![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Krakkos ( talk · contribs), and Andrew Lancaster ( talk · contribs), I occasionally visit the is page but do not feel I have expertise on the subject to offer so have not edited it. However, I just need to point out that in the last couple of weeks, this talk page has gained 30,000 words. We are between a half and a quarter of the way to a novel here! This is almost certainly crowding out any participation from other editors, who simply cannot keep up with all the discussion and proposals. I am on the verge of unwatching it myself. I think discussion needs to be more succinct, and slowed down to allow for wider participation. RFC may be called for if there is a point of particular contention. This will bring in more editors.
I am also a little dismayed that a lead that did not feel the need to cite anything in the past (as recently as 1 January) now has multiple repeat citations. I think the Good Article review process would have picked these up and would have suggested moving the information to the main and then using the lead to summarise. Adding more citations to the lead just takes this article further from good article status. Yes, you know I have a thing about that ;) But I also note that this exact point was made in the
Homeopathy
Greta Thunberg good article review process recently.--
Sirfurboy🏄 (
talk)
11:12, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
@ Srnec and Sirfurboy: just a thought, but quite honestly I think talk page circles are happening BECAUSE there are ONLY two people. More voices and the circles would break and the talk page will be better. OTOH I believe I have given some good citations, and shown some areas on the article which need tweaking, which I may not do. I'd be happy to quickly cross-check sources etc on any questions. It would be so nice to have a non-circular content discussion. Since January when I committed to work on the Germanic subject I have been doing a lot of reading and invested in new books etc. All dressed up but no place to go.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 17:16, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
The discussion about this section (Etymology) got messy. In that section you will see discussion of two extra sources I proposed. The section itself, is also in the end mainly just needing organization. I think it is a collection of different notes added at different times. I do not want to fill this talk page too much so I started drafting on my page again [17]. It is just a start to get a structure and not complete. I should be a bit careful to avoid too much duplication in with other sections.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 16:34, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Complaints have been raised about possible original research and use of poor sources in section Goths#Name. That section was indeed of insufficient quality. I have therefore made an attempt at rewriting it entirely, based upon citations from Herwig Wolfram, Winfred P. Lehmann, Ludwig Rübekeil and Anders Kaliff. The proposed new section can be viewed at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths#Name. The proposed edit will be like this. [18] Krakkos ( talk) 19:42, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
I have updated the draft for Goths#Name by taking the suggestions above into account and by adding citations from Stefan Brink, Jan Paul Strid and Herwig Wolfram. The updated draft can be viewed at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths#Name. I'm requesting permission to replace the current version in this article (largely written by me as well), with the one from the draft. Krakkos ( talk) 12:16, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
@ Krakkos: if we were doing an RFC this is not a vote. I can see you've put work into this. It is a difficult section. I want to look again. I don't think it is perfect, but perhaps a more important question is how it sets up the article for future editors. I am also a bit worried it is growing too much and maybe taking over the roles of other sections. Or maybe it should become several sections. I think in any case it is important for more editors than me to commenting. A good stable Goths article would be a nice thing to have, but stable means lots of people can agree with it and understand it. Recently for example on this article/talk we have had @ Srnec, Carlstak, Berig, Sirfurboy, Orenburg1, Davemck, Mnemosientje, DASDBILL2, and Jens Lallensack:. -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 19:08, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Concerning this quote, I am not saying it is right, and certainly not saying it is a field consensus, but it is clearly not the type of position we should ignore. In other words we should not write as if there is no dispute about this.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 13:28, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Thus, no one has offered any real evidence that Gauts and Goths are linguistically or ethnically related. Consequently the name Gautigoth cannot serve as proof that the Goths once live on the island of Scandza. What the Gautar name may do, however, is to help explain the beginnings of the idea that the Goths could come from Scandza. (Christensen, p.291)
Rübekeil (again I don't say this is a field consensus, but this is a source cited by others as an authority, so who are we to act as if this position does not exist?):-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 14:06, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
The linguistic data must therefore be interpreted with some caution. *Gutan- can not be derived from *Gauta-. [...] Theoretically Gauta- could have the same meaning. In this case, however, we would be dealing with semantic competitors, not with lexical variants. (p.603)
This one I feel is very judicious and was written recently and with someone who clearly has sympathy for the positions of many of the big names in the field including Wolfram:
Sicher ist nur, dass der Goten/Gutonen/Gauten- ebenso wie der Rugiername prestigeträchtig und prominent war, Unterschiedliche Verbände könnten sich solcher alter Namen bedient haben. [para] Die Archäologie ist sich groben Zügen darüber einig, dass ab der zweiten Hälfte des 2. Jahrhunderts materielle Kultur und Bestattungsbräuche aus dem Weichselgebiet Ähnlichkeiten mit jenen vom nördlichen Rand der pontischen Steppenzone aufweisen. Umstritten ist, ob die Gründe für diese Parallelen in der Möbilität kleiner mobiler Verbände, grösseren Migrationsbewegungen (wie man früher allgemein annahm) oder schlicht in Kulturtransfer zu finden sind. Für die traditionelle Vorstellung spielt dabei insbesondere der spätantike Gechichtsentwurf des Jordanes aus dem 6. Jahrhundert eine Rolle... Rough trans: The only thing sure is that the Goten/Gutonen/Gauten, as with the Rugii name, carried prestige and was prominent. Different groups may have decided to use such old names. Archaeology is basically in agreement that in the 2nd half of the 2nd century, culture and funeral norms from the Vistula area were similar to those from the northern edge of the pontic Steppe zone. What is debated is whether the reason for these parallels is the mobility of small bands, or large migration movements (as used to be generally accepted), or simply a culture transfer. For the traditional account, Jordanes plays a role. Steinacher, Roland (2017), Rom und die Barbaren. Völker im Alpen- und Donauraum (300-600), p. 48
Cases in the major new edit where it appears Wolfram proposals which did not catch on are being reported as simply true in WP voice:
We also now have a new section called "Evidence from etymology" which essentially repeats some things from the other section, and within the Name section some points are covered several times and even with different information. This is clearly not finished work, but now needs copy-editing, so this is not a good way to work when every edit needs consensus to be recorded first. But furthermore, duplication of favored theories into multiple sections was also a major controversy in the editing of Germanic peoples. It led to sections which disagreed with each other, and the destructuring of articles means it is easiest to slip in POV or wrong material, and harder for good editors to improve the article.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 14:26, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Many of these were already proposed by me, but ignored. Nevertheless, I will start in the 3rd paragraph. I believe the first sentences are maybe better moved around and tweaked a bit. -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 17:25, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
General remark: there are too many footnotes, and certainly too many within sentences. These sentences should not be controversial? | |
Krakkos "illegal edit" | Tweak proposal |
The name Gutones is certainly recorded by Pliny[12][13][14] in the 1st century AD, and by Ptolemy[15][16][17] in the 2nd century AD.[18][19] Pliny mentions that the 4th century BC traveler Pytheas reported a people called the Guiones,[20][21] while the early 1st century ethnographer Strabo mentions a people called the Butones,[22][23][24] and the late 1st century historian Tacitus mentions the Gotones/Gothones.[25][26][27][28][19] These names mentioned by Pytheas, Strabo and Tacitus are often equated with the name Gutones.[18][29] Gutones may have meant "young" Goths or "great" Goths.[7] | The two earliest possible attestations of a Gothic name are uncertain: Pliny mentions that the 4th century BC traveler Pytheas reported a northern people called the Guiones,[20][21] while the early 1st century geographer Strabo mentioned a people called the Butones.[22][23][24] The name "Gutones" is |
In reality, the Name section should clearly come after the summary of classical mentions, at least if it depends on first listing them, which it currently does. Also the "Other literary evidence" should be added to that classical sources section. Then all three sections can be can be trimmed and focused. Do others agree, or what am I missing here?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:41, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
In effect the section's long second and third paragraphs are covering things handled in other sections, and make lots of side remarks. To discuss the NAME, we don't need much of it. Strangely, the discussion about the etymology is still scattered here and there and impossible to put back together. Here are some specifics:
@ Carlstak, Srnec, Krakkos, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Davemck, Nicholas0, Mnemosientje, Rjdeadly, Jens Lallensack, DASDBILL2, Kansas Bear, Megalogastor, Nyook, and Yeowe: Can I (or someone else) please fix the following? This has been discussed at more length above, more than once. We currently have, for example in the classical sources section:
The sources pointed to are really saying, very specifically, that the two name forms, Gothi and Gutones, are indisputably from the same etymological root. This is not a fine point. Wolfram and his Vienna School (Steinacher, Pohl etc) specify that they are not arguing that these are identical peoples in any simple sense, but rather culturally-connected peoples (mobile tradition bearing elites, the name must have carried prestige etc). So our article is strongly distorting its sources. Confusing the issue, also please consider and comment:
As far as I can see this is a simple verification failure? Can we at least start by tweaking sentences like the named example or are there serious counter arguments?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:45, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
"Goths—or Gutones, as the Roman sources called them... The Gutonic immigrants became Goths the very moment the Mediterranean world considered them "Scythians"... The Gothic name appears for the first time between A.D. 16 and 18. We do not, however, find the strong form Guti but only the derivative form Gutones... Hereafter, whenever the Gutones and Guti are mentioned, these terms refer to the Goths." Wolfram, Herwig (1990). History of the Goths. Translated by Dunlap, Thomas J. University of California Press. pp. 12–13, 20, 23. ISBN 0520069838.
