Paeonian, sometimes spelled Paionian, is a poorly attested, extinct language spoken by the ancient
Paeonians until late antiquity.
Paeonia once stretched north of
Macedon
Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled b ...
, into
Dardania, and in earlier times into southwestern
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...
.
Classification
Classical sources usually considered the
Paeonians distinct from the rest of the
Paleo-Balkan people, comprising their own ethnicity and language. It is considered a Paleo-Balkan language but this is only a geographical grouping, not a genealogical one. Modern linguists are uncertain as to the classification of Paeonian, due to the extreme scarcity of surviving materials in the language, with numerous hypotheses having been published:
*
Wilhelm Tomaschek
Wilhelm Tomaschek, or Vilém Tomášek (May 26, 1841, Olomouc – September 9, 1901, Vienna) was a Czech- Austrian geographer and orientalist. He is known for his work in the fields of historical topography and historical ethnography. and
Paul Kretschmer consider an “Illyrian” hypothesis (i.e a part of the linguistic complex of the ancient north-western
Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
) which, according to
Radoslav Katičić, seems to be the prevailing opinion.
Radoslav Katicic
Radoslav () is a common Slavic masculine given name, derived from ''rad-'' ("happy, eager, to care") and ''slava'' ("glory, fame"), both very common in Slavic dithematic names. It roughly means "eager glory". It is known since the Middle Ages. Th ...
, (2012) Ancient Languages of the Balkans: n.a. Volume 4 of Trends in Linguistics. Walter de Gruyter, p. 119, .
*Dimitar Dečev and