User talk:Alcaios/Germanic

Florian Blaschke, Obenritter, Thomas.W, Krakkos, Bloodofox, Yngvadottir, Ermenrich, Berig, Dbachmann, Hrodvarsson, Alarichall,

this draft has been created to improve the article on Germanic peoples. It is mainly focused on historical linguistics for the moment, although the final goal is to encompass any subject within the scope of the above-mentioned article (hence the growing bibliography). Feel free to improve it and participate in the project. Best regards, Azerty82 (talk) 00:10, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

A few remarks:

Loanwords in Finnic and Saamic are judged to belong to several temporal layers spanning from the Pre-Germanic period (the Nordic Bronze Age, from the second millennium BC) over the Proto-Germanic period (mid-first millennium BC – followed by gradual differentiation into a continuum of regional dialects including the ancestors of East and Northwest Germanic in the course of the late first millennium BC) into the Proto-Norse and Old (East) Norse periods and ultimately ending in the Old/Middle/Modern Swedish (plus Gutnish) periods.

I think it's more useful to imagine Proto-Germanic (like other proto-languages) as a regional dialect embedded into a continuum of closely related regional dialects ("Macro-Germanic"), just like Latin was embedded within the Italic languages. So it's a proto-dialect rather than a proto-language. This way, it makes historical sense that reconstruction yields a uniform language with no regional variation (socio-linguistic variation along other axes should also have existed, but is hard to reconstruct).

Lombardic shows evidence of the OHG sound shift and is generally very similar to the contemporary oldest attestations of Old Upper German (Old Alemannic and Old Bavarian) in the 8th century (with onomastic and runic material already from the 7th), with a few characteristic (but generally conservative) traits that are not particularly odd in an Upper German context, therefore it is now widely judged to be essentially an Old Upper German dialect (although the main evidence is phonological), and other classifications are considered obsolete (see Lombardic language). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 07:04, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Dear Florian Blaschke,

Nothing to say about the first point. The paragraph is referring to early contacts between pre-Germanic and proto-Finnic speakers, and gives an instance of an early loanword, which is a central argument in the debate on the Urheimat. It does not imply contacts did not occur later. I'll clarify the wording.

That's a good point, although the mention of a non-uniform proto-language is rather a general statement from linguists on the historical reconstruction of non-attested languages. If a dialectal variety and lexical divergence existed within proto-Germanic, they were indeed limited by the geographical spread of their speakers during the pre-Roman period. I'll clarify with complementary sources.

This is just a question of wording: the word "some" was missing in the sentence "lack OHG features" (this has been corrected). Here is the original quote:

The problem persists if we combine diachronic and diatopic evidence. The name Langobardi, for example, is attested around the lower Elbe near Hamburg in the 1st century CE; in the following centuries, this tribe migrated through Eastern Europe until they invaded Italy in 568 CE. In many respects the few attested Langobardic words (most of them from about 1−2 centuries after the invasion of Italy) are quite similar to OHG, but they lack some specific OHG features. On the basis of the early tribal seats, some scholars attributed the Langobardic language to Ingvaeonic (North Sea Gmc), others, however, to Erminonic (Elbe Gmc). The obvious linguistic relationship with OHG, on the other hand, was partly explained as common heritage of Elbe Germanic, whereas others considered it as a result of a secondary OHG-Lang. “sprachbund”. The fact that they had for a while been neighbours of East Germanic tribes, such as the Goths and Gepids, left its marks especially on proper names; yet some scholars even considered Langobardic to be a genuine East Gmc dialect. Their opponents emphasized its North Gmc features and referred to medieval records which claimed Scandinavia as the original homeland of the Langobards (for this discus- sion cf. Bruckner 1895: 24ff.; Frings 1932: 32; Maurer 1952: 49ff.; Schwarz 1951: 233 ff.; Kuhn 1955: 1 ff.). Azerty82 (talk) 07:45, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Fine. A nitpick, though: Proto-Finnic technically refers to the stage immediately preceding the start of divergence into (most likely) the Coastal (Livonian plus Gulf of Finland Finnic) and Inland Finnic (South Estonian) branches, which has been dated by Mikko Heikkilä to the second century AD, employing the evidence provided by loanwords (p. 163 bottom). The stages that loanwords (significantly) older than Proto-Norse were borrowed into are accurately described as Pre-Proto-Finnic. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:01, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