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"Goths – Germanic-speaking group first encountered in northern Poland in the first century AD." Heather, Peter (2007). The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Oxford University Press. p. 467. ISBN 9780195325416.
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"Goths – or perhaps 'Gothones' or 'Guthones' – inhabited lands far to the north-west, beside the Baltic. Tacitus placed them there at the end of the first century AD, and Ptolemy did likewise in the middle of the second... Philologists have no doubt, despite the varying transliterations into Greek and Latin, that it is the same group name..." Heather, Peter (2010). Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 115. ISBN 9780199892266.
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"Goths. A Germanic *tribe whose name means 'the people', first attested immediately south of the Baltic Sea in the first two centuries." Heather, Peter (2018). "Goths". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Oxford University Press. p. 673. ISBN 9780191744457. Retrieved January 25, 2020.
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Third-century migration was not remotely as simple Jordanes' formula - one king, one people, one move - might suggest. (Heather, Empires and Barbarians, p.124.)
formations of Gothic tribes were possible only because they were based on this saga, which was kept alive by "nuclei of tradition" like the Amal clan. It was these nuclei who preserved the Gothic name. (Wolfram, p.37 of the same book cited by Krakkos)
@ Krakkos: here is a more specific proposal based on the NEW version. If you don't know the right sources, let me know. I strongly suggest responding and not directly editing again:
The equivalence between the Gutones and the Goths is supported by Herwig Wolfram,[37] Peter Heather,[12] and scholars in general.[50] Historian Arne Søby Christensen has argued that the Gutones and similarly named peoples mentioned by early Roman authors were possibly not identical to the Goths, but concedes that such an equation is generally accepted and is chronologically a "realistic possibility".[38][40] |
A connection between the Gutones and the Goths is commonly accepted, though the nature of that connection is uncertain. Peter Heather, for example, argues for a straightforward equation of the Gutones and Goths, though he is sceptical of the "simple formula" implied by Jordanes, "one king, one people, one move". Herwig Wolfram and the Vienna school, in contrast, propose that smaller elite groups, such as the Amal clan, transmitted traditions such as prestigious names, founding new Gothic tribes in different places. Historian Arne Søby Christensen has argued that the connection has been "taken for granted" although it remains a realistic possibility. |
This is of course now longer, but at least accurate. Should it even be in this section, when the same thing is discussed several times in other sections? In reality we should be moving all the discussions about this topic to one place. How can we have a sensible discussion about that? I still propose that the Nomenclature section should have sub-sections: classical examples of Gothic names, then the etymological theories, and then something like the above discussion of the question of how many Gothic tribes there were and how they were connected. If you have proposals, can you please discuss first though?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 14:43, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
@ Srnec: concerning this edit, it equates the position of Heather and Wolfram on a particular point: "That the Gutones and the Goths were the same people is supported by Herwig Wolfram<> and Peter Heather.<>" As I've been trying to show with quotations above though, the only way a normal reader is going to understand this, will be wrong. While it is not quite clear how critical Heather is of the idea of a simple migration of one unmixed tribe (he certainly leaves space) with Wolfram and the Vienna school it is quite clear, despite certain "the Goths" wordings here and there, that "the Goths" were probably re-founded several times, with the only continuity being provided by a mobile group of tradition carriers. I don't think our wording even allows a reader to think this could be a possibility for what Wolfram believes? See my various proposals above. I still the explanation of Steinbacher to be a good clear one as explained to Berig above. Wolfram was Steinbacher's Doctoral promoter (bad translation, but I can't think of a better one) and his explanation is explicitly intended to explain the new way of thinking developed by the elders of the Vienna school. I am not sure if it is visible for you on GBooks?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 21:44, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
There is a large ethnic group in South Asia called Gojar or Gujar. I am also a part of this group. This group has ruled a large part of Asia in past and are Aryans by way of their Physical attributes, Genes and Lifestyle, language etc.
