Talk:Germanic peoples/Archive 14
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Feedback requested on 8 (hopefully) minor points
Thank you to Obenritter for tagging etc within the articles. Between the two of us, several small improvements have been done, however concerning some of the tags I have my doubts and it might be easier if other editors looked instead of me.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:34, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
| TLDR | ||
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Footnote formats. I have to say I find these particular changes are small steps backwards, because the article has long suffered from thickets of small footnotes, and I prefer bundles where possible. But is that just my "taste"?
"Mixed (new) peoples". I am responsible for using this term several times, and all of those have been tagged as being unclear. Is this word really unclear in this context? Perhaps other editors can also find simpler ways around the problem.
Information that I think is already there, generally tags on sentences which introduce the detailed discussions which are (I think) the ones being demanded:
If I or Obenritter find a good solution for any of these of course we should also go ahead, but I hope these types of questions are easy cases to bring in more opinions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:28, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
The ridiculous level of commentary about any and every proposed change or request for clarification is exhausting. Collaborating with you is too arduous and unproductive for me. If you cannot see the problems with the original text even when it has been pointed out and how confusing terms like "mixed peoples" is in this context (even after it's been explained to you), there's no way anyone can hammer it into your skull. My recommendation is for you to step away from the article for a while, as your involvement with it and attempts to lord-over the content—evidenced by the painstakingly lengthy and comprehensive comments and arguments on the Talk Page with other editors—is certainly approaching a clear violation of WP:OWN.--Obenritter (talk) 16:11, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
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UPDATE. @Obenritter: I wish I could have created a better talk page discussion (blame me if you want) but in any case I have now made an effort to address every tag in that large round. (Obviously there were many more than the 8 topics, which I did not bring to talk because it was clear what was needed.)
- Please do keep in mind that I feel strongly, for logical reasons, that we should not overload the lead, and this influences my editing judgement as well. We don't want to evolve back to a situation where everyone pushes things into the lead, and the lead has more than the body on many topics.
- For now I left the footnotes more-or-less as you changed them except for converting the new efn for practical reasons which seem uncontroversial (see edsum).
- I have begun to work on improving the sources in the medieval section, prioritized based on what I guess might be most controversial or non-obvious, but if there is anything specific it might eventually become useful to switch from a section tag to more detailed tags or even, dare I suggest it, the talk page! :) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:41, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
Every one of the 8 items now addressed, I will collapse the above detailed listing of them, taking note of concerns raised about long posts on the talk page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:24, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks @Andrew Lancaster:...while there are places where I wish the original parts of the text were left alone, most of what you're attempting to do here is making more and more sense to me. You're right about tagging too, but I was concerned about coming to the Talk page to discuss as opposed to just tagging it for fear of a drawn-out argument. You do have great debate skills BTW. I hope you understand why I did that now. Anyway--since the COVID-19 thing has us all in lockdown, I should be able to start making tweaks here and there and I will try and be less vitriolic in my approach. Let's agree that when and if we disagree going forward, we'll take a step back and more carefully respond to the content, realizing we're trying to build an Encyclopedia to help people in the future.--Obenritter (talk) 17:07, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
- Sounds great. I will do my best also. On your side, as a silly thing, please consider footnote formats? I think efn should be used rarely, but bundling can really help avoid some problems this article has had.
