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I have now made a proposal at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths with the aim of eliminating duplication and having a more simplified structure of the history section. This article already exceeds recommended article size, and the Goths#Culture section is underdeveloped. I have therefore transferred nearly all information about the Gothic name to the article Name of the Goths. I believe the name is a notable topic which cannot be covered comprehensively within this article without taking up too much space. I have given the history section a simplified chronological structure based upon the works on Herwig Wolfram and Peter Heather. I have also tried to make the prose less exegetic by transferring some disputes into the notelist. The proposed edit will look like this. [1] This is of course not a perfect version nor a final version, but i believe it gives the article a better basis for future improvement. If the community considers the proposal an improvement over the current version, permission to implement the edit would be much appreciated. Krakkos ( talk) 13:29, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
There are been almost daily complaints from a certain editor about duplication and the exegetical prose and structure of the history section of this article. I'm partially responsible for these issues and i would very much like to clean up my own mess. I have made a proposed solution at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths. I'm tempted to implement the proposal here. Are there any editors who would instead prefer to keep the current version? Krakkos ( talk) 06:45, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Steinacher p.50: Bei der historischen Beurteilung ist nun entscheidend, welche Rolle man den Wanderungsberichten in den Getica des Jordanes zugesteht, bzw. ob man eine gotische Identität und damit Geschichte schon vor dem 3. Jahrhunderd annimmt. In diesen Fragen ist sich die Forschung nicht einig.This is a good short recent (2017) review of the field with a long endnote giving examples of the diversity in the field, citing Kazanski, Bierbrauer, Wolfram, Heather, Kulikowski and Goffart. We should at least be consistent with such remarks?
The equation between Gutones and later Goths is disputed by Arne Søby Christensenimplying that there is only one scholar who doubts it.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:33, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
The authencity [sic] and accuracy of Jordanes' claim of Gothic origins in Scandianvia [sic] is disputed among historians.[25][26][27][28][29] Germanic philologists assent that the story is authentic.[30]Amazingly, this 2nd sentence is supposedly justified by a critical general remark about a type of argument:
Goffart 2005, pp. 379–380. "Experts in Germanic literature, who instantly discount reports of Trojan or Scythian or Noachic origins as being fabulous, solemnly assent: emigration from Scandinavia is an authentic 'tribal memory'..."This is just one example.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:35, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
It unfortunately seems now that Alcaios has been discouraged from working on this topic [2]. So there goes my preferred option. My second option would either be you allowing some tweaks, or else someone else needs to write a proposal (or more likely we will have to do it bit by bit). I want to do my best to once again propose an easy compromise:
Roman authors first mention the Goths in the third century. Scholars do not agree about whether these Goths had an identifiable and continuous history and identity which stretched before then. However several lines of evidence exist which point to an origin near the Vistula river, and possibly also connections to Scandinavia.
The equation between Gutones and later Goths is disputed by Arne Søby Christensen.[51]I believe Goffart, Kulikowski, and Halsall all have doubts?
What do you think? The proposal does not mean I have no other concerns, but these changes would help reduce specifically connected to your draft. I am not sure what other editors think, but I have tried hard to find something you should be able to accept? Tweaks to my tweaks also can be discussed, of course.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 11:21, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
"has played a crucial role" is not the same thing as "is a crucial source". Suggest rewording to emphasis the uniqueness of Jordanes rather than his (disputed) value for early Gothic history. Srnec ( talk) 13:25, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
@ GPinkerton, Krakkos, Srnec, and Alcaios: thinking about recent discussions and the proposal of GPinkerton, I suppose that while I would split articles less quickly than most people there is still a good case for this one, so I made it. I see no problematic overlaps (I've been looking), and I do think it can help take the load off several other articles, including talk page load. The idea kept coming back in different discussions including not only the new Names of the Goths but also today at Oium. See Origin stories of the Goths. I have started with Christensen only because he has a simple listing which was a good place to start. I should receive a copy of Heather "1991"? soon, and of course the first phase of editing should be pretty easy. Note this particular article is about a type of literature, NOT primarily about archaeological evidence, because we already have that. -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:24, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
@ Andrew Lancaster and Srnec: Origins of the Goths is what I was recommending before, not "origin stories of the Goths" - there's not enough there! GPinkerton ( talk) 00:15, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Should the "Name", "classical sources", and "literary sources" sections be combined to reduce duplication and improve overall quality?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 13:22, 10 March 2020 (UTC) @ Carlstak, Srnec, Krakkos, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Davemck, Nicholas0, Mnemosientje, Rjdeadly, Jens Lallensack, DASDBILL2, Kansas Bear, Megalogastor, Nyook, Yeowe, and Berig:
After suggesting it several times here I have finally made it. It is clearly justified as Germanic peoples with much less notability have articles, including the Gutes and Gauts. The article implies some tweaking to links etc on this article which I can not do. It also should eventually help reduce the size or detail of those introductory sections more.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:25, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Any concerns with these minor house-keeping proposals? Can someone either do them or give a clear go ahead?