We were contacted by someone from this Gojar village of Granada in Spain and were told that there are Gojar or Gujar people in Spain as well. These people are purely Spanish by Genetic and physical attributes and claim to be the descendants of the great VisiGoths. The visi-Goths were Goths who were called Gutar or Guadar (there wasn’t any “J” alphabet in English or Greek until 15th Century and it was written as D or T or G. Most of the Royalties of Europe hail their origin to the Goths.
The country of Georgia was also interestingly called Gurjiya (land of Gurjars or Gujars) and there are people who are in contact with us and call themselves Gujaraidze (progeny of Gujar). They are also genetically purely Georgians. They claim to be the descendants of Gugark tribe (that named the province of Gugark) who were called Gargarians by Greeks (J written as G).
It might be worth researching on this point to unearth some great connection between the past heroes that ruled Europe and Asia (the total then known World). The Real Rana ( talk) 10:57, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
As Heruli is not much watched, it would be good to get more community input on events there which certainly involve sources relevant to this article. In short: (1) approximately 1 third of the article including 6 sources was deleted in a major revert, [29]; (2) the only clear rationale given so far is that Walter Goffart was mentioned as a source in some of the new material. (But Goffart is not one of the 6 sources deleted, and was already in the article, and still is.) That issue has clearly come up here before also.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:10, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
We have discussed above whether our readers should simply be told that the ancestor of the Goths was called Gaut when the classical text said Gapt. I can add to that discussion that Peter Heather argues against the equation which we have been putting in WP voice, and there were no variants. See p. 415 of ...-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 12:14, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
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(
help)Looking at this article a lot and it occurs to me one simple change might help editors and readers a lot to get their bearings (and to see how to fix things): "History" should only begin with "Early raids on the Roman Empire". The sub-sections and sub-sub-sections before that should perhaps be simply named "Pre-history"? Potentially, we could have an RFC, but I am not sure if that is necessary.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:18, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Our article has In their first attested incursion into Thrace, the Goths were mentioned as Boranoi by Zosimus, and then as Boradoi by Gregory Thaumaturgus.
Normally these people are described as Sarmatians, or people whose language group can not be identified. Here, for example, is Heather talking about the same two classical references, and also citing Wolfram as one of the authors who sees them as Sarmatian:
https://books.google.be/books?id=m8p4SxNNk1YC&pg=PA3 They are also discussed, for example in this article:
https://www.academia.edu/5079620/INSTITUT_ANTIQUITAS_ISTRO-PONTICA which says "In any event, they do not seem to have been of Germanic origin". --
Andrew Lancaster (
talk)
10:00, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Just some examples, I can not work on without agreement:
Because of the broken structure and extreme duplication, it is hard to notice other issues. For example, we have a section on Evidence from historical parallels which is in fact a speculation built on a speculation and expanding upon a minor remark by only one author. So it seems quite WP:UNDUE.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 13:04, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
To structure this article better, is there any opposition to moving the pre-history sections (3.1) and (3.2) out of "History" (3) into their own section? -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:08, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
@ Carlstak, Srnec, Krakkos, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Davemck, Nicholas0, Mnemosientje, Rjdeadly, Jens Lallensack, DASDBILL2, Kansas Bear, Megalogastor, Nyook, Yeowe, Berig, and Ermenrich: feedback please? Perhaps someone will see better solutions but it is clear the current article needs work. This proposal is a relatively simple one.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 19:04, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Krakkos ( talk · contribs), and Andrew Lancaster ( talk · contribs), I occasionally visit the is page but do not feel I have expertise on the subject to offer so have not edited it. However, I just need to point out that in the last couple of weeks, this talk page has gained 30,000 words. We are between a half and a quarter of the way to a novel here! This is almost certainly crowding out any participation from other editors, who simply cannot keep up with all the discussion and proposals. I am on the verge of unwatching it myself. I think discussion needs to be more succinct, and slowed down to allow for wider participation. RFC may be called for if there is a point of particular contention. This will bring in more editors.