- I want to repeat that I feel/hope I did a source-based restructuring update for future editors, but I do not at all argue that I have written anything like a "finished" version of any single part of this article. I did however put most effort into the lead and definition sections because these are parts of the article which can not defer to other "main" articles, and they cover the issues which were never clear in older versions, and this created long term problems. I think they are a real step forward with no equivalent in past versions, and based on a lot of investigation. So I have been trying to "focus" the article, based on my imperfect experience as a Wikipedian, and my true interest in this topic concerning which you surely know more than me. Something we surely will discuss more is that I shortened the history section, but I see this as a structuring step also. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:41, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks @Andrew Lancaster:...while there are places where I wish the original parts of the text were left alone, most of what you're attempting to do here is making more and more sense to me. You're right about tagging too, but I was concerned about coming to the Talk page to discuss as opposed to just tagging it for fear of a drawn-out argument. You do have great debate skills BTW. I hope you understand why I did that now. Anyway--since the COVID-19 thing has us all in lockdown, I should be able to start making tweaks here and there and I will try and be less vitriolic in my approach. Let's agree that when and if we disagree going forward, we'll take a step back and more carefully respond to the content, realizing we're trying to build an Encyclopedia to help people in the future.--Obenritter (talk) 17:07, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
Early Middle Ages
Given that much of the 6th through the 11th centuries is marginally covered by this rewrite of the Early Middle Ages section and it is not especially well-sourced, I would like to return to the original text from that section. Why that was not retained is unclear, but let's discuss what was once present. Here it is for comparison against the current version:
| proposed version (end 2019?) | current version (29 March 2020) |
|---|---|
///Early Middle Ages///
 The transition of the Migration period to the Middle Ages proper took place over the course of the second half of the 1st millennium. It was marked by the Christianization of the Germanic peoples and the formation of stable kingdoms replacing the mostly tribal structures of the Migration period. Some of this stability is discernible in the fact that the Pope recognized Theodoric's reign when the Germanic conqueror entered Rome in AD 500, despite that Theodoric was a known practitioner of Arianism, a faith which the Council of Nicaea condemned in AD 325.[1] Theodoric's Germanic subjects and administrators from the Roman Catholic Church cooperated in serving him, helping establish a codified system of laws and ordinances which facilitated the integration of the Gothic peoples into a burgeoning empire, solidifying their place as they appropriated a Roman identity of sorts.[2] The foundations laid by the Empire enabled the successor Germanic kingdoms to maintain a familiar structure and their success can be seen as part of the lasting triumph of Rome.[3]  In continental Europe, this Germanic evolution saw the rise of Francia in the Merovingian period under the rule of Clovis I who had deposed the last emperor of Gaul, eclipsing lesser kingdoms such as Alemannia.[4] The Merovingians controlled most of Gaul under Clovis, who, through conversion to Christianity, allied himself with the Gallo-Romans. While the Merovingians were checked by the armies of the Ostrogoth Theodoric, they remained the most powerful kingdom in Western Europe and the intermixing of their people with the Romans through marriage rendered the Frankish people less a Germanic tribe and more a "European people" in a manner of speaking.[5] Most of Gaul was under Merovingian control as was part of Italy and their overlordship extended into Germany where they reigned over the Thuringians, Alamans, and Bavarians.[6] Evidence also exists that they may have even had suzerainty over south-east England.[7] Frankish historian Gregory of Tours relates that Clovis converted to Christianity partly as a result of his wife's urging and even more so - due to having won a desperate battle after calling out to Christ. According to Gregory, this conversion was sincere but it also proved politically expedient as Clovis used his new faith as a means to consolidate his political power by Christianizing his army.[8][a] Against Germanic tradition, each of the four sons of Clovis attempted to secure power in different cities but their inability to prove themselves on the battlefield and intrigue against one another led the Visigoths back to electing their leadership.[9] When Merovingian rule eventually weakened, they were supplanted by another powerful Frankish family, the Carolingians, a dynastic order which produced Charles Martel, and Charlemagne.[10] The coronation of Charlemagne as emperor by Pope Leo III in Rome on Christmas Day, AD 800 represented a shift in the power structure from the south to the north. Frankish power ultimately laid the foundations for the modern nations of Germany and France.[11] For historians, Charlemagne's appearance in the historical chronicle of Europe also marks a transition where the voice of the north appears in its own vernacular thanks to the spread of Christianity, after which the northerners began writing in Latin, Germanic, and Celtic; whereas before, the Germanic people were only known through Roman or Greek sources.[12] In England, the Germanic Anglo-Saxon tribes reigned over the south of Great Britain from approximately 519 to the tenth century until the Wessex hegemony became the nucleus for the unification of England.[13][14] Scandinavia was in the Vendel period and eventually entered the Viking Age, with expansion to Britain, Ireland and Iceland in the west and as far as Russia and Greece in the east.[15] By AD 900 the Vikings secured for themselves a foothold on Frankish soil along the Lower Seine River valley in what is now France that became known as Normandy. Hence they became the Normans. They established the Duchy of Normandy, a territorial acquisition which provided them the opportunity to expand beyond Normandy into Anglo-Saxon England.[16] The subsequent Norman Conquest which followed in AD 1066 wrought immense changes to life in England as their new Scandinavian masters altered their government, lordship, public holdings, culture and DNA pool permanently.[17] The various Germanic tribal cultures began their transformation into the larger nations of later history, English, Norse and German, and in the case of Burgundy, Lombardy and Normandy blending into a Romano-Germanic culture. Many of these later nation states started originally as "client buffer states" for the Roman Empire so as to protect it from its enemies further away.[18] Eventually they carved out their own unique historical paths. |