Can I assume no opposition to these minor and logical proposals?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:00, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
In the intro the Scandinavian connection cannot be reduced to a mention of Jordanes and his unrelibility. To honest with the readers we need to show that we are aware of other sources of information that point to a Scandinavian origin, or at least a Scandinavian origin tradition.
This article is not restricted to historiography, and should not reduce the possible Scandinavian origin to a single source. This may look disengenuous to informed readers.- Berig ( talk) 07:06, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
What a bunch of nonsense. In the current year, we can now see the spread of the DNA matching the Sámi people from Scandinavia to essentially everywhere the tribes that became known as the Germanics went; but I guess none of that matters when the noble Peter Heather " reliable source" enlightened one speaks on behalf of the major publishing houses that pay him to say whatever it is that Peter Heather has himself determined to be "true" (after hearing the same thing from the spokespeople for truth before him, sponsored by the same major publishing houses). It's hilarious how careful he is to check all the right boxes, though, even calling the cultures in modern-day Poland (and Belarus) "Polish" (and Bylorussian"). Anyone with a grasp of history knows that the people in the vicinity of that region never would have considered themselves Poles by any means at that time in history, nor did Poland even exist. But of course that is just a "part 2" to the sort of things a "reliable" source historian is paid to say (lest he forfeit his check from his mainstream publisher and risk being on the street without a job in academia). Why is the golden rule of history 'thou must say whatever it is that happens to buck a narrative that the National Socialists championed'? It's so predictable. "What? The Nazis were interested in the link between Scandinavia and the Germanics and glamorized Northern symbols? We must deny any link!" "What? The Nazis took an interest what Europe might have looked like before the Great Migrations and emphasized that Germanic people settled as far as the Black Sea and linguistic and civilizational borders were indefinite and uncertain? We must say Europe never looked like that, otherwise we concede to one of the arguments as to what Hitler was doing and that would weaken our position that he wanted to conquer and dominate everything everywhere and every word from his mouth was a lie, especially that about the Jews and their control over things!" You people are psychotic. And yet you are the descendants of the same people who laughed when the Nazis went with pick and shovel to the Far East, fully aware that the Northern peoples may have originally come from there, too. You people who hawk Wikipedia are not historians for truth, you are negationists who parrot whatever the major publishing houses and your self-proclaimed "reliable sources" tell you. SHAME ON YOU.-- Stopyourwhitewash ( talk) 20:09, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
I sincerely hope that this article isn't about American politics, per above. What I react mostly to is the idea that the Scandinavian origin hinges only on the credibility of Jordanes in the intro. I think it should be more in line with this more scholarly and neutral approach:
Nevertheless, that these explanations cannot be used to confirm the historicity of the origin myth does not mean that the Goths and many others did not originate from Scandinavia. Several independent, unrelated, pieces of evidence, both philogical and archaeological,45 indicate that there might be a grain of historical truth in these stories. If Scandza is a literary motif, it might also reflect some long-gone historical reality,46 at least for the Goths, the Lombards, and the Anglo-Saxons, and perhaps even for groups like the Heruli, the Vandals and the Burgundians too. Several of the groups were tied up with the Nordic regions.47 Over the generations, the origin myths would have been handed down and recreated in a multitude of ritual contexts, associated with the social reproduction of the people and the warrior kings' sacred position. (in Hedeager, Lotte. 2003:27-28. Rituals of Power From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages Series: Transformation of the Roman World, Volume: 8 Editors: Frans Theuws and Janet Nelson)
If RS don't consider it to hinge solely on Jordanes' credibility, neither can we as WP editors, and I really really hope that this article is not considered to be a tool in American identity politics, because then all hope is probably lost for this article and the POV tag may have to stay in place as long as that debate lasts.-- Berig ( talk) 07:02, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
I notice I never placed this quote on this talk page yet. It just illustrates the point Ermenrich made. I am not taking sides, but pointing to what published scholars say:
[7] [Dennis] Green: Earlier this year I was in Sweden discussing this problem with a number of Swedish archaeologists. They, of course, are firmly convinced of the Swedish origin of the Goths. But even amongst the Swedes there is dissension as to where in Sweden the Goths may have come from. Four of the contestants being Västergötland, Östergötland, Aland and Gotland. So to take the problem back to Swedish origins would have opened up yet another hornets' nest of scholarly disagreement.
The discussion before and after adds to it.