I am also a little dismayed that a lead that did not feel the need to cite anything in the past (as recently as 1 January) now has multiple repeat citations. I think the Good Article review process would have picked these up and would have suggested moving the information to the main and then using the lead to summarise. Adding more citations to the lead just takes this article further from good article status. Yes, you know I have a thing about that ;) But I also note that this exact point was made in the
Homeopathy
Greta Thunberg good article review process recently.--
Sirfurboy🏄 (
talk)
11:12, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
@ Srnec and Sirfurboy: just a thought, but quite honestly I think talk page circles are happening BECAUSE there are ONLY two people. More voices and the circles would break and the talk page will be better. OTOH I believe I have given some good citations, and shown some areas on the article which need tweaking, which I may not do. I'd be happy to quickly cross-check sources etc on any questions. It would be so nice to have a non-circular content discussion. Since January when I committed to work on the Germanic subject I have been doing a lot of reading and invested in new books etc. All dressed up but no place to go.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 17:16, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
The discussion about this section (Etymology) got messy. In that section you will see discussion of two extra sources I proposed. The section itself, is also in the end mainly just needing organization. I think it is a collection of different notes added at different times. I do not want to fill this talk page too much so I started drafting on my page again [17]. It is just a start to get a structure and not complete. I should be a bit careful to avoid too much duplication in with other sections.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 16:34, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Complaints have been raised about possible original research and use of poor sources in section Goths#Name. That section was indeed of insufficient quality. I have therefore made an attempt at rewriting it entirely, based upon citations from Herwig Wolfram, Winfred P. Lehmann, Ludwig Rübekeil and Anders Kaliff. The proposed new section can be viewed at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths#Name. The proposed edit will be like this. [18] Krakkos ( talk) 19:42, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
I have updated the draft for Goths#Name by taking the suggestions above into account and by adding citations from Stefan Brink, Jan Paul Strid and Herwig Wolfram. The updated draft can be viewed at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths#Name. I'm requesting permission to replace the current version in this article (largely written by me as well), with the one from the draft. Krakkos ( talk) 12:16, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
@ Krakkos: if we were doing an RFC this is not a vote. I can see you've put work into this. It is a difficult section. I want to look again. I don't think it is perfect, but perhaps a more important question is how it sets up the article for future editors. I am also a bit worried it is growing too much and maybe taking over the roles of other sections. Or maybe it should become several sections. I think in any case it is important for more editors than me to commenting. A good stable Goths article would be a nice thing to have, but stable means lots of people can agree with it and understand it. Recently for example on this article/talk we have had @ Srnec, Carlstak, Berig, Sirfurboy, Orenburg1, Davemck, Mnemosientje, DASDBILL2, and Jens Lallensack:. -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 19:08, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Concerning this quote, I am not saying it is right, and certainly not saying it is a field consensus, but it is clearly not the type of position we should ignore. In other words we should not write as if there is no dispute about this.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 13:28, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Thus, no one has offered any real evidence that Gauts and Goths are linguistically or ethnically related. Consequently the name Gautigoth cannot serve as proof that the Goths once live on the island of Scandza. What the Gautar name may do, however, is to help explain the beginnings of the idea that the Goths could come from Scandza. (Christensen, p.291)
Rübekeil (again I don't say this is a field consensus, but this is a source cited by others as an authority, so who are we to act as if this position does not exist?):-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 14:06, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
The linguistic data must therefore be interpreted with some caution. *Gutan- can not be derived from *Gauta-. [...] Theoretically Gauta- could have the same meaning. In this case, however, we would be dealing with semantic competitors, not with lexical variants. (p.603)
This one I feel is very judicious and was written recently and with someone who clearly has sympathy for the positions of many of the big names in the field including Wolfram:
Sicher ist nur, dass der Goten/Gutonen/Gauten- ebenso wie der Rugiername prestigeträchtig und prominent war, Unterschiedliche Verbände könnten sich solcher alter Namen bedient haben. [para] Die Archäologie ist sich groben Zügen darüber einig, dass ab der zweiten Hälfte des 2. Jahrhunderts materielle Kultur und Bestattungsbräuche aus dem Weichselgebiet Ähnlichkeiten mit jenen vom nördlichen Rand der pontischen Steppenzone aufweisen. Umstritten ist, ob die Gründe für diese Parallelen in der Möbilität kleiner mobiler Verbände, grösseren Migrationsbewegungen (wie man früher allgemein annahm) oder schlicht in Kulturtransfer zu finden sind. Für die traditionelle Vorstellung spielt dabei insbesondere der spätantike Gechichtsentwurf des Jordanes aus dem 6. Jahrhundert eine Rolle... Rough trans: The only thing sure is that the Goten/Gutonen/Gauten, as with the Rugii name, carried prestige and was prominent. Different groups may have decided to use such old names. Archaeology is basically in agreement that in the 2nd half of the 2nd century, culture and funeral norms from the Vistula area were similar to those from the northern edge of the pontic Steppe zone. What is debated is whether the reason for these parallels is the mobility of small bands, or large migration movements (as used to be generally accepted), or simply a culture transfer. For the traditional account, Jordanes plays a role. Steinacher, Roland (2017), Rom und die Barbaren. Völker im Alpen- und Donauraum (300-600), p. 48
Cases in the major new edit where it appears Wolfram proposals which did not catch on are being reported as simply true in WP voice:
We also now have a new section called "Evidence from etymology" which essentially repeats some things from the other section, and within the Name section some points are covered several times and even with different information. This is clearly not finished work, but now needs copy-editing, so this is not a good way to work when every edit needs consensus to be recorded first. But furthermore, duplication of favored theories into multiple sections was also a major controversy in the editing of Germanic peoples. It led to sections which disagreed with each other, and the destructuring of articles means it is easiest to slip in POV or wrong material, and harder for good editors to improve the article.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 14:26, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Many of these were already proposed by me, but ignored. Nevertheless, I will start in the 3rd paragraph. I believe the first sentences are maybe better moved around and tweaked a bit. -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 17:25, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
General remark: there are too many footnotes, and certainly too many within sentences. These sentences should not be controversial? | |
Krakkos "illegal edit" | Tweak proposal |
The name Gutones is certainly recorded by Pliny[12][13][14] in the 1st century AD, and by Ptolemy[15][16][17] in the 2nd century AD.[18][19] Pliny mentions that the 4th century BC traveler Pytheas reported a people called the Guiones,[20][21] while the early 1st century ethnographer Strabo mentions a people called the Butones,[22][23][24] and the late 1st century historian Tacitus mentions the Gotones/Gothones.[25][26][27][28][19] These names mentioned by Pytheas, Strabo and Tacitus are often equated with the name Gutones.[18][29] Gutones may have meant "young" Goths or "great" Goths.[7] | The two earliest possible attestations of a Gothic name are uncertain: Pliny mentions that the 4th century BC traveler Pytheas reported a northern people called the Guiones,[20][21] while the early 1st century geographer Strabo mentioned a people called the Butones.[22][23][24] The name "Gutones" is |
In reality, the Name section should clearly come after the summary of classical mentions, at least if it depends on first listing them, which it currently does. Also the "Other literary evidence" should be added to that classical sources section. Then all three sections can be can be trimmed and focused. Do others agree, or what am I missing here?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:41, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
In effect the section's long second and third paragraphs are covering things handled in other sections, and make lots of side remarks. To discuss the NAME, we don't need much of it. Strangely, the discussion about the etymology is still scattered here and there and impossible to put back together. Here are some specifics:
@ Carlstak, Srnec, Krakkos, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Davemck, Nicholas0, Mnemosientje, Rjdeadly, Jens Lallensack, DASDBILL2, Kansas Bear, Megalogastor, Nyook, and Yeowe: Can I (or someone else) please fix the following? This has been discussed at more length above, more than once. We currently have, for example in the classical sources section:
The sources pointed to are really saying, very specifically, that the two name forms, Gothi and Gutones, are indisputably from the same etymological root. This is not a fine point. Wolfram and his Vienna School (Steinacher, Pohl etc) specify that they are not arguing that these are identical peoples in any simple sense, but rather culturally-connected peoples (mobile tradition bearing elites, the name must have carried prestige etc). So our article is strongly distorting its sources. Confusing the issue, also please consider and comment:
As far as I can see this is a simple verification failure? Can we at least start by tweaking sentences like the named example or are there serious counter arguments?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:45, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
"Goths—or Gutones, as the Roman sources called them... The Gutonic immigrants became Goths the very moment the Mediterranean world considered them "Scythians"... The Gothic name appears for the first time between A.D. 16 and 18. We do not, however, find the strong form Guti but only the derivative form Gutones... Hereafter, whenever the Gutones and Guti are mentioned, these terms refer to the Goths." Wolfram, Herwig (1990). History of the Goths. Translated by Dunlap, Thomas J. University of California Press. pp. 12–13, 20, 23. ISBN 0520069838.