///Early Middle Ages///
 In the early Middle Ages, much of continental catholic Europe became part of a greater Francia under the Merovingian and then the Carolingian dynasty. The coronation of Charlemagne as emperor by Pope Leo III in Rome on Christmas Day, 800 CE consolidated a shift in the power structure from the south to the north, and was also a strong symbolic link to Rome and the Roman Christianity. The core of the new empire included what is now France, Germany and the Benelux countries. The empire laid the foundations for the medieval and early modern ancien regime, finally destroyed only by the French Revolution. The Frankish-Catholic way of doing politics and war and religion also had a strong effect upon all neighbouring regions, including what became England, Spain, Italy, Austria, and Bohemia. The effect of old Germanic culture on this new Latin-using empire is a topic of dispute, because there was much continuity with the old Roman legal systems, and the increasingly important Christian religion. An example which is argued to show an influence of earlier Germanic culture is law. The new kingdoms created new law codes in Latin, with occasional Germanic words.[19] These were Roman-influenced, and under strong church influence all law was increasingly standardized to accord with Christian philosophy, and old Roman law.[20] Germanic languages in western Europe also faded out of use in most areas apart from the West Germanic group of related languages including England, the "Austrasian" Frankish homelands near the Lower Rhine, Maas and Scheldt rivers, and the large area between the Rhine and Elbe. With the splitting off of this latter area within the Frankish empire, the first ever political entity corresponding loosely to modern "Germany" came into existence. In Eastern Europe the once relatively developed periphery of the Roman world collapsed culturally and economically, and this can be seen in the Germanic-associated archaeological evidence: in the area of today's southern Poland and Ukraine the collapse was not long after 400, and by 700 Germanic material culture was entirely west of the Elbe in the area where the Romans had been active since Caesar's time, and the Franks were now active. East of the Elbe was to become mainly Slavic speaking.[21] Outside of the Roman-influenced zone, Germanic-speaking Scandinavia was in the Vendel period and eventually entered the Viking Age, with expansion to Britain, Ireland and Iceland in the west and as far as Russia and Greece in the east.[22] Swedish Vikings, known locally as the Rus', ventured deep into Russia, where they founded the political entities of Kievan Rus'. They defeated the Khazar Khaganate and became the dominant power in Eastern Europe. The dominant language of these communities came to be East Slavic.[23] By 900 CE the Vikings also secured a foothold on Frankish soil along the Lower Seine River valley in what became known as Normandy. On the other hand, the Scandinavian countries were, starting with Denmark, under the influence of Germany to their south, and also the lands where they had colonies. Bit by bit they became Christian, and organized themselves into Frankish- and Catholic-influenced kingdoms.  |
References
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Obviously there will be citation errors in this version, which we can correct once we move back to the original in the actual article. Nonetheless, the current version glosses over several centuries a little too much for my taste. Other editors, please provide some input after you've compared it to the new text. --Obenritter (talk) 18:06, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
- OK, but the main concern is pretty simple and that is length. This is of course much longer. We have another article which you and I could also go and work on, and the Germanic aspect of this period is peripheral to Germanic peoples in their "core" sense? Which bits are most critical for "the Germanic"?
- BTW feel free to uncollapse. I am feeling paranoid about people blaming me for the talk page being too full. Apologies in advance if required.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:41, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
- Good move to hide it that way Andrew. Actually, I wanted to also consider removing the sections "Roman descriptions of early Germanic people and culture" and the "Genetics" sections altogether. It seems that Roman descriptions are more than sufficiently covered throughout the rest of the article and the Genetics issue has only caused controversy. If we forego keeping those sections, the older version of the early Middle Ages doesn't burden the article as much and stops it where this should probably end, that is, if you concur. --Obenritter (talk) 19:03, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
- I have adapted that collapsed section to show your proposal compared to the current version. I would say that "methodologically" we should consider the merits of each section independently:
- Yes, Genetics in general is difficult on Wikipedia, because the field is so new and fast moving, and our editors are mainly citing individual research papers where the only historical remarks are being made by non-historians. However, I've worked a lot on such problems, and these section keep coming back (and if we are lucky, one day someone will actually publish something relevant). The the least worst option is probably to have a place for it. The section as it stands is now just a short place-holder, and stripped down to a pretty simple few remarks.