contemporary sources section

Of course this may be premature, but FWIW, the contemporary sources section implies that the named classical authors were writing about language in ways I think might be misunderstandings. I would see those classically recorded divisions as non-linguistic? There is also this specific comment...

Since most of their knowledge was based upon indirect contacts with Germanic tribes, classical authors tended to write about "the Germanic language" as a uniform idiom, and they sometimes misclassified their dialects.

Unless I am mistaken, which is always possible, there is no such classical reference, let alone plural. In fact, the one classical author who made some remarks about this type of thing was Tacitus and he specifically mentioned multiple Suebian languages as examples of Germanic languages (implying not only multiple languages, but also non Suebian Germanic languages).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:58, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Dear Andrew Lancaster, I'm happy to see that we can have a constructive debate again.

The classical divisions are indeed non-linguistic. That is why the introduction of this sub-section read "Classical authors used several models of division for the Germanic tribes" and not "(...) for the Germanic languages". I have clarified the organization/wording.

I have clarified the second point. What was implied is that classical authors referred to "the Germanic language" as a "uniform unit" distinguished from non-Germanic languages when their internal classification became unclear to them. The internal groupings given by those contemporary authors are consequently sometimes misleading or wrong.

This is indeed a draft, and I have not got the time to review it until this morning. Any comment–from you, Florian Blaschke and other contributors–is therefore very welcomed. Azerty82 (talk) 08:26, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

OK, great. It is not linguistics, but there are common remarks by many scholars (Walter Pohl for example) that such classical ethnography united the Germani only as a type of political/military threat, defining them partly by what they were not (not Gauls, not Scythians), and did not claim that the Germani all spoke the same language, wore the same clothes, saw themselves as a category, etc. I don't want to take a strong position myself here, just once again mentioning something that might or might not be helpful. Partly the debate revolves around Tacitus, who certainly described diversity, but seemed to feel that although there were grey areas, you could point a stick at something real called a Germanic person. Once again, too, this is already discussed to some extent in other parts of our existing article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:47, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Note that Walter Pohl, as for Goffart, has always been welcomed as a source in this draft. He is consequently being added to the bibliographical section. Azerty82 (talk) 09:34, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

High German sound shift

The text current says that the High German consonant shift affected Dutch, Low German, and Frisian. This is incorrect: only High German and Central German were affected.—Ermenrich (talk)

In fact, the affected groups were Upper German and Central German, which are combined under the umbrella term High German. Dutch, Low German and Frisian only share TH-stopping with High German, but it is controversial if TH-stopping should be considered part of the High German consonant shift, and the development found in Frisian follows the North Germanic rather than the High German pattern. (There are also some marginal, transitional or extinct dialects which form exceptions to the rule just described.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 08:23, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

This is of course incorrect, added at 2am yesterday night; I was not referring to the second consonant shift but to the consonant shift of *þ towards a d-stop. Azerty82 (talk) 08:24, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Just for fun I suppose NONE of these languages were affected by the shift, logically speaking, but their "predecessor" dialects. The shift is part of what linguists use to define the resultant languages/dialects?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:26, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

This is indeed a "disintegration model" where groups of dialects break from a dialect continuum along a definite feature. For instance, the Frankish language was not affected by the *þ > d-stop shift, but its successor language, Old Dutch. It needs to be clarified. Azerty82 (talk) 08:31, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

