I don't have a lot of time and haven't read the draft, but I'd like to note that scholars who doubt that there were Germanic peoples as such need to be included. Walter Goffart has an entire chapter of Barbarian Tides titled "And none of them were Germans". I will try to find some relevant quotes later in the day/week.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 14:38, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Obviously he has an entire book to support these contentions, but I'm low on time so that's it for now.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 14:20, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
(No, it's not just because I'm a linguist) I noticed that the "Languages" section has disappeared. Apparently, it was outforked by Krakkos as part of "Early Germanic culture". That's of course nonsense, since language is not part of culture. Who knows, maybe with the rationale: "Look, even the "modern Germanic peoples" have a shared culture, viz. their languages". Maybe not.
In any case, there should be a short independent section about what we know (and speculate) about the languages of the Germani. – Austronesier ( talk) 16:41, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Not connected to this section, but just wanted to confirm you on one important point: the quote from Wolfram (2015) is the most powerful statement against the shallow/obsolete definition of "Germanic people". – Austronesier ( talk) 11:51, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
This draft defines Germanic peoples as people who "lived in the north European region of Germania during the era of the Roman empire." Per WP:NOR, i suggest that the article provides a reliable source for defining Germanic peoples this way. Having said that, please note that we already have an article titled Germania. That article has a section titled Germania#Population. There is plenty of room for expansion there. If there is an urgent need to add content on inhabitans of Germania, wouldn't it be better to do that at Germania#Population, rather than transforming Germanic peoples into a content fork of Germania#Population? Krakkos ( talk) 23:47, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Just a comment: Goffart mentions that the relationships among the Germanic languages were noted by the 8th century. I'm not sure what his source for this statement is (Bede? someone on the continent?) but it seems relevant. This should be looked into, since I don't think we should just take Goffart at his unsourced word here. If I can I'll try to do it myself, but I'm incredibly busy.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 15:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
This from Bede, Ecclesiastical History Book I Chap 4 seems relevant: Aduenerant autem de tribus Germaniae populis fortioribus, ide est, Saxonibus, Anglis, Iutis.
The Loeb translation: Now the strangers had come from three of the more mighty nations in Germany, that is, the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes
. This must be discussed in some of the secondary literature.--
Ermenrich (
talk) 17:24, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
But when Coinwalch was restored to his kingdom, there came into that province out of Ireland, a certain bishop called Agilbert,326 a native of Gaul, but who had then lived a long time in Ireland, for the purpose of reading the Scriptures. He attached himself to the king, and voluntarily undertook the ministry of preaching. The king, observing his learning and industry, desired him to accept an episcopal see there and remain as the bishop of his people. Agilbert complied with the request, and [pg 150] presided over that nation as their bishop for many years. At length the king, who understood only the language of the Saxons, weary of his barbarous tongue, privately brought into the province another bishop, speaking his own language, by name Wini,327 who had also been ordained in Gaul; and dividing his province into two dioceses, appointed this last his episcopal see in the city of Venta, by the Saxons called Wintancaestir.
This would seem to be an invaluable source: [3]
Just an example: p. 3 "The Germani described by Tacitus need not be the same as those described over a century earlier by Caesar, so that differences between these two sources, far from needing to be explained away, may reflect the result of the encounter of the Germani with the world of Rome."
It's from 1998, so it doesn't engage in many of the definitional debates we're having here, but once the article gets to questions like culture, etc it should be very useful.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 20:44, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
I wasn't sure where this should go in the draft, but collecting quotes of "Germanic identity" is probably a good idea. This is from Malcolm Todd, The Early Germans, pp. 8-9 [4]:
The first point to be made is that they [the Germani] had no collective consciousness of themselves as a separate people, nation or group of tribes. There is no evidencethat they called themselves 'Germani' or their land 'Germania'... [he discusses the uncertain origin of the name Germani...] All that is reasonably certain is that a member of a German tribe, when asked about his or her affiliations, would have answered 'Langobard', 'Vandal', 'Frisian' or 'Goth', not 'Germanus'.
