What Language Did Alexander The Great Speak? (Answered!)

Alexander the Great and his Macedonian kin spoke Ancient Macedonian. Though the precise nature of this language is up for debate, evidence shows it was most likely similar to the Greek dialects of Aetolian or Doric. It may just be simpler to say that he spoke Greek, or a dialect thereof.

Languages of this period in this area of the world were multitudinous and varied, with a lot of influence and overlap, so we may never know the precise nature of the language Alexander the Great spoke.

It was certainly Greek in one way or another, but the debate is over the nature of the dialect he spoke.

Let’s find out more.

In This Article

What was Alexander the Great’s native language?

There are a couple of interpretations of this question.

As I said, Alexander the Great, thought of often as a great Greek hero, was actually Macedonian.

Macedonia was a kingdom in Ancient Greece, on the peripheries of Greece, but later the dominant state of what is called Hellenistic Greece.

For many scholars and laypeople, then, the question is simply settled—Alexander the Great spoke Ancient Greek, or a dialect thereof.

Others have found it more useful to assign the name of a new language to the language spoken by the Macedonians.

This would be called Ancient Macedonian.

What was Ancient Macedonian?

This question is perhaps far more complicated than you might think.

There are two main possibilities for the genesis of the Ancient Macedonian language. It may, as I’ve said, have simply been a dialect of Greek, largely mutually intelligible with most other forms of Greek.

On the other hand, it may have been an entirely separate Hellenic language.

However, Hellenic is a branch of the Indo-European language family whose primary language is Greek.

The bulk of the evidence we have points in the direction that Ancient Macedonian, the language spoken by Alexander the Great, was a Greek dialect most similar to Aetolian or Doric.

The Aetolian League was a confederation of city states in ancient Greece, centered by the city of Aetolia.

They spoke in Doric Greek during the early period.

Doric was a group of Greek dialects which were spoken over a very large area.

It’s entirely possible that Doric was the dialect spoken in ancient Macedonia.

Koine Greek, on the other hand, developed in the Hellenistic Period and became the “common” Greek across the region.

As you can see, the question becomes incredibly muddled.

Dozens of varieties of Greek were spoken across the region where Greece city states existed and any one of them could arguably just be a dialect of Greek or its own language entirely.

The simplest answer is that Alexander the Great spoke a dialect of Greek, which, while not identical to the Ancient Greek we most commonly think of, was still identifiable as a dialect.

Virtually no contemporary sources survive to tell us precisely what language Alexander and his people spoke in.

We only have later Greek and Roman sources to go off.

What other languages could Alexander the Great speak?

Again, we don’t really know, unfortunately.

It’s often supposed that he would have had a good working knowledge of a few languages since he traveled so far and wide in his campaigns.

He was very often at war with the Persians, such as his famous war with Darius III, the last Achaemenid king of Persia.

So, it’s possible he was able to read or understand Persian.

Depending on just how different the dialect of Greek that he spoke was from wide Greek, he may have had a separate understanding of Greek, too, for correspondence with other city states.

The truth is, we just don’t know!

Was Alexander the Great a Persian?

Alexander the Great was not a Persian, no, but this is a common confusion for one particular reason.

Alexander the Great was Macedonian, but his empire was one of the largest the world had ever seen.

He conquered the Persian Empire and thus named himself king of Persia and emperor of all of Asia.

He named himself king of Persia by right of conquest, and not by any birth right.

He was Macedonian through and through, it was just that the extent of his conquests were so great he ruled over an enormously diverse group of people.

Persia today is modern day Iran, and ethnically the term Persian is still used often for the Farsi language.

But there is no connection there to Alexander the Great’s native tongue.

So, while we know more or less for sure that Alexander the Great spoke some form of Greek, it’s simply incredibly difficult to be able to nail it down any further than that with any certainty.

Many say he spoke Ancient Macedonian, but many would also argue that such a language doesn’t really exist, and it was simply a dialect of Greek.

We may never know for sure.

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Founder - @PollyWebster

Polly Webster is the founder of Foreign Lingo and a seasoned traveler with a decade of exploration under her belt.

Over the past 10 years, she has journeyed to numerous countries around the globe, immersing herself in diverse cultures, traditions, and languages.

Drawing from her rich experiences, Polly now writes insightful articles about travel, languages, traditions, and cultures, sharing her unique perspectives and invaluable tips with her readers.

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