By the time the High German consonant shift started (most likely the 6th or 7th centuries), there seem to already have been minor differences between the West Germanic dialect groups, quite possibly even between Upper German and Central German (for example *leub vs. *leob and the retention of geminates in Upper German even after long vowels). So my understanding is that the consonant shift spread through an already weakly differentiated dialect continuum. In this sense, it makes sense to think of Upper German, Central German, Dutch, Low German, Frisian and English as distinct entities already by Late Antiquity, entities that were affected by the shift, even though I'd prefer to describe West Germanic of the time as a "language" with these six entities as its sub-dialects (plus maybe a couple more that later went extinct) in order to capture the diversity of the continuum better. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich, Florian Blaschke, this paragraph has been reworded; do you agree on the new version? Azerty82 (talk) 08:44, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, although given that the High German consonant shift precedes TH-stopping, the sequence is a bit confusing. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I've added a precision, but I'll reword it again if it's not clear enough yet. Azerty82 (talk) 09:27, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

The part on the second consonant shift has been moved out the classification section for the moment; I fear it'll make the paragraph confusing as it is a local variation and not a common feature of the sub-grouping. Azerty82 (talk) 17:43, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it is. By 850 AD, within West Germanic, TH-stopping was still limited to Upper German (Alemannic, Bavarian and probably also Lombardic) and (except word-initially) East Franconian, apparently, and Dutch and Low German were only reached in the 12th century or so, so describing it as a feature of Continental West Germanic (even as an areal group) is rather misleading. Frankly, Continental West Germanic is tricky to define; are there any common features at all? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:31, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

It is precized in this section that the diffusion of the th-stop was slow, only reaching Old/Early Middle Dutch by 1200, and that only successor dialects were affected. That said, I agree that it is quite confusing for the reader. The fact that they were not affected by the Anglo-Frisian sound change is still a common feature though. Azerty82 (talk) 07:28, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

For genetic units (clades), only common innovations are used as criteria, not retentions. Otherwise "unshifted Germanic" could be designated a genetic unit.

So Continental West Germanic is at best an areal group, although even areal groups are defined by innovations, it's just that the criteria employed are less strict (not every variety in the areal group needs to display every innovative feature). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:20, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

What would you advice then? The fact is that Anglo-Frisian is a distinctively unique group within the West Germanic languages. The paragraph currently reads: "Continental West Germanic: the remaining West Germanic dialects not affected by the Anglo-Frisian sound change".

Could you also review the draft as a whole when you have time?Azerty82 (talk)

I'd write "a catch-all term for the remaining West Germanic dialects". As in biology, wastebasket taxa are traditionally common in lingustics.

I'll have a look. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:00, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

One possibility is the old division of High/Central German (affected by the sound shift) vs. Low German (meaning Dutch and actual Low German). I believe this is somewhat disfavored nowadays because it implies more similarities between Dutch and Low German than actually exist (I believe that ironically Dutch shares more grammatical features with High German than Low "German" does), but it seems better than just having amorphous "Continental West Germanic".--Ermenrich (talk) 14:52, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I'm only reasonably sure that Anglo-Frisian, Low German (successor dialects of Old Saxon), Dutch, Central German and Upper German are genetic units, as well as West Germanic; I've even got doubts about High German, as I've indicated further above. (Doubts have also been voiced about Anglo-Frisian, but I think at least some of the Anglo-Frisian developments cannot be dismissed as merely areal.) As for Dutch vs. High German and Low German/Saxon, comparing the modern languages is not very instructive in this context, as opposed to comparing the early medieval dialects. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:22, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

