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The overwhelming majority of the Greek Macedonians speak a variant of Greek, called Macedonian (Μακεδονίτικα, Makedonitika). It belongs to the northern dialect group, with phonological and few syntactical differences distinguishing it from standard Greek which is spoken in southern Greece.
During 1930s, some Macedonians began to indicate that their nationality was "Macedonian", and promoted this new ethnic identification, following political directives. The first organization in the United States to support the idea that Macedonians constitute a separate nationality was the pro-communist Macedonian People's League. [26]
Another meaning of the term is fanatic Greek. [5] The term is considered highly offensive to the Greek people. [ 6 ] The "Grecomans" are regarded as ethnic Greeks in Greece , but as members of originally non-Greek, but subsequently Hellenized minorities, in the neighboring countries.
Ernst Badian notes that nearly all surviving references to antagonisms and differences between Greeks and Macedonians exist in the written speeches of Arrian, who lived during a period (i.e. the Roman Empire) in which any notion of an ethnic disparity between Macedonians and other Greeks was incomprehensible. [232]
His views and skepticism on the ethnicity of the ancient Macedonians, rejected by the Greek government, led to the Greek refusal to allow him to film with British historian Michael Wood for the 1998 BBC television series In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great inside Greece. [8] In 2008, he received a festschrift published in his honor. [9]
In 1999 the Greek Helsinki Monitor estimated that the number of people identifying as ethnic Macedonians numbered somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000, [12] [262] Macedonian sources generally claim the number of ethnic Macedonians living in Greece at somewhere between 200,000 and 350,000. [263]
The Lyncestae after incorporation retained their local ethnonym like the rest of the Upper Macedonian and Epirote tribes that became part of Macedon. This was not the case of the non-Greek populations (Thracians and Paeonians) indicating that the Lynkestae shared a common Greek identity with the core of the Macedonian kingdom. [74]
There is also a dialect of Modern Greek called Macedonian Greek and spoken by the Greek Macedonians. [7] [8] [9] Such variations in nomenclature are often due to political opposition from Greece rather than scientific or linguistic reasons, as the usage of the term Macedonian to describe the Slavic language remains dominate in academic and ...