Todd is certainly not an advocate of the "Toronto school" and this seems like a consensus position in the scholarship from everything I've seen.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 23:41, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
Just stumbled across this while reading Gloning/Young's A History of German through Texts, p. 51 "We know that the historian and teacher Rudolf of Fulda held the [continental] Saxons to be the Germani of Tacitus". No source given, but this seems worthy of investigation for the medieval concept.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 15:34, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
I don't have a lot of time and haven't read the draft, but I'd like to note that scholars who doubt that there were Germanic peoples as such need to be included. Walter Goffart has an entire chapter of Barbarian Tides titled "And none of them were Germans". I will try to find some relevant quotes later in the day/week.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 14:38, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Obviously he has an entire book to support these contentions, but I'm low on time so that's it for now.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 14:20, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
(No, it's not just because I'm a linguist) I noticed that the "Languages" section has disappeared. Apparently, it was outforked by Krakkos as part of "Early Germanic culture". That's of course nonsense, since language is not part of culture. Who knows, maybe with the rationale: "Look, even the "modern Germanic peoples" have a shared culture, viz. their languages". Maybe not.
In any case, there should be a short independent section about what we know (and speculate) about the languages of the Germani. – Austronesier ( talk) 16:41, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Not connected to this section, but just wanted to confirm you on one important point: the quote from Wolfram (2015) is the most powerful statement against the shallow/obsolete definition of "Germanic people". – Austronesier ( talk) 11:51, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
This draft defines Germanic peoples as people who "lived in the north European region of Germania during the era of the Roman empire." Per WP:NOR, i suggest that the article provides a reliable source for defining Germanic peoples this way. Having said that, please note that we already have an article titled Germania. That article has a section titled Germania#Population. There is plenty of room for expansion there. If there is an urgent need to add content on inhabitans of Germania, wouldn't it be better to do that at Germania#Population, rather than transforming Germanic peoples into a content fork of Germania#Population? Krakkos ( talk) 23:47, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Just a comment: Goffart mentions that the relationships among the Germanic languages were noted by the 8th century. I'm not sure what his source for this statement is (Bede? someone on the continent?) but it seems relevant. This should be looked into, since I don't think we should just take Goffart at his unsourced word here. If I can I'll try to do it myself, but I'm incredibly busy.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 15:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
This from Bede, Ecclesiastical History Book I Chap 4 seems relevant: Aduenerant autem de tribus Germaniae populis fortioribus, ide est, Saxonibus, Anglis, Iutis.
The Loeb translation: Now the strangers had come from three of the more mighty nations in Germany, that is, the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes
. This must be discussed in some of the secondary literature.--
Ermenrich (
talk) 17:24, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
But when Coinwalch was restored to his kingdom, there came into that province out of Ireland, a certain bishop called Agilbert,326 a native of Gaul, but who had then lived a long time in Ireland, for the purpose of reading the Scriptures. He attached himself to the king, and voluntarily undertook the ministry of preaching. The king, observing his learning and industry, desired him to accept an episcopal see there and remain as the bishop of his people. Agilbert complied with the request, and [pg 150] presided over that nation as their bishop for many years. At length the king, who understood only the language of the Saxons, weary of his barbarous tongue, privately brought into the province another bishop, speaking his own language, by name Wini,327 who had also been ordained in Gaul; and dividing his province into two dioceses, appointed this last his episcopal see in the city of Venta, by the Saxons called Wintancaestir.
This would seem to be an invaluable source: [3]
Just an example: p. 3 "The Germani described by Tacitus need not be the same as those described over a century earlier by Caesar, so that differences between these two sources, far from needing to be explained away, may reflect the result of the encounter of the Germani with the world of Rome."
It's from 1998, so it doesn't engage in many of the definitional debates we're having here, but once the article gets to questions like culture, etc it should be very useful.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 20:44, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
I wasn't sure where this should go in the draft, but collecting quotes of "Germanic identity" is probably a good idea. This is from Malcolm Todd, The Early Germans, pp. 8-9 [4]:
The first point to be made is that they [the Germani] had no collective consciousness of themselves as a separate people, nation or group of tribes. There is no evidencethat they called themselves 'Germani' or their land 'Germania'... [he discusses the uncertain origin of the name Germani...] All that is reasonably certain is that a member of a German tribe, when asked about his or her affiliations, would have answered 'Langobard', 'Vandal', 'Frisian' or 'Goth', not 'Germanus'.
Todd is certainly not an advocate of the "Toronto school" and this seems like a consensus position in the scholarship from everything I've seen.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 23:41, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
Just stumbled across this while reading Gloning/Young's A History of German through Texts, p. 51 "We know that the historian and teacher Rudolf of Fulda held the [continental] Saxons to be the Germani of Tacitus". No source given, but this seems worthy of investigation for the medieval concept.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 15:34, 8 February 2020 (UTC)