@Azerty82: I'm not sure why you're still listing TH-stopping as a defining development within West Germanic. It really isn't; it's not all that important, patently late, and has only affected the southern part of West Germanic at all – English/Anglic mostly remains unaffected to the present day, despite being West Germanic too. Worse, you're still listing TH-stopping before the High German consonant shift. What is it with you and TH-stopping? Especially from the point of view of Old West Germanic, it's just one areal development. There are so many more relevant things to say about West Germanic. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:28, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke:, this must be a misunderstanding as the th-stopping has been moved to the /note/ section, which will not be included in the final article. I didn't invert the two paragraphs, but it's also indicated that th-stopping reached the other dialects only by the Middle Ages, while the second consonant shift is attested by ca. 600 CE. Azerty82 (talk) 16:10, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, that was a misunderstanding then. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:35, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, my primary reference is the medieval dialects (see here and here and here for some similarities, e.g. OD and OHG have three different plural forms, and Old Dutch shares -a plurals with OHG. That last one might be an innovation, the verb endings are probably a shared retention vs. the innovation in Low Saxon of having a single verb ending (also found in English and Frisian). Anyway, if we need a "wastebasket tacon" than High German vs. Low German (with Dutch) seems reasonable. Dutch and Low German are unaffected by the second consonantal shift, whereas High German (with Central German) is.

Also: I no longer see any mention of the shift from TH?--Ermenrich (talk) 15:33, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

It's still there in the (Misc.) section. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:07, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

the (misc.) section is not a real section. It's where I put content I won't use for the article, hence the name "miscellaneous". Azerty82 (talk) 16:12, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Florian Blaschke; Ermenrich, I have listened to your concerns and used a more careful approach,

(Rübekeil 2015; p. 997): As a whole, there are arguments for a close relationship between Anglo-Frisian on the one hand and OS and OLF on the other; there are, however, counter-arguments as well. The question as to whether the common features are old and inherited or have emerged by connections over the North Sea is still controversial. Azerty82 (talk) 19:20, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Definitely. In particular, Old Frisian was in close contact with Old Dutch, and also Old Saxon, and acted as a substratum especially in large parts of the Netherlands. Therefore, it is certainly possible that OS and OLF were still very close to High German prior to the High German sound shift, and were influenced by Anglo-Frisian only around the time when the sound shift happened as well. Specifically, OE OF mōna vs. OS OLF OHG māno 'moon' is unexpected (if OS and OLF really form a clade together with Anglo-Frisian) considering that the backing of long and short a vowels before nasal is said to be the first Anglo-Frisian development, and moreover, for 'goose' Low German and especially Dutch exhibit both reflexes of Anglo-Frisian-like forms like *gōs but also of OHG-like forms like *gans, where it seems very much possible that the forms going back to *gōs are borrowed and the forms going back to *gans or *gās are inherited, which would imply that the backing of a vowels before nasal never happened in OS OLF at all. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:35, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

4 tribes

I am not sure why these four tribes are playing such a prominent role in the drafting as there is so little known of their language, and they are already discussed quite a bit. I won't get too philosophical, because I realize this is just a drafting process. I will just give some notes, based on what can be found sourced in our article and/or the main articles for these topics:

• Bastarnae. Strongest case of the 4 for being Germanic because 2 sources (Pliny the Elder and his nephew's friend Tacitus) name them as Germanic. Tacitus even says they speak a Germanic language. HOWEVER, Livy says their language was mutually intelligible with the Scordisci's language. Archaeologists have named a complex in the right area which seems influenced by the Jastorf culture.
• Scirii. Whatever everyone thinks of Goffart he is right to say (recently) that there is no strong evidence for them being Germanic, but clearly they appear in standard old style listings as Germanic-speaking, and we can't ignore works like the Reallexikon. The evidence used is some personal names (which, as Goffart would say, would make the Huns Gothic) and a Germanic etymology has been proposed for "Scirii". But it is a one syllable name, and alternative theories exist, and are still being cited in our time (e.g. Reynolds and Lopez, still being cited by Steinacher or Hyun Jin Kim). There seems to be an implied "argument" between the lines of some authors that the case for being Germanic is stronger because the etymology can be seen as a doublet with the Bastarnae name, but it is between the lines, and I guess there is a reason for that. Anyway, there are at least two positions, according to WP norms (Germanic or uncertain).
• Cimbri and Teutones. As mentioned already, there are linguistic reasons that the attested names of these peoples, AND the placenames associated with them, AND the personal names also, are NOT Germanic. This is not a new observation, but it has taken time to grow roots and is now increasingly respectable not to ignore this problem. The idea that they were Germanic is still also strong, because there is a counter-argument, which says that these peoples and/or their contemporary Celts, Romans etc, somehow etymologized and were able to convert these names into Celtic-like forms, and/or these peoples started using a more prestigious Celtic language in specific contexts. We can not poll the expert scholars (i.e. the ones who know that a counter argument is needed) but I see no clear dominant theory among the range I have read. I see the willingness to admit uncertainty is not uncommon. All etymologies of the Germanic forms of these names are therefore etymologies of names which only exist within the older more "Germanist" proposal, from a time when there were many such proposals accepted without question. The only evidence for calling them Germanic are quite clear in the published discussions: the old reason was that Caesar said (or implied, depending how you read him) that they were in the Germanic category. But scholars today admit he did not use language in his definition of Germanic. The argument which is more important now is that they are believed to have lived in or near the Danish peninsula or the mouth of the Elbe. In other words, the argument is that it is unthinkable that any people living in those areas the 2nd century BC was not speaking a language which had undergone Grimm's first consonantal shift. This argument has not convinced everyone, so there are at least two positions. I would also say that linguistic evidence is playing an interesting role in the side discussions, but is not the origin of either of the two positions (Germanic, or another Indoeuropean language - Celtic or similar to Celtic).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Andrew, be reassured that is still a work in progress, and that it still needs corrections and adjustments as you're seeing above. This section is not finished and it probably needs to be reworded, nowhere it is implied that those tribes were Germanic or Germanic-speaking, it clearly says "have been interpreted" and "possibly", and the very next sentence of the paragraph is "However, definite evidence of Germanic lexical units only occurred after Caesar's conquest of Gaul in the 1st century BCE". Azerty82 (talk) 08:28, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster, I have added Goffart as a source. Your remarks are always welcomed, but remember that it is still a work in progress, so give me some time to add all complementary sources; you'll probably understand that I cannot spend 10 hours a day on Wikipedia.

Negau helmet

Florian Blaschke, regarding the Negau helmet, why did you add a tag, the two sources used were already included at the end of the sentence:

(Nedoma, 2015, 875): The most important record from pre-Christian times is the inscription on helmet B of Ženjak-Negau (Slovenia), presumably from the 3rd or 2nd c. BCE. Incised in north Italic (Venetic) letters, the inscription Harigasti Teiwǣ (cf. PGmc. *harja- ‘army’ < PIE *kori̯ o-, *gasti- ‘stranger, guest’ < *g hosti-, *teiwa- ‘god’ < *dei̯ u̯ ó-) is best interpreted as a possessor’s inscription (Nedoma 1995): it seems that the helmet belonged to a Gmc. soldier who was involved in combat in pre-Roman northern Italy.

(Todd, 1992, p.13f): The inscription reads from right to left harixastiteiva/// ip (or il) in a North Italic alphabet which had gone out of use by the begin- ning of the Christian era and probably before the first century bc. The latest date for the addition of this inscription to the Negau helmet would seem to be the early first century bc, at which time German-speaking auxiliaries might have been drawn into service in the Roman army in the north Italic regions. Many interpretations have been offered as to the meaning of the inscription. The most convincing seems to be that which sees it as an invocation of Teiva, a Germanic god of war, who is given the epithet Harigasti, ‘guest of the army’. Others have seen Harigasti as a personal name and the inscription as a whole as a mark of ownership. This ignores the exceptional nature of this prominent inscription on a helmet at this date. An invocation of divine protection for the wearer seems more likely. But unfortunately the Negau inscription reveals little about the Germanic languages in the first century bc and is chiefly notable as the earliest recorded attempt at transmitting German words in writing.