-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 18:25, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
"May I ask you a personal question? Why you really find a possible connection between the Goths and Scandinavia so problematic? Is it ideological? You seem to be so very passionate about it that there must be something deeper than the mere intellectual stimulation of it."The discussion here goes together with Berig's parallel post to an admin who intervened on this article in the past [8]
"I am starting to doubt that his agenda is for the benefit of this project". I think it is up to Berig to clarify these WP:ASPERSIONS, or more simply to cease making them. So far there is no explanation of the background thinking to these remarks, and no diffs showing any "agenda". As far as I am concerned, these vague accusations come out of the blue, and have no connection to reality. Nevertheless, I have also posted on Berig's user page with an attempt to give a serious answer to the "personal question", which is BTW a straightforward example of a leading question. Hopefully there was just some kind of misunderstanding caused by the difficulty of following past discussions on this page? Honestly I do not know.
Yes, I understand theoretically the type of issue you are asking about, and there have been many such discussions on this talk page and so just demanding that other editors give you a full summary, to see if you have anything to add, is not a workable approach? Anyway, maybe these bullets help...
Note that no one is arguing that there is no connection between Scandinavia and the Gdansk region - not here, and not in the published sources we cite. The primary and secondary questions about Jordanes mentioned above are about whether he can be taken to be literally true, which almost no published scholars believe, or perhaps partly true. (Many academics after WW2 have followed the Vienna school argument that the name of the Goths, and a small number of prestigious people, came from Scandinavia and founded a culture which spread. But others argue that we don't really have evidence for this either, and so we don't have much strong evidence to go beyond saying that Wielbark was a local synthesis which was influenced by various neighbouring regions in ways that are now difficult to determine in detail.) Hope this helps.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:11, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Here are some sources on the views of the majority of modern scholars on Gothic origins:
"How the Goths arrived at the Black Sea, and where they originated, are matters of debate. The usual assumption, and the one still credited by the considerable majority of scholars, has been that the account given in the sixth-century Getica of Jordanes is trustworthy at least in general outline: according to this account, the Goths migrated, perhaps about 100 BCE, from Scandinavia (Scandza) to the banks of the Vistula. Their area of settlement on the southern coast of the Baltic is called by Jordanes Gothiscandza... In accordance with the account of Jordanes, the Goths have usually been identified with the Gutones first mentioned by Pliny the Elder ca. 65 CE as living on the shore of (apparently) the Baltic Sea. On this reasoning the Goths have also commonly been associated with the island of Gotland and with the region of south-central Sweden called Götaland (named after the ON Gautar, OE Gēatas), from which areas they are assumed to have migrated originally... In more recent times the account of Jordanes, recorded so many centuries after the purported departure from Scandinavia, has been called into question, in part on archaeological grounds... [T]he presence of Goths in Scandinavia is not to be doubted... At all events, the name of the Goths is so common in place-names in Sweden—and place-names are often among the most archaic evidence—that it is difficult to believe that the Gothic presence in Scandinavia could have been a late development." – Fulk, Robert D. (2018). "Provenance of the Goths". A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages. Studies in Germanic Linguistics. Vol. 3. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-90-272-6312-4.
"Greek and Roman sources of the first and second centuries A.D. are the earliest written evidence we have for the Goths, under the names Guthones, Gothones, and Gothi. The sources agree in placing these people along the Vistula river, although whether they were on the coast or a bit inland is unclear. Also not totally clear is the connection between these people and other tribal groupings of similar names found at that time and later in parts of south central Sweden (now Västergötland and Östergötland) and on the island of Gotland. If the legend recorded by the sixth-century Gothic historian Jordanes is accurate, the Goths came to the mouth of the Vistula from across the sea, displacing a number of Germanic tribes who were there before them, including the Vandals. The weight of scholarship appears to support this story, with (mainland) Götland being seen as the likely point of origin, and the early first century B.C. as the likely time. Owing perhaps partially to population pressure, a large number of Goths subsequently left the Vistula in the mid-second century A.D. Around 170 they reached an area north of the Black Sea, where they settled between the Don and the Dniester rivers." – Robinson, Orrin W. (2005). "A Brief History of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths". Old English and its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages. Taylor & Francis. pp. 36–39. ISBN 0-415-08169-6.
"Most scholars agree that contents of Jordanes' text... concerning the arrival of the Goths and Gepidae from Scandinavia to Pomerania is fully reflected in archaeological sources." – Olędzki, Marek (2004). "The Wielbark and Przeworsk Cultures at the Turn of the Early and Late Roman Periods" (PDF). In Friesinger, Herwig; Stuppner, Alois (eds.). Zentrum und Peripherie. Mitteilungen Der Prähistorischen Kommission. Vol. 57. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. pp. 279–290. ISBN 9783700133179.
"The story by Jordanes about the migration of Goths from Scandza is a matter of a vivid and long standing discussion between historians. 'Most scholars argue that it is a part of the Gothic tribal tradition." – Kasperski, Robert (2015). "Too Civilized to Revert to Savages? A Study Concerning a Debate about the Goths between Procopius and Jordanes". The Mediaeval Journal. 5 (2). Brepols: 33–51. doi: 10.1484/J.TMJ.5.108524.