- The classical descriptions could perhaps be removed. However perhaps a short "placeholder" version of this section should remain because this is now our main "cultural" section (unless we count the . And it helps readers get to our still nascent "Early Germanic culture" article. (Also keep in mind that Azerty82 is working on something which may replace this? Or maybe Azerty has another approach. Perhaps Azerty can comment.)
- Early Middle Ages. Looking now in the above comparison table I am not sure a simple replacement back to an old version is the best approach. The old version mixed in events from pre-medieval history. (e.g. Theoderic and Clovis, kingdoms, conversions, clients are for previous sections.) 2ndly the new version (which you can see is based quite a lot on the old version) was not just trying to focus more on the article topic, but also involved an effort to add missing topics which we would now simply delete. The old one also did need tweaking. (I do hope we can keep being more careful about things like "The Vikings became Normans". Was 1066 really anything to do with "Germanic peoples" and "DNA"? I am cautious of terms like "tribes" and "nation states". Was there a "large" "Norse" "nation" formed in this period? Was the inheritance of Clovis definitely a "Germanic" thing?) So I am thinking normal bit-by-bit editing would be better than a simple massive revert?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:07, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- Theodoric and Clovis are not considered "pre-medieval" by most historians, as the typical cut-off line for late antiquity/early medieval is normally 400 AD (some start as early as 300). Both lived after that date. These "Germanic" kings were very important for Europe's general political development. Theodoric for his integration of Roman-style administration into the developing polities that he controlled; Clovis for moving the Franks away from Arianism and to Catholicism. These are especially important in my opinion. Moving so quickly all the way to the 9th century arrival of Charlemagne onto the scene is otherwise jarring and omits significant historical events. You're right, we can dispense with the "Hence they became the Normans" sentence, which only muddies things, but otherwise, most of what was originally there provides a clearer framework regarding the continuity of Europe's emerging formation.--Obenritter (talk) 15:09, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- I have adapted that collapsed section to show your proposal compared to the current version. I would say that "methodologically" we should consider the merits of each section independently:
- Good move to hide it that way Andrew. Actually, I wanted to also consider removing the sections "Roman descriptions of early Germanic people and culture" and the "Genetics" sections altogether. It seems that Roman descriptions are more than sufficiently covered throughout the rest of the article and the Genetics issue has only caused controversy. If we forego keeping those sections, the older version of the early Middle Ages doesn't burden the article as much and stops it where this should probably end, that is, if you concur. --Obenritter (talk) 19:03, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
- Maybe there is a misunderstanding. Concerning Clovis, Theoderic and the Lombard invasion, for example, no one is arguing against including them. They are in another section. I think the breakpoint currently used between the sections (about 500-568) is the most common one in our sources. Old versions of the article provide no alternative structure, and they had extensive duplication. Creating a stricter chronological structure for the first time seems to have resulted in the biggest difference in this section we are looking at. ...So in practice, a major part of your revert proposal would be a proposal to start duplicating material or destructuring the article without even first looking at whether the the current structure is reasonable. Do you understand my concern?
- So if we are talking chronology and the importance of the these figures, how is it that you've essentially skipped all the way to Charlemagne from the 6th century? The mentions of both Clovis and Theodoric are cursory at best in the article and such minimal treatment given to two of the most important Germanic chieftains in the history of Europe is a tad dismissive. The rewrite is decidedly inferior on this point.--Obenritter (talk) 21:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- Concerning the examples of smaller problems, there are many more details we could discuss which explain small differences and re-arrangements. However, to be practical, I think the first question is why you can't just make step-by-step edits of the existing version, rather than making a massive revert. To say the least, I honestly do not think the old version is "self-evidently" better. I think the various small changes, and of course the large change caused by the new chronological sectioning, deserve to be considered carefully. There was some thought put into this.