Why did you remove 'late' from 'late Jastorf' culture. Early Jastorf is too early to be associated with Proto-Germanic (it'd be connected with 'late pre-Germanic' instead).

(Ringe, 2006 [2017 ed.]): Early Jastorf, at the end of the seventh c. BC, is almost certainly too early for the last common ancestor of the attested languages.

My original sentence: (...) the Proto-Germanic language, the ancestral idiom of all attested Germanic dialects, was situated, (...) corresponding to the late Jastorf culture. Azerty82 (talk) 16:37, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

The Jastorf culture is dated c. 600–1 BC, and Proto-Germanic is dated from c. 500–1 BC in the article. How does this make PG correspond to late Jastorf?

Thanks for the quotations, I don't have access to these books at home. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:41, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Latest thoughts?

Draft is looking better, but is now not moving any more? If we moved it in now, it would still mean lengthening the article, and there might be some small duplication issues, but both these concerns are now less for me. Examples of possible duplication compared to the current article(s):

• Classical influence section. Not sure if this is finished work, but for me it seems not to add much yet? See existing sections: Roman ethnographic writing, from Caesar to Tacitus; Germanic terminology before Caesar; Classical subdivisions. (Of course perhaps these can also be reduced, divided up differently, etc. I already did some of that with an eye to this drafting.)
• Specifically within that section: Pliny's comment on the Cimbri is the same as Pliny's citation of Pytheas, discussed as a pre-Ceasar (currently footnote 43).
• Remember to compare to Proto Germanic? Is there a chance the Germanic peoples article might suddenly have more detail than that article? (And there should be a "Main" link to it I guess.)
• I also wonder if there should one day be an Urheimat article to give some more space.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been working on other articles in parallel, and I have not edited this draft recently.

1. I have removed most of the content in the /Classical subdivisions/ sub-section and merged the two subsections within /classification/.

2. I'm going to try to better condense the remaining parts without removing essential information. The first paragraph can certainly be shortened.

3. The section /Archaeology and early historiography/ in Proto-Germanic language may be a good location for the Urheimat, although it needs to be improved and renamed.

The next step for me is working on the Early culture, and specifically the Early Germanic mythology, although it is way more difficult to reconstruct mythological motifs than a proto-language with the scientific method. Grimm already knew it by the mid-19th century, his Deutsche Mythologie is closer to Grimm's mythology than the original Early Germanic belief. But I will try to write a short sub-section with recent, reliable, and prudent sources. I know Krakkos has been working on the Early culture, although I don't know if they have been able to progress on it recently. Azerty82 (talk) 16:53, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I think this draft provides a nice overview on the origins of Germanic languages. Writing a similar overview on Germanic mythology is a sensible next step. An overview on archaeological evidence would also be useful. My rewrite on the Early culture is progressing slowly but surely. I expect it to be completed in a month or two. Krakkos (talk) 19:37, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

What do you think of the new size Andrew Lancaster? I moved some parts to User:Azerty82/Notes. Azerty82 (talk) 17:08, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

For sure, the article is big enough to say that we should constantly be careful of size, and thinking about which bits to farm off to other articles. But more importantly the draft is a good expansion of the language section, with all the pros and cons that entails. I would suggest moving it into the article because article size and so on is an article issue that can best be assessed in an overall way by editors looking at the whole effect on the total article. (Not that I would personally see that as urgent right now.) It would improve the article. Can it the work you have done help improve other related articles?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

You can move it whenever you want to the article, I think I have done all the necessary minor corrections. Note that I have used the following style for references: date=[origin year of publication]; edition=[year of the edition I've used]. But I don't think any of the references featured in the draft are already used in the article, so it should not lead to issues. Regards, Azerty82 (talk) 20:42, 22 April 2020 (UTC)