Editing Openai/692f079d-f9d8-8002-88e1-85bb3ea56480 (section)

==== 1. “Bilingual barbarians” does not mean Macedonians spoke a non-Greek language ====

Thucydides (4.109) indeed says that some cities on the Athos peninsula were populated by mixed groups—Pelasgians, Bisaltians, Crestonians, Edoni, and some Chalcidians—and that they were bilingual.

But Thucydides is describing the inhabitants of those specific peninsula towns, not Macedonians as a whole.
These people were from Thracian and Pelasgian groups—not ethnic Macedonians.

Nothing in this passage claims that:
* Macedonians were bilingual, or
* Macedonians spoke Pelasgian, or
* Macedonians could not understand other Greeks.

This is a misapplication of the text.