Pella Curse Tablet - Significance

Significance

The discovery of the Pella curse tablet, according to Olivier Masson, substantiates the view that the ancient Macedonian language was a form of North-West Greek:

"Yet in contrast with earlier views which made of it {i.e. Macedonian} an Aeolic dialect (O. Hoffmann compared Thessalian) we must by now think of a link with North-West Greek (Locrian, Aetolian, Phocidian, Epirote). This view is supported by the recent discovery at Pella of a curse tablet (4th cent. BC), which may well be the first 'Macedonian' text attested (provisional publication by E. Voutyras; cf. the Bulletin Epigraphique in Rev. Et. Grec. 1994, no. 413); the text includes an adverb "opoka" which is not Thessalian."

Of the same opinion is James L. O'Neil's (University of Sydney) presentation at the 2005 Conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies, entitled "Doric Forms in Macedonian Inscriptions" (abstract):

"A fourth‐century BC curse tablet from Pella shows word forms which are clearly Doric, but a different form of Doric from any of the west Greek dialects of areas adjoining Macedon. Three other, very brief, fourth century inscriptions are also indubitably Doric. These show that a Doric dialect was spoken in Macedon, as we would expect from the West Greek forms of Greek names found in Macedon. And yet later Macedonian inscriptions are in Koine avoiding both Doric forms and the Macedonian voicing of consonants. The native Macedonian dialect had become unsuitable for written documents."

Professor Johannes Engels of University of Cologne argues that the Pella curse tablet provide evidence to support that Macedonian was a North-West Greek dialect:

"Another very important testimony comes from the so-called Pella curse tablet. This is a text written in Doric Greek and found in 1986 This has been judged to be the most important ancient testimony to substantiate that Macedonian was a north-western Greek and mainly a Doric dialect."