Northwest Greece

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Distribution area of ​​the Greek dialects. Northwest Greek dialects in brown

Historical research describes a group of tribes of the ancient Greeks who spoke their own dialect of ancient Greek as north-west Greeks . Together with the Doric dialect, it is also summarized in the Doric-Northwest Greek dialect group or, more recently, assigned to the Doric dialect itself. The term Northwest Greece is a modern construct to denote this Greek group that cannot be named by any other name. Their culture is poorly known; it is possible that they did not even form a heterogeneous unit. In modern times there have been repeated efforts by individual groups to misuse this term in today's situation in the Balkans.

This dialect group has been described since the pre-classical period. Individual north-west Greek tribes inhabited the historical areas of Achaia , Elis , Aitolien , Akarnanien , Lokris , Phokis and Phthiotis in classical times . Presumably the Northwest Greeks, like the Dorians , lived in the outskirts of the Mycenaean culture during the Late Bronze Age . According to the thesis of the Dorian migration , they penetrated the southern Balkans only later and less far, and in some cases still persisted in rural and nomadic social formations , when the Greeks further south were already the first city-states , territorial lords, planting cities ("colonies" in the ancient sense) and Thalassocracies formed. So they settled away from the areas in which the cultural development and prosperity of Greece took place. The few groups that penetrated the Gulf of Corinth settled in Boeotia and Thessaly , where they mingled with the local population.

In a geographical sense, Macedonians , Epirotians and Thessalians can also be called north-west Greeks, a definition that is based on the current spread of the Greek language in the Balkans. It is unknown whether a Northwest Greek dialect was spoken in Macedonia in classical times . Doric, which was later used in literature, gives no indication of the spread of the language. Not so with inscriptions that were found in varying concentrations in individual parts of the area of ​​distribution. The north-west Greek part of the Doric-north-west Greek dialect group has a special place there and has more in common with Elish.

literature