Introduction:

Origins of the Name

Reading through my posts, for sure you would have noticed  that I often refer to the Pelasgians.

A question then naturally arises, “who are these Pelasgians?”  Before I go on talking about Macedonia and its related topics then, it is important to address this question and clear out any doubts.

Who are then, these curious Pelasgians? This is the name given to the indigenous European population, situated in the Balkan Peninsula, by the Hellenic colonisers, id est the Greeks. It is simply the first ever recorded name pertaining to them. What they called themselves, we do not know.

For the sake of the truth, it must be said that the Pelasgians are somewhat of a semi-mythical people, and that is because a lot legends and myths are woven around them. Hesiod for instance, claims that they originated from Pelasgus, son of Lycaon, and hence they got their name. Since their deeds were known far and wide, it was said that many heroes were called Pelasgi. Homer numbers them amongst the people that fought on the side of Troy. For these reasons some are indisposed towards their actual existence.

Despite this mythical aura that surrounds them, however,  the Pelasgians, or Pelasgi, were very much real people who, left a mark on the area that they inhabited. We will see this clearly later on in this article. For now, let’s focus on the word itself. Where does this word come from and what does it mean? Like with their nature, there isn’t a clear cut definition. The options are many, but the generally held consensus is that it comes from the Attic word “pelargos” meaning “stork”, since  it was believed that they were wanderers and settled at any place suitable for them.

According to another account, this word might be connected to the Molossian word “pelioi” and “peliai” – terms which they used for an old man, and an old woman, respectively. In Strabo we may also read that these terms were used by the Macedonians as well.   If we take for a fact that this Macedonian is the same one as the language spoken today, then most likely this word was pronounced “belio/belia”  (remember that Hellenic and Roman authors wrote the foreign terms through Greco-Latin lenses). This makes sense, when we discover that “bel” in Macedonian means, “white”, and the elderly people are in fact whitened in the hair.

This also makes sense  on another note. The elderly can also mean the people of old, meaning the previous generations, so it can also pertain to the people prior to the formation of the tribes that would come to be known as Macedonian. In this sense it carries a double meaning and it reinforces the idea of the Pelasgians being ancestors to the Macedonians.

Some Counter-Arguments

Some modern scholars and independent researchers tend to label them as Proto-Greek, but they are grossly mistaken when they claim this, because it starkly contrasts with what the Hellenistic authors are claiming, and that is that:

1. The Pelasgians were the original inhabitants of the Balkans. They were there prior to the arrival of the Hellenes.
2. They spoke a barbarian language.

They never conflated the two races together, nor did they claim that the Hellenistic language stemmed from the former.  

Other scholars claim that these people were pre-Indo-European and hence spoke a non-Indo-European language. But this claim is also grossly erroneous because:

1. There is no real evidence to the ridiculous Kurgan theory and a massive Indo-European invasion.  
2. The language they spoke was Proto-Macedonic.

It is generally known that anyone who didn’t speak Greek, was called barbarian, id est foreigner. From this follows that the Pelasgians cannot be Greek. Herodotus also makes this contradicting statement, when he says that the  Hellenes came from the Pelasgians. He seems to be confusing the fact that by his time, the Hellenes have heavily mixed with the indigenous population, so it is natural for some of them to spring from this mixing. That doesn’t mean that the latter came from the former, but Herodotus erroneously presents it in this light. Elsewhere, he also claims that the Macedonians came from the Hellenes, which obviously is not true. That’s why we have to read these old histories carefully, and consider them only when they fit into other facts.   

 

 

 The Land Speaks: The Footprints Of The Pelasgians

Moving on, the ancient authors all explicitly relate that the Pelasgians inhabited the whole of Peloponnesus and the surrounding islands. Their seat was Argos in Paeonia, hence the name Pelasgian Argos, and from there they settled throughout the entirety of modern-day Greece. They also ruled over Epirus. Strabo mentions that it was believed that they originated in Argos near Mycenae, thus making them Arcadians, but when we consider that their religious centre is closer to Argos in Paeonia, and that the region was called Pelasgian Argos, plus the name for Thessaly, “Pelasgiotis” then, the point of their origin being on Argos in Arcadia is mute.

 Their settlements however was not focused entirely in the Balkans. Pelasgians also inhabited the surrounding lands, coexisting with the Carians for instance, in Asia Minor.  

It would make sense then, that the topography would bear Pelasgian, or Proto-Macedonic elements; and indeed when we dust off the Interpetatio Graeca we get clean, Macedonian sounding names.

 Let’s have a look:

The river that runs near the area knowns as Pelasgian Argos is called Peneus, in Macedonian this would be “Peney”. The river has its name after the centaur Peneus, son of Oceanus and Tethys. This name is derived from a  plain Macedonian word, still in use today, and that is “pena” which means “foam.” It makes sense to name a son of the ocean with the name foam – the ocean does foam after all.