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"Goths – Germanic-speaking group first encountered in northern Poland in the first century AD." Heather, Peter (2007). The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Oxford University Press. p. 467. ISBN 9780195325416.
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"Goths – or perhaps 'Gothones' or 'Guthones' – inhabited lands far to the north-west, beside the Baltic. Tacitus placed them there at the end of the first century AD, and Ptolemy did likewise in the middle of the second... Philologists have no doubt, despite the varying transliterations into Greek and Latin, that it is the same group name..." Heather, Peter (2010). Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 115. ISBN 9780199892266.
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"Goths. A Germanic *tribe whose name means 'the people', first attested immediately south of the Baltic Sea in the first two centuries." Heather, Peter (2018). "Goths". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Oxford University Press. p. 673. ISBN 9780191744457. Retrieved January 25, 2020.
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Third-century migration was not remotely as simple Jordanes' formula - one king, one people, one move - might suggest. (Heather, Empires and Barbarians, p.124.)
formations of Gothic tribes were possible only because they were based on this saga, which was kept alive by "nuclei of tradition" like the Amal clan. It was these nuclei who preserved the Gothic name. (Wolfram, p.37 of the same book cited by Krakkos)
@ Krakkos: here is a more specific proposal based on the NEW version. If you don't know the right sources, let me know. I strongly suggest responding and not directly editing again:
The equivalence between the Gutones and the Goths is supported by Herwig Wolfram,[37] Peter Heather,[12] and scholars in general.[50] Historian Arne Søby Christensen has argued that the Gutones and similarly named peoples mentioned by early Roman authors were possibly not identical to the Goths, but concedes that such an equation is generally accepted and is chronologically a "realistic possibility".[38][40] |
A connection between the Gutones and the Goths is commonly accepted, though the nature of that connection is uncertain. Peter Heather, for example, argues for a straightforward equation of the Gutones and Goths, though he is sceptical of the "simple formula" implied by Jordanes, "one king, one people, one move". Herwig Wolfram and the Vienna school, in contrast, propose that smaller elite groups, such as the Amal clan, transmitted traditions such as prestigious names, founding new Gothic tribes in different places. Historian Arne Søby Christensen has argued that the connection has been "taken for granted" although it remains a realistic possibility. |
This is of course now longer, but at least accurate. Should it even be in this section, when the same thing is discussed several times in other sections? In reality we should be moving all the discussions about this topic to one place. How can we have a sensible discussion about that? I still propose that the Nomenclature section should have sub-sections: classical examples of Gothic names, then the etymological theories, and then something like the above discussion of the question of how many Gothic tribes there were and how they were connected. If you have proposals, can you please discuss first though?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 14:43, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
@ Srnec: concerning this edit, it equates the position of Heather and Wolfram on a particular point: "That the Gutones and the Goths were the same people is supported by Herwig Wolfram<> and Peter Heather.<>" As I've been trying to show with quotations above though, the only way a normal reader is going to understand this, will be wrong. While it is not quite clear how critical Heather is of the idea of a simple migration of one unmixed tribe (he certainly leaves space) with Wolfram and the Vienna school it is quite clear, despite certain "the Goths" wordings here and there, that "the Goths" were probably re-founded several times, with the only continuity being provided by a mobile group of tradition carriers. I don't think our wording even allows a reader to think this could be a possibility for what Wolfram believes? See my various proposals above. I still the explanation of Steinbacher to be a good clear one as explained to Berig above. Wolfram was Steinbacher's Doctoral promoter (bad translation, but I can't think of a better one) and his explanation is explicitly intended to explain the new way of thinking developed by the elders of the Vienna school. I am not sure if it is visible for you on GBooks?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 21:44, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
There is a large ethnic group in South Asia called Gojar or Gujar. I am also a part of this group. This group has ruled a large part of Asia in past and are Aryans by way of their Physical attributes, Genes and Lifestyle, language etc.