Krakkos ( talk) 10:53, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Thank you Krakkos for providing reliable sources per WP:RS/AC.-- Berig ( talk) 17:54, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Berig I think to show good faith you should start by giving at least one example of a far-fetched assertion I've made. You've asserted that you've seen some so please put one on the table for us all to see. -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 20:38, 25 March 2021 (UTC) ADDED: please also remember to explain what the relevance is for the article as it currently stands. Remember I have no asked for any changes and you also seem happy with it. It is a balance mainly decided by Krakkos so far.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 21:17, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Orrin W. Robinson and Marek Olędzki are cited here, but there are no links to their articles. The given name of Olędzki is also incorrectly spelled "Mark" rather than "Marek". I would like to add links to their articles and to correct the spelling of the name of Marek Olędzki. Krakkos ( talk) 23:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
We currently have:
I propose that at the very least, the part in red needs to be urgently removed as it is seriously misleading. Only one of the sources being cited uses this type of language, and it is from a book on Germanic languages [27=Fulk], not from any scholar specialized in Jordanes. It is also clearly "wrong", in the sense that it disagrees with what the expert sources say. If anyone has time, further tweaks will eventually be needed, so please consider making them...
We should all keep in mind that this article is about an historical people who are named in written records. It is not about a language family, or archaeological material cultures. Even though such evidence is clearly relevant, we can't let ourselves simply equate the topics of different fields. We should also keep in mind that there is a massive difference between saying there is archaeological evidence of connections between Scandinavia and Gdansk, and saying that Jordanes has been proven correct. This is not a "fine point". It is basically impossible to say Jordanes might be correct in any general way. But to understand this you need to look at Jordanes and modern commentators on Jordanes, not side remarks in archaeology or linguistics articles.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:50, 27 March 2021 (UTC)-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:35, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
at least in general outline, make this quote highly unsuitable for WP (but highly useful for cherry picking), because they could mean almost anything (b) According to our article on Fulk he is an
expert on Old English and Old Icelandic literature, and this article is a book on A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages ; (c) the disagreement between his wording and those of the experts in the field of Jordanes interpretation and commentary is extremely stark. It is not us judging him, it is Wenskus, Wolfram, Pohl, Heather, Christensen, Goffart, Kasperski, Halsall, Kulikowski etc etc etc. You obviously looked very hard to find this one stunning quote, and we are using it three times. That is a red flag. Note to all of us: this topic is now being discussed in two section, because Krakkos started a new section below as a reply to this one. I suggest moving that section to here as a sub-section.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:41, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
-continued below. do not use this section any more. discussion continues below in unified section-
Note, Krakkos has removed parts from this thread, breaking it somewhat [10], but it still contains the latest source-related replies to both the above thread and the parallel thread [11] opened by Krakkos.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:28, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Discussion for the two above sub-sections should now be here please. The posts above represent the answers to the last posts in both the above two sub-sections.--
Andrew Lancaster (
talk)
19:35, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Despite the undeniably Gothic nature of some of its material then, any reconstruction of Gothic history between 350 and 500 based on the Getica will be misleading - See p.32: Heather, Peter (1994). Goths and Romans 332–489. Oxford Scholarship Online. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205357.001.0001. ISBN 9780198205357.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 19:50, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Today we are able to conclude that this narrative is fictitious, a fabrication in which the omnipotent author himself has created both the framewok and the content of the story. But in spite of all this, it is never justifable to completely discard a relic of the past. If it cannot tell us something about the past it claims to describe; then at least it speaks volumes about the period in which it was conceived - contingent of course upon our own ability to precisely date the source. Parting is a painful process, as in this case, where we must relinquish something we have grown accustomed to regarding as Gothic history. - See p. 349: Christensen, Arne Søby (2002). Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 9788772897103.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 20:00, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Krakkos, continuing the ONE discussion HERE, do you accept that the quotes I have given HERE now demonstrate the problem with using the Fulk quote?--
Andrew Lancaster (
talk)
20:53, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
By the way, another problem with this Fulk quote, even putting aside its obvious disagreement with Jordanes experts is that it makes a basic mistake about Jordanes. the account given in the sixth-century Getica of Jordanes is trustworthy at least in general outline: according to this account, the Goths migrated, perhaps about 100 BCE, from Scandinavia (Scandza) to the banks of the Vistula.
