Articulative and acoustic characteristics of the ancient macedonian language
According
to the articulate and acoustic characteristics (the same applying as well
for the modern macedonian language), all the sounds could be divided into:
vowels and consonants. The ancient macedonians differentiated and used
the following vowels: frontal E and I and back vowels A,
O, Q, Å, U u form which A is a low vowel, E,
O, Q and Å are middle vowels,
but I and U are high vowels. The ancient macedonians recognised and used
short O, semilong Q
and long Å and this prehistoric orthographic
rule proceeds it’s use up to the middle age inscriptions and handwritings
and could be met even in the orthographic rules of Constantine Kostenechki
who differentiated O with one dot in the
middle when writing the word “OKO” (“EYE”) and a wide
O with two dots inside when writing the word “OCHI” (“EYES”).
The appearance of the sound
(R) R is interesting, which performed
two functions: of a consonant and a vowel. Namely from the so far deciphered
material, in the role of a vowel it appears in the following cases:
Between
two consonants:
|
(“P’RSA”) P’RSA,
|
|
(“VR”) VR etc.; |
When it is found at the beginning of a word before the consonant:
 |
(“ ’RBETE”) ‘RBETE (“ ‘RXE”) ‘RJE etc., |
but in these cases, before the vowel
R the apostrophe or any other sign of markation has not been registered.
There hasn’t been registered a case of a vowel R behind a preposition
and before a vowel, so according to this it is not a familiar example
of writing an apostrophe or sign above as in the mentioned case.
Apart
from the mentioned samples we should mention a specific curiosity case
of the declinated old macedonian personal pronouns which as part of the
fixated speech of our ancestors we noticed on the upper part of the oval
lateral sides of the bronze seal from around the year 1.500 B.C. from
the location Tserye close to Govrlevo, where we deciphered the following
forms of the personal and non personal pronouns nominative form I person
plural
IM (i(`e), ih, im. ih, imi, nih) (and, they, them, they, to them) in the expression:
MI IM which from right to left is deciphered, transcribed and read as “MI IM” (“MI IM”) which would say “NIE NIM” (“WE THEM”) or with a simple preposition construction “NIE NA NIV” (“WE ON TO THEM”).
Following so if we bear in mind the above
shown samples the whole inscription of the bronze seal from Govrlevo should
sound as:
or
which read from right to left would say:
“YIRNAL
/ NIE NIM / K’SI OD POSADATA”
“ZIRNAL / NIE NIM / K’SI OD POSADATA”
“SAW WE THEM SHORTY FROM THE GARRISON”
or
“YIRNAL / NIE NIM / L’SI OD POSADATA”
“ZIRNAL / NIE NIM / L’SI OD POSADATA”
“SAW WE THEM BOLDY FROM THE GARRISON”.
In
the shown seal inscriptions the words “K’SI” (“K’SI”)
“SHORTY” and “L’SI” (“L’SI”) “BOLDY”
in fact remind us of the oldest macedonian personal names turned into
nicknames from adjectives of the types that still could be met in Macedonia,
Petre kusiot (Peter the shortone), Borka levata (Borka the leftone), Riste
zelenata (Riste the greenone), Kiro sinata (Kiril the blueone) etc. One
of the most prominent generals of Alexander III Macedonian (356 –
323 B.C.) was called LISI (LISI), LISIJ (LISIY) or LISIMAH (LISIMAH) (361
- 281), while the greatest maestro of ancient sculptures and greatest
portrait maker of Alexander III Macedonian was the sculpturer LISIP (LISIP)
(IVth cent. B.C.). The ancient macedonian language which by Webster’s
encyclopaedia in 1967 was treated as a pre language of all the slavs had
the following simplified consonantal system:
Labial,
Labio – dental,
Alveo – dental,
Alveo – dento – Alveolar,
Alveolar
Soft Palatal,
Hard Palatal.
Besides the shown division of the consonants according
to the place of formation they can also have the following divisions:
1. According to the manner of formation we defferentiate:
Plosive,
Fricatives,
Africatives.
2. According to sonority we differentiate:
Sonorous
non - sonorous
Some with their characteristics are closer to vowels and because of their greater sonorousnes they are infact consonants:
|
Inscription
of the Upper Holy temple: “I U V’R L’G” with
a meaning |
A gravestone monument of Prsa Neno Silni Mlado Nagoricani (5000-4500 B.C.) |
|
A gravestone monument of the brother-in-law UT'G UEOCO with mentioning of the names end surnames of the brothers-in-law STOLE NAD'MSEJ from Osincani, near Skopje (7000-6000 B.C.) |