- There was lots of thought put into the original text on the transition out of the Migration period into the Early Middle Ages, most of which was magically deleted or turned into executive summary via omission, so I'd like to know how you've come to the conclusion that the previous content was to be somehow superseded via synopsis. What exact line of reasoning was used? In some places, sourced content was retained but the source was deleted altogether and added to a list of "unused sources" in the talk page. What was especially constructive and thoughtful about those changes? Important things are missing that better explain the evolution of Europe and are not found elsewhere in this article, so returning that content is not unreasonable.--Obenritter (talk) 21:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- Honestly I think this is also the normal WP way of working and quite a reasonable proposal?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:00, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- Given the massive deletion/rewrite of this article, let this be viewed as retroactive content negotiations that did not occur earlier as many of us have busy lives outside of WP. In other words, this current engagement represents the collaboration that did not happen when this section was originally rewritten.--Obenritter (talk) 21:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- ADDED, I guess the TLDR is that I suggest "not rushing" on this particular point, because I know it would involve more concerns than is immediately obvious.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:34, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- You're right, there's no need to rush this.
- Well then, I believe the normal practice would be to now start a discussion naming one of the specific things which is now worse or missing, rather than just saying it used to be better as a general remark. (I think we should both accept that both versions had their own rationales, but in practice the current one is the one which has been fitted to the current structure. I am obviously concerned about keeping a chronological structure in order to avoid the slippery slope of duplications. Otherwise this section is not shockingly different to the old version.)
- As an example, of trying to understand you on a concrete detail: I couldn't really understand your point about the section break being "jarring" in this case, because (1) In context it sounds like you are saying we need to duplicate material in every section again in order to avoid being jarring? Or maybe we should have less section breaks? And (2) why would separating events 300 years apart be controversial, and why would separating Theoderic's time from Odoacer's time be uncontroversial? But obviously I must just be misunderstanding you...
- ...That is why it might be better to look at details, bit by bit. Where to put the sections breaks is obviously one possible thing that we can change too. But then we should look at the preceding section too. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:16, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- BTW I do not know which version of this article you are treating as the good one, but if I look for example at 23 December [1] then discussion of Theoderic is split (jarringly?) between several sections. The most relevant for this discussion are Early Middle Ages and Fall of the Western Roman Empire.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:44, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- A few missing things for consideration:
- Skipping 300 years is pretty important since during those years, two of the most important Germanic chieftains lived (who are barely mentioned elsewhere in the text). One of whom (Theodoric) did more to help usher in Roman style administration over the Germanic peoples through a subsequent codification of laws, changing many of their tribal customs and practices into those closer resembling Roman ones, more so than perhaps all of his predecessors.
- Meanwhile, (Clovis), influenced history by advocating (if not forcing) Christian conversion from Arianism to Catholicism for his subjects. This development helped facilitate more contact and mixing with other Catholic peoples and more of European identity. Since the Franks controlled most of Gaul, parts of Italy, some of what would become Germany, even part of England, and some of France, this is significant.
- Frankish suzerainty was maintained for for several generations from Merovingian through Carolingian, passing through Charles Martel and later to Charlemagne; a continuity that afforded the Germanic Franks a central place in Europe's historical development. The current text glosses over all of that and leaps straight to Charlemagne, as if the average reader would understand that continuity. I think not, hence the previous explanatory text.
--Obenritter (talk) 23:11, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- I see the relevance of the Romanitas of Theoderic's administration, and the religious conversions. They were not totally removed, but maybe they should go a bit further. OTOH, I really think we can say the important things in fewer words. I will have a first try to work on it. (I am awake now, and I guess you aren't.)
- Apart from wordiness and structure, there was a repeating issue on old versions of this article with how we need to deal with consensus versus non-consensus on WP. Often the discussion was, quite wrongly, about which scholar's side to pick. (I am not blaming you personally. We all probably played a role.) Actually, if we know one scholar's position is contested, then we need to avoid implying that it is the only position, unless we are prepared to present a bigger comparison of several positions. So for example for the conversion of Clovis we should mention its importance, but I think it is not worth going into debates about the exact course of events in this article. Hope that makes sense. I am going to try to follow that principle more strictly.
- There was no removal of material about the 300 years between Clovis and Charlemagne. We just have a more clear section break. You mention Charles Martel but he is just listed as a member of the Carolingian dynasty. I will try to match that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:36, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
FWIW the section and a half which covered the period roughly 400-700 was more than 2000 words on 23 Dec 2019, and it covered far fewer big topics than the new version, which is about 1000 words (half). Missing, for example: the Lombard kingdom, the Burgundians, the Vandals, etc. Topics from other periods ARE included, like the Bastarnae. The style of the older version was a narrative or story-telling style which uses a lot of space, but does not explain to readers which things are a consensus and which not. It also was not systematic, which is why