Nope. Jordanes can not be made to say that, and the Jordanes experts disagree with Fulk on this also. We are currently citing this quote three times for the following:
I don't think Fulk should be used at all. This is cherry-picking of a source which is never cited by anyone writing about Gothic migration, in order to say the opposite of what the real highly-cited authorities say. Can anyone find any single academic citaiton of Fulk as an authority on Gothic migration?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 21:45, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This 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. |
Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | → | Archive 13 |
I have now made a proposal at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths with the aim of eliminating duplication and having a more simplified structure of the history section. This article already exceeds recommended article size, and the Goths#Culture section is underdeveloped. I have therefore transferred nearly all information about the Gothic name to the article Name of the Goths. I believe the name is a notable topic which cannot be covered comprehensively within this article without taking up too much space. I have given the history section a simplified chronological structure based upon the works on Herwig Wolfram and Peter Heather. I have also tried to make the prose less exegetic by transferring some disputes into the notelist. The proposed edit will look like this. [1] This is of course not a perfect version nor a final version, but i believe it gives the article a better basis for future improvement. If the community considers the proposal an improvement over the current version, permission to implement the edit would be much appreciated. Krakkos ( talk) 13:29, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
There are been almost daily complaints from a certain editor about duplication and the exegetical prose and structure of the history section of this article. I'm partially responsible for these issues and i would very much like to clean up my own mess. I have made a proposed solution at User:Krakkos/sandbox/Goths. I'm tempted to implement the proposal here. Are there any editors who would instead prefer to keep the current version? Krakkos ( talk) 06:45, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Steinacher p.50: Bei der historischen Beurteilung ist nun entscheidend, welche Rolle man den Wanderungsberichten in den Getica des Jordanes zugesteht, bzw. ob man eine gotische Identität und damit Geschichte schon vor dem 3. Jahrhunderd annimmt. In diesen Fragen ist sich die Forschung nicht einig.This is a good short recent (2017) review of the field with a long endnote giving examples of the diversity in the field, citing Kazanski, Bierbrauer, Wolfram, Heather, Kulikowski and Goffart. We should at least be consistent with such remarks?
The equation between Gutones and later Goths is disputed by Arne Søby Christensenimplying that there is only one scholar who doubts it.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:33, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
The authencity [sic] and accuracy of Jordanes' claim of Gothic origins in Scandianvia [sic] is disputed among historians.[25][26][27][28][29] Germanic philologists assent that the story is authentic.[30]Amazingly, this 2nd sentence is supposedly justified by a critical general remark about a type of argument:
Goffart 2005, pp. 379–380. "Experts in Germanic literature, who instantly discount reports of Trojan or Scythian or Noachic origins as being fabulous, solemnly assent: emigration from Scandinavia is an authentic 'tribal memory'..."This is just one example.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:35, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
It unfortunately seems now that Alcaios has been discouraged from working on this topic [2]. So there goes my preferred option. My second option would either be you allowing some tweaks, or else someone else needs to write a proposal (or more likely we will have to do it bit by bit). I want to do my best to once again propose an easy compromise:
Roman authors first mention the Goths in the third century. Scholars do not agree about whether these Goths had an identifiable and continuous history and identity which stretched before then. However several lines of evidence exist which point to an origin near the Vistula river, and possibly also connections to Scandinavia.
The equation between Gutones and later Goths is disputed by Arne Søby Christensen.[51]I believe Goffart, Kulikowski, and Halsall all have doubts?
What do you think? The proposal does not mean I have no other concerns, but these changes would help reduce specifically connected to your draft. I am not sure what other editors think, but I have tried hard to find something you should be able to accept? Tweaks to my tweaks also can be discussed, of course.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 11:21, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
"has played a crucial role" is not the same thing as "is a crucial source". Suggest rewording to emphasis the uniqueness of Jordanes rather than his (disputed) value for early Gothic history. Srnec ( talk) 13:25, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
@ GPinkerton, Krakkos, Srnec, and Alcaios: thinking about recent discussions and the proposal of GPinkerton, I suppose that while I would split articles less quickly than most people there is still a good case for this one, so I made it. I see no problematic overlaps (I've been looking), and I do think it can help take the load off several other articles, including talk page load. The idea kept coming back in different discussions including not only the new Names of the Goths but also today at Oium. See Origin stories of the Goths. I have started with Christensen only because he has a simple listing which was a good place to start. I should receive a copy of Heather "1991"? soon, and of course the first phase of editing should be pretty easy. Note this particular article is about a type of literature, NOT primarily about archaeological evidence, because we already have that. -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:24, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
@ Andrew Lancaster and Srnec: Origins of the Goths is what I was recommending before, not "origin stories of the Goths" - there's not enough there! GPinkerton ( talk) 00:15, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Should the "Name", "classical sources", and "literary sources" sections be combined to reduce duplication and improve overall quality?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 13:22, 10 March 2020 (UTC) @ Carlstak, Srnec, Krakkos, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Davemck, Nicholas0, Mnemosientje, Rjdeadly, Jens Lallensack, DASDBILL2, Kansas Bear, Megalogastor, Nyook, Yeowe, and Berig:
After suggesting it several times here I have finally made it. It is clearly justified as Germanic peoples with much less notability have articles, including the Gutes and Gauts. The article implies some tweaking to links etc on this article which I can not do. It also should eventually help reduce the size or detail of those introductory sections more.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:25, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Any concerns with these minor house-keeping proposals? Can someone either do them or give a clear go ahead?