The island of Rhodos; when we take out the suffix “-os” we get, “Rod”. Rod in Macedonian means kin. It gives us words such as:

Porod, narod,  roditeli, “offspring”, “people”, “parents”,  etc … in other words, all words related to meaning of kinship. Why the name Rod? We learn from Diodorus that according to legend, the Rhodians got their name from Roda, the daughter of Poseidon and Chalia. The sun god Helios fell in love with her and named the island in her honour. Roda is a “Slavic” name par-excellence. By this legendary genealogy hence, this makes the Rhodians kin, that is “rod” to the gods. We find an echo of this divine kinship in the name of the god Rod, the supreme deity of the northern, “Slavic” id est, Macedonic people, alternatively known as Svarod,  Svarozhd, Svarozhich ,“the all begetter.”

The Rhodians were considered offspring of the god Helios, id est Ilios/Il/Ile (hence the name “Illyrians”), for as it is told, after a flood that befell Rhodes, the sun dried up the land and made it liveable. The seven Heliades were thus born, and then the other inhabitants. Hence they worshiped the sun the most. It is quite possible then, for the worship of Rod to be another interpretation of this mythical genesis that remained in the memory of the northern peoples.  Not only that, but it also makes sense of the derived words from “rod.”

Going back to the toponymy, we find out that not only the name of the island, but its metropolis and largest mountain as well bear a Pelasgian name.

The name of the metropolis is Kamir (Lat. Camirus) and the mountain, Atamir (Lat. Atamirus). You will notice that both contain the suffix  “– mir” which is a common “Slavic” ending, but also found in certain Germanic terms such as names, for example of the Goths.

Kamir is made up of two components Ka + mir. “Ka” means “towards” and “mir” means peace, hence, “towards peace.”

Atamir contains Ata + mir.  Ata is an old Macedonian word for father. We can also find it in the Phrygian Attaios (Attay). The Goths also preserved this word, which once again hints to their Balkan, that is Pelasgian origin. We’ll explore the Germanic link elsewhere.  

Samos = Sam. Sam in Macedonian means “alone.”

Samothrace = Samotrakija in Macedonian, with the clear and natural meaning of “Only Thrace”.

Samo in Macedonian means “just”, “only”, but it can also mean “alone” as we saw above, therefore rendering “Samotrakija.”  Strabo confirms that the original inhabitants of the island were Thracians who are of Pelasgian stock.

The first inhabitants of Crete were also Pelasgian, and we can infer this through the origins of the first ever inhabitants. These were the people known as the Idei Dactyli, who originated in mount Ida in Phrygia. We know that the Phrygians are the Macedonian Brygians. From this follows that these settlers are in fact Phrygian, which makes them also Pelasgian. According to Diodorus, later on the Pelasgians proper also settled on the island and we are told that these had the same language as the first inhabitants, hammering the point home of the Pelasgian origins of the Idei Dactyli.  

Afterwards, they settled Lesbos, which was  called Pelasgia after them.  Even Peloponnesus itself was called Pelasgia prior to the arrival of the Hellenes. What is more ironic however, is the fact that the name Peloponessus is also of Macedonic origin. The official etymology of the word states that it means “island”, but Pelopenssus is not an island but a peninsula. When we couple this with the story of how the place got its name, the truth becomes that much more clear.

Namely, according to the legend, the hero Pelops carried some of his people away from Phrygia to Peloponnesus, hence giving the place its name. Now when we transliterate the name in Macedonian we get, “Pelopones” and when we break it down even further, we get “Pelo + pones” (even if we remove the “s” from the Greek form Peloponnesos, we get again Peloponeso).

Pones/Poneso means to carry something/someone over. It can also be said when someone is figuratively carried away by something. Thus, this tells us that Pelo/Pelops carried over the people, who turn out to be Phrygians, id est, Macedonians. The whole story is literally surmised in the name alone! You can’t make this up.

The Greeks themselves cannot give such natural sounding explanations to these names, because they do not understand these meanings at first glance. But in Macedonian it makes perfect sense.

This reveals another truth (painful for the Greeks) that they (the Hellenes) got the language from the Pelasgians. This turns the whole “Greek borrowings into Macedonian” thesis on its head. It was not they that they influenced our language, but the other way around.

The Language of the Gods

The Pelasgians also gave the name of the gods to the Greeks. That means that the Olympian pantheon was originally Pelasgian, id est Macedonian! And not Greek! Herodotus tells us that there were eight gods at first, before they were twelve, which matches with the fact that the Greeks added on other deities – who again – are not Greek in origin.

This begs the question, who copied whom? Who took from whom?”

Let us look at the names of the gods now, starting with the most known and high god – Zeus.

The English “Zeus”, comes from the nominative form of the name in Greek.  Yet, this is not his true name; that is Se/Seo. Transliterated in English it would be “Dze”.

The sound “dz” doesn’t exist in English, nor in Greek, that is why the they rendered him Zeus. Dze is the primal, monosyllabic name of this god, (compare Ma) and it contains the root for the word “ѕвезда„ , “dzvezda”, “star”.