We were contacted by someone from this Gojar village of Granada in Spain and were told that there are Gojar or Gujar people in Spain as well. These people are purely Spanish by Genetic and physical attributes and claim to be the descendants of the great VisiGoths. The visi-Goths were Goths who were called Gutar or Guadar (there wasn’t any “J” alphabet in English or Greek until 15th Century and it was written as D or T or G. Most of the Royalties of Europe hail their origin to the Goths.
The country of Georgia was also interestingly called Gurjiya (land of Gurjars or Gujars) and there are people who are in contact with us and call themselves Gujaraidze (progeny of Gujar). They are also genetically purely Georgians. They claim to be the descendants of Gugark tribe (that named the province of Gugark) who were called Gargarians by Greeks (J written as G).
It might be worth researching on this point to unearth some great connection between the past heroes that ruled Europe and Asia (the total then known World). The Real Rana ( talk) 10:57, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
As Heruli is not much watched, it would be good to get more community input on events there which certainly involve sources relevant to this article. In short: (1) approximately 1 third of the article including 6 sources was deleted in a major revert, [29]; (2) the only clear rationale given so far is that Walter Goffart was mentioned as a source in some of the new material. (But Goffart is not one of the 6 sources deleted, and was already in the article, and still is.) That issue has clearly come up here before also.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:10, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
We have discussed above whether our readers should simply be told that the ancestor of the Goths was called Gaut when the classical text said Gapt. I can add to that discussion that Peter Heather argues against the equation which we have been putting in WP voice, and there were no variants. See p. 415 of ...-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 12:14, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
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help)Looking at this article a lot and it occurs to me one simple change might help editors and readers a lot to get their bearings (and to see how to fix things): "History" should only begin with "Early raids on the Roman Empire". The sub-sections and sub-sub-sections before that should perhaps be simply named "Pre-history"? Potentially, we could have an RFC, but I am not sure if that is necessary.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:18, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
Our article has In their first attested incursion into Thrace, the Goths were mentioned as Boranoi by Zosimus, and then as Boradoi by Gregory Thaumaturgus.
Normally these people are described as Sarmatians, or people whose language group can not be identified. Here, for example, is Heather talking about the same two classical references, and also citing Wolfram as one of the authors who sees them as Sarmatian:
https://books.google.be/books?id=m8p4SxNNk1YC&pg=PA3 They are also discussed, for example in this article:
https://www.academia.edu/5079620/INSTITUT_ANTIQUITAS_ISTRO-PONTICA which says "In any event, they do not seem to have been of Germanic origin". --
Andrew Lancaster (
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Just some examples, I can not work on without agreement:
Because of the broken structure and extreme duplication, it is hard to notice other issues. For example, we have a section on Evidence from historical parallels which is in fact a speculation built on a speculation and expanding upon a minor remark by only one author. So it seems quite WP:UNDUE.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 13:04, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
To structure this article better, is there any opposition to moving the pre-history sections (3.1) and (3.2) out of "History" (3) into their own section? -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:08, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
@ Carlstak, Srnec, Krakkos, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Davemck, Nicholas0, Mnemosientje, Rjdeadly, Jens Lallensack, DASDBILL2, Kansas Bear, Megalogastor, Nyook, Yeowe, Berig, and Ermenrich: feedback please? Perhaps someone will see better solutions but it is clear the current article needs work. This proposal is a relatively simple one.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 19:04, 2 April 2020 (UTC)