Can I assume no opposition to these minor and logical proposals?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:00, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
In the intro the Scandinavian connection cannot be reduced to a mention of Jordanes and his unrelibility. To honest with the readers we need to show that we are aware of other sources of information that point to a Scandinavian origin, or at least a Scandinavian origin tradition.
This article is not restricted to historiography, and should not reduce the possible Scandinavian origin to a single source. This may look disengenuous to informed readers.- Berig ( talk) 07:06, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
What a bunch of nonsense. In the current year, we can now see the spread of the DNA matching the Sámi people from Scandinavia to essentially everywhere the tribes that became known as the Germanics went; but I guess none of that matters when the noble Peter Heather " reliable source" enlightened one speaks on behalf of the major publishing houses that pay him to say whatever it is that Peter Heather has himself determined to be "true" (after hearing the same thing from the spokespeople for truth before him, sponsored by the same major publishing houses). It's hilarious how careful he is to check all the right boxes, though, even calling the cultures in modern-day Poland (and Belarus) "Polish" (and Bylorussian"). Anyone with a grasp of history knows that the people in the vicinity of that region never would have considered themselves Poles by any means at that time in history, nor did Poland even exist. But of course that is just a "part 2" to the sort of things a "reliable" source historian is paid to say (lest he forfeit his check from his mainstream publisher and risk being on the street without a job in academia). Why is the golden rule of history 'thou must say whatever it is that happens to buck a narrative that the National Socialists championed'? It's so predictable. "What? The Nazis were interested in the link between Scandinavia and the Germanics and glamorized Northern symbols? We must deny any link!" "What? The Nazis took an interest what Europe might have looked like before the Great Migrations and emphasized that Germanic people settled as far as the Black Sea and linguistic and civilizational borders were indefinite and uncertain? We must say Europe never looked like that, otherwise we concede to one of the arguments as to what Hitler was doing and that would weaken our position that he wanted to conquer and dominate everything everywhere and every word from his mouth was a lie, especially that about the Jews and their control over things!" You people are psychotic. And yet you are the descendants of the same people who laughed when the Nazis went with pick and shovel to the Far East, fully aware that the Northern peoples may have originally come from there, too. You people who hawk Wikipedia are not historians for truth, you are negationists who parrot whatever the major publishing houses and your self-proclaimed "reliable sources" tell you. SHAME ON YOU.-- Stopyourwhitewash ( talk) 20:09, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
I sincerely hope that this article isn't about American politics, per above. What I react mostly to is the idea that the Scandinavian origin hinges only on the credibility of Jordanes in the intro. I think it should be more in line with this more scholarly and neutral approach:
Nevertheless, that these explanations cannot be used to confirm the historicity of the origin myth does not mean that the Goths and many others did not originate from Scandinavia. Several independent, unrelated, pieces of evidence, both philogical and archaeological,45 indicate that there might be a grain of historical truth in these stories. If Scandza is a literary motif, it might also reflect some long-gone historical reality,46 at least for the Goths, the Lombards, and the Anglo-Saxons, and perhaps even for groups like the Heruli, the Vandals and the Burgundians too. Several of the groups were tied up with the Nordic regions.47 Over the generations, the origin myths would have been handed down and recreated in a multitude of ritual contexts, associated with the social reproduction of the people and the warrior kings' sacred position. (in Hedeager, Lotte. 2003:27-28. Rituals of Power From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages Series: Transformation of the Roman World, Volume: 8 Editors: Frans Theuws and Janet Nelson)
If RS don't consider it to hinge solely on Jordanes' credibility, neither can we as WP editors, and I really really hope that this article is not considered to be a tool in American identity politics, because then all hope is probably lost for this article and the POV tag may have to stay in place as long as that debate lasts.-- Berig ( talk) 07:02, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
I notice I never placed this quote on this talk page yet. It just illustrates the point Ermenrich made. I am not taking sides, but pointing to what published scholars say:
[7] [Dennis] Green: Earlier this year I was in Sweden discussing this problem with a number of Swedish archaeologists. They, of course, are firmly convinced of the Swedish origin of the Goths. But even amongst the Swedes there is dissension as to where in Sweden the Goths may have come from. Four of the contestants being Västergötland, Östergötland, Aland and Gotland. So to take the problem back to Swedish origins would have opened up yet another hornets' nest of scholarly disagreement.
The discussion before and after adds to it.