The fact that Zeus was a Pelasgian deity is hammered home by Homer in his Iliad, where he describes Achilles praying to the Pelasgian Zeus of Dodona. Dodona was the centre for Zeus worship for the Pelasgians, – located in Thessaly – where the sacred white tree was located and his oracles would say sooth under it, by interpreting the flight of the doves.

Now not only in “star”, but his name is survived in the children’s play, “se!!” – equivalent to the English “peekaboo”. This is reflective of the sun hiding and then reappearing behind the clouds.

The name of Dze, gives rise to the Macedonian verb “zee” which means “to stare”. Hence the English “see”, German “zehen” etc …  all related to light, visible. Is it surprising then, that the later Zeus hurls bolts of lightning? Lightning illuminates the sky and hence falls in the luminary sphere. It’s safe to say that Dze was in fact the god of all the light that emanates from the sky and that includes the stars, the sun, and of course lightning.

Not only did they provide the local deities’ names, but of foreign as well. According to Diodorus Siculus, the Egyptians venerated Zeus as Osiris since time immemorial. He tells us that the name “Osiris” means the “illuminated one”, because he was depicted as a many rayed sun, using the rays as eyes to see everywhere. What he doesn’t tell us however, is that this name too is of Pelasgian origin.

In Macedonian today we have the verb “oѕари„ , “odzari” which means “illuminate”, but in a sense of a sudden illumination, for example when we open the window and the sun brightens up the entire room. On the other hand however, in colloquial terms it can also describe an action where one opens their eyes wide to stare intensely – exactly like “zee”/”stare”.  We can find this in the sentence, “sho stojsh ko ozaren?” , “why are you gawking?”   So, the double meaning of Osiris’ name with both illumination and using the rays as eyes has been preserved in modern Macedonian speech, while in Greek these words do not exist.  

From Zeus we move on to Athena, Zeus’ daughter. She too is a Pelasgian deity.  From this we also learned that the Pelasgians built Athens as well,  and they still inhabited it up to the arrival of the marauding Hellenes. The Pelasgians peacefully took them in the city, but the savages repaid them with violence and kicked them out of their own city (remind you of anyone?) Those that chose to stay were later Hellenised and forgot their own tongue.  

Nevertheless, the proper rendering is Ataina, which means “the father’s”, “of the father”. In modern Macedonian we would say “tatina”. It’s still a common term of endearment that fathers use for their daughters: “tatina kjerka”, “father’s daughter”.  Ata is an old Macedonian word for father. We can also find it in the Phrygian Attaios (Attay). The Goths, a Pelasgian tribe in origin, preserved this word.

Hermes is also a Pelasgian deity, whose name was Ermo/Germo. It’s hard to say what his name originally meant, but the Greek form is suspected to mean “ a heap of rocks”. This makes no sense, but since we have no clear etymology for the original Pelasgian, we have to be content with this. What is certain however is that Germo gave his name to the peoples known as Germani (Germans). 9^th Century Saxon monk, Widukind, says that the Saxons always venerated Odin, whom the Romans called Mercurius. And Mercurius is the Latin name for Hermes/Germo. There is a village, and a mountain in the today occupied region of Aegean Macedonia by the name of German, which is suspected as a possible point of origin. For now, this should suffice on that matter.  We’ll talk more on the Balkan origins of the Germanic peoples another time.

We’ll also talk in more detail about the other gods in another, dedicated post.

The Storks

 Before we wrap up this blog, I want to make mention of a very interesting analogy which was brought to my attention by reading Vasil Chulev’s, an independent researcher from Macedonia, work on the Pelasgi. In it, he makes the connection between the Pelasgi as storks with an old Macedonian tale called “Silyan Shtrkot”, “Cillian the Stork.” In this story, a young boy named Silyan is cursed to become a stork and wander around the land.  Before he can return home he must break the curse, which in the end he succeeds to do. Chulev suggests that this story might be an echo, a memory, stuck in the Macedonian collective memory of their ancestors’ wandering nature, and I’m inclined to agree.

To sum up, from everything that we have seen so far, the answer to whether the Pelasgians were Proto-Greek, or Non-Indo-European on the other hand, should be unequivocally – no. Down to the appearance of the Hellenes, the Danaans, the Pelasgians remained their own, separate tribe. Yes, some were melted into the colonising, Hellenic hotpot, and forgot their origins, yet a good portion of them persevered. Even with the formation of the Macedonian substratum, the Pelasgians didn’t simply disappear. Instead, they became a small elite unit of the new and emerging society.  As for the origins of the term, both the Attic, pelargos, and the Macedonian beloy, suits them. Like the storks, who are migratory birds, their descendants migrated all over Europe, not just the Balkans, and like the storks, some came back to their homeland (like Silyan from the story) and the like the beloy, the old people, they remained to guide the new generations. After all, the Macedonians honoured their dignitaries with the title, “peligones” id est, “beligoni” “the white ones”, similar to how the Spartans called their senators “gerontes” – “old men.”

This was just a piece of the cake. In the following posts more and more of the cake will be revealed, until all of it is in plain sight. Stay tuned for more.