers that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around? --Taivo (talk) 17:11, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I mentioned creole above given Hatzopoulos' argument that the Macedonian language contained elements of other languages related to Greek, such as the Phrygian language. From your perspective, using sources that you cited such as Brian D. Joseph (2001), Macedonian was possibly a language related to Greek in that it belonged within the Hellenic branch (alongside Ancient Greek) of the Indo-European language family. Secondly, which other editors besides you think that the "paragraph was excessive and that the information that was cut does not belong here"??? So far our talk page discussion has included you, me, and User:Obfucius, User:SilentResident, and User:Alexikoua, none of whom have agreed with this move at all. In fact they've been fervently arguing against it. So...are you telepathically reading the minds of other editors here, or are you making up imaginary friends here on the talk page who are cheering you on from the sidelines? Your Rosetta Stone argument is interesting, but once again, given how Anson specifically said that not all inscriptions were in the Greek language, and given the alleged ambiguity of the Macedonian language's classification from the sources you have provided, it is quite reasonable to mention the written script used for these. Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:36, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

"Influence from other languages" does not, and never has, made a language a "creole". It's a technical linguistic term that should not be thrown around lightly. And here is another editor who overtly agrees. Along the lines of the summary nature of this paragraph, it doesn't matter what the nature of Macedonian was, the question of what script was used to write it is irrelevant to the description of the Kingdom of Macedon(ia). It is perfectly relevant to the description of the Ancient Macedonian language, but it is just unnecessary detail here. This article is not about the Ancient Macedonian language or the alphabet that was used to write it. That's what you don't seem to understand clearly. This is an article about the Kingdom, not the languages and not the people. Once we have written that the official language of the Kingdom was Koine Greek, that's absolutely everything that needs to be said about it here. Once we have written that there is evidence that the official language was not the vernacular, that's all that needs to be said about it here. This is not the place for a discussion of the writing systems or the number of inscriptions or anything else along those lines. This is not the place to discuss the relative relationship of the Ancient Greek and Ancient Macedonian languages. Those discussions belong at the relevant language articles. No matter how much you want to use Anson's quote here to prove whatever it is that you want to prove, it is not relevant here. It is, of course, relevant in other articles, but not in this one. And my Rosetta Stone argument isn't just "interesting", it is definitive. When we say "Greek", we imply everything there is to imply about Greek--its alphabet included. And your continued comment about "but I've got a reliable source" only goes so far. I've got reliable sources from one side of the library to another that say all kinds of things, but they have to be relevant. That is the test that your Anson quote fails in this article. --Taivo (talk) 18:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

You're probably right that a full discussion does not belong here in this article about inscriptions and alphabets, but portraying a single, terse sentence as a discussion seems rather hysterical and hyperbolic, in my opinion. The ferocious level of digital ink you've spilled about this topic makes it seem as though I've been trying to cram loads of irrelevant statements into this article, when we're talking about a single sentence. I've also modified the statement a bit to reflect Woodard's (2010) [2008] input about Attic Greek. In either case I have no plans on expanding the sub-section any further, unless I do come across something about language that is relevant to the Macedonian state and kingdom. Isn't that reasonable? Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:11, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

(ec)I don't actually have any objection to the recent addition about the majority of inscriptions being in Greek. It's relevant because it is information about the official (monumental) language of the Kingdom. But it makes the nonsense about the alphabet even more irrelevant. Once you've said "Greek", you've included the script, the grammar, the lexicon, the sound system, etc. Everything that a reader would learn about the Greek language in the appropriate articles is included in the word "Greek" here. --Taivo (talk) 19:12, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

And it's not "hyperbolic" to keep a section from sounding silly. I'm a linguist and so I watch for linguistic inaccuracy and nonsense. Saying that the Macedonians used the Greek alphabet to write Greek is utter nonsense from a linguistic point of view. It is on the level of saying that the earth revolves around the sun when discussing the Macedonian calendar--it is axiomatic and thus not needed for comprehension or reasonableness. It is why at Rosetta Stone the bottom section of the tablet is described as "written in Greek", not "written in Greek in the Greek alphabet". --Taivo (talk) 19:17, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Dear Pericles of Athens, I appreciate a lot your boldness and valuable contributions here which, I admit, I myself been reluctant to do, due to alarming levels of over-protectionism of this page. But, Taivo is right in that if Language is mentioned, alphabet is not necessary. The Language section, after your latest edits, has the focus shifted from the language's characteristics to the language's use and evolution which naturally is related to the kingdom itself. It is much better now - at least for me. -- SILENTRESIDENT 20:01, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, User:SilentResident, I agree that the section is much better now. It is focused on the languages as they relate to the state and well-referenced. It is also an undisputed fact that User:PericlesofAthens has made some excellent improvements to the article as a whole with his hard work. While we have had a healthy disagreement here, that doesn't detract from the praise he deserves for his overall task. --Taivo (talk) 20:43, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

@SILENTRESIDENT and Taivo: thanks for the compliments. The language sub-section is fine as is, I suppose, although I was thinking about adding a blurb about the spread of Koine Greek into Asia thanks to Alexander's conquests and concerted efforts to offer a Greek education to his eastern subjects. However, it's already passively mentioned in another sub-section below, however, and admittedly that statement would be more about Alexander's empire than about Macedonia proper. Your thoughts? Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:01, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Alexander's empire is part of the continuum of Macedonian political rule so I would think it's appropriate in one or the other place, but not both. Did he spread Greek as a tool to spread education or did he spread education as a tool to spread Greek? I rather suspect the former rather than the latter. Since the language section isn't about Koine Greek, but about the languages of the Macedonians, I think that it's better in the other place as a byproduct of Alexander's empire and the spread of education. The languages of the broader empire are therefore immaterial to the languages of the Macedonians (since they weren't Macedonians and the empire was short-lived relative to Macedonia proper). --Taivo (talk) 02:32, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Gymnasium

please change ((gymnasium)) to ((Gymnasium (ancient Greece)|gymnasium}} — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:541:4305:c70:c8d5:1cb2:8e4e:ac82 (talk • contribs)

Done DRAGON BOOSTER ★ 15:31, 21 January 2017 (UTC)