-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 18:25, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
"May I ask you a personal question? Why you really find a possible connection between the Goths and Scandinavia so problematic? Is it ideological? You seem to be so very passionate about it that there must be something deeper than the mere intellectual stimulation of it."The discussion here goes together with Berig's parallel post to an admin who intervened on this article in the past [8]
"I am starting to doubt that his agenda is for the benefit of this project". I think it is up to Berig to clarify these WP:ASPERSIONS, or more simply to cease making them. So far there is no explanation of the background thinking to these remarks, and no diffs showing any "agenda". As far as I am concerned, these vague accusations come out of the blue, and have no connection to reality. Nevertheless, I have also posted on Berig's user page with an attempt to give a serious answer to the "personal question", which is BTW a straightforward example of a leading question. Hopefully there was just some kind of misunderstanding caused by the difficulty of following past discussions on this page? Honestly I do not know.
Yes, I understand theoretically the type of issue you are asking about, and there have been many such discussions on this talk page and so just demanding that other editors give you a full summary, to see if you have anything to add, is not a workable approach? Anyway, maybe these bullets help...
Note that no one is arguing that there is no connection between Scandinavia and the Gdansk region - not here, and not in the published sources we cite. The primary and secondary questions about Jordanes mentioned above are about whether he can be taken to be literally true, which almost no published scholars believe, or perhaps partly true. (Many academics after WW2 have followed the Vienna school argument that the name of the Goths, and a small number of prestigious people, came from Scandinavia and founded a culture which spread. But others argue that we don't really have evidence for this either, and so we don't have much strong evidence to go beyond saying that Wielbark was a local synthesis which was influenced by various neighbouring regions in ways that are now difficult to determine in detail.) Hope this helps.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:11, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Here are some sources on the views of the majority of modern scholars on Gothic origins:
"How the Goths arrived at the Black Sea, and where they originated, are matters of debate. The usual assumption, and the one still credited by the considerable majority of scholars, has been that the account given in the sixth-century Getica of Jordanes is trustworthy at least in general outline: according to this account, the Goths migrated, perhaps about 100 BCE, from Scandinavia (Scandza) to the banks of the Vistula. Their area of settlement on the southern coast of the Baltic is called by Jordanes Gothiscandza... In accordance with the account of Jordanes, the Goths have usually been identified with the Gutones first mentioned by Pliny the Elder ca. 65 CE as living on the shore of (apparently) the Baltic Sea. On this reasoning the Goths have also commonly been associated with the island of Gotland and with the region of south-central Sweden called Götaland (named after the ON Gautar, OE Gēatas), from which areas they are assumed to have migrated originally... In more recent times the account of Jordanes, recorded so many centuries after the purported departure from Scandinavia, has been called into question, in part on archaeological grounds... [T]he presence of Goths in Scandinavia is not to be doubted... At all events, the name of the Goths is so common in place-names in Sweden—and place-names are often among the most archaic evidence—that it is difficult to believe that the Gothic presence in Scandinavia could have been a late development." – Fulk, Robert D. (2018). "Provenance of the Goths". A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages. Studies in Germanic Linguistics. Vol. 3. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-90-272-6312-4.
"Greek and Roman sources of the first and second centuries A.D. are the earliest written evidence we have for the Goths, under the names Guthones, Gothones, and Gothi. The sources agree in placing these people along the Vistula river, although whether they were on the coast or a bit inland is unclear. Also not totally clear is the connection between these people and other tribal groupings of similar names found at that time and later in parts of south central Sweden (now Västergötland and Östergötland) and on the island of Gotland. If the legend recorded by the sixth-century Gothic historian Jordanes is accurate, the Goths came to the mouth of the Vistula from across the sea, displacing a number of Germanic tribes who were there before them, including the Vandals. The weight of scholarship appears to support this story, with (mainland) Götland being seen as the likely point of origin, and the early first century B.C. as the likely time. Owing perhaps partially to population pressure, a large number of Goths subsequently left the Vistula in the mid-second century A.D. Around 170 they reached an area north of the Black Sea, where they settled between the Don and the Dniester rivers." – Robinson, Orrin W. (2005). "A Brief History of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths". Old English and its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages. Taylor & Francis. pp. 36–39. ISBN 0-415-08169-6.
"Most scholars agree that contents of Jordanes' text... concerning the arrival of the Goths and Gepidae from Scandinavia to Pomerania is fully reflected in archaeological sources." – Olędzki, Marek (2004). "The Wielbark and Przeworsk Cultures at the Turn of the Early and Late Roman Periods" (PDF). In Friesinger, Herwig; Stuppner, Alois (eds.). Zentrum und Peripherie. Mitteilungen Der Prähistorischen Kommission. Vol. 57. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. pp. 279–290. ISBN 9783700133179.
"The story by Jordanes about the migration of Goths from Scandza is a matter of a vivid and long standing discussion between historians. 'Most scholars argue that it is a part of the Gothic tribal tradition." – Kasperski, Robert (2015). "Too Civilized to Revert to Savages? A Study Concerning a Debate about the Goths between Procopius and Jordanes". The Mediaeval Journal. 5 (2). Brepols: 33–51. doi: 10.1484/J.TMJ.5.108524.
Krakkos ( talk) 10:53, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Thank you Krakkos for providing reliable sources per WP:RS/AC.-- Berig ( talk) 17:54, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Berig I think to show good faith you should start by giving at least one example of a far-fetched assertion I've made. You've asserted that you've seen some so please put one on the table for us all to see. -- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 20:38, 25 March 2021 (UTC) ADDED: please also remember to explain what the relevance is for the article as it currently stands. Remember I have no asked for any changes and you also seem happy with it. It is a balance mainly decided by Krakkos so far.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 21:17, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Orrin W. Robinson and Marek Olędzki are cited here, but there are no links to their articles. The given name of Olędzki is also incorrectly spelled "Mark" rather than "Marek". I would like to add links to their articles and to correct the spelling of the name of Marek Olędzki. Krakkos ( talk) 23:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
We currently have:
I propose that at the very least, the part in red needs to be urgently removed as it is seriously misleading. Only one of the sources being cited uses this type of language, and it is from a book on Germanic languages [27=Fulk], not from any scholar specialized in Jordanes. It is also clearly "wrong", in the sense that it disagrees with what the expert sources say. If anyone has time, further tweaks will eventually be needed, so please consider making them...
We should all keep in mind that this article is about an historical people who are named in written records. It is not about a language family, or archaeological material cultures. Even though such evidence is clearly relevant, we can't let ourselves simply equate the topics of different fields. We should also keep in mind that there is a massive difference between saying there is archaeological evidence of connections between Scandinavia and Gdansk, and saying that Jordanes has been proven correct. This is not a "fine point". It is basically impossible to say Jordanes might be correct in any general way. But to understand this you need to look at Jordanes and modern commentators on Jordanes, not side remarks in archaeology or linguistics articles.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:50, 27 March 2021 (UTC)-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 07:35, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
at least in general outline, make this quote highly unsuitable for WP (but highly useful for cherry picking), because they could mean almost anything (b) According to our article on Fulk he is an
expert on Old English and Old Icelandic literature, and this article is a book on A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages ; (c) the disagreement between his wording and those of the experts in the field of Jordanes interpretation and commentary is extremely stark. It is not us judging him, it is Wenskus, Wolfram, Pohl, Heather, Christensen, Goffart, Kasperski, Halsall, Kulikowski etc etc etc. You obviously looked very hard to find this one stunning quote, and we are using it three times. That is a red flag. Note to all of us: this topic is now being discussed in two section, because Krakkos started a new section below as a reply to this one. I suggest moving that section to here as a sub-section.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:41, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
-continued below. do not use this section any more. discussion continues below in unified section-
Note, Krakkos has removed parts from this thread, breaking it somewhat [10], but it still contains the latest source-related replies to both the above thread and the parallel thread [11] opened by Krakkos.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 09:28, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Discussion for the two above sub-sections should now be here please. The posts above represent the answers to the last posts in both the above two sub-sections.--
Andrew Lancaster (
talk)
19:35, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Despite the undeniably Gothic nature of some of its material then, any reconstruction of Gothic history between 350 and 500 based on the Getica will be misleading - See p.32: Heather, Peter (1994). Goths and Romans 332–489. Oxford Scholarship Online. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205357.001.0001. ISBN 9780198205357.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 19:50, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Today we are able to conclude that this narrative is fictitious, a fabrication in which the omnipotent author himself has created both the framewok and the content of the story. But in spite of all this, it is never justifable to completely discard a relic of the past. If it cannot tell us something about the past it claims to describe; then at least it speaks volumes about the period in which it was conceived - contingent of course upon our own ability to precisely date the source. Parting is a painful process, as in this case, where we must relinquish something we have grown accustomed to regarding as Gothic history. - See p. 349: Christensen, Arne Søby (2002). Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 9788772897103.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 20:00, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Krakkos, continuing the ONE discussion HERE, do you accept that the quotes I have given HERE now demonstrate the problem with using the Fulk quote?--
Andrew Lancaster (
talk)
20:53, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
By the way, another problem with this Fulk quote, even putting aside its obvious disagreement with Jordanes experts is that it makes a basic mistake about Jordanes. the account given in the sixth-century Getica of Jordanes is trustworthy at least in general outline: according to this account, the Goths migrated, perhaps about 100 BCE, from Scandinavia (Scandza) to the banks of the Vistula.
Nope. Jordanes can not be made to say that, and the Jordanes experts disagree with Fulk on this also. We are currently citing this quote three times for the following:
I don't think Fulk should be used at all. This is cherry-picking of a source which is never cited by anyone writing about Gothic migration, in order to say the opposite of what the real highly-cited authorities say. Can anyone find any single academic citaiton of Fulk as an authority on Gothic migration?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 21:45, 28 March 2021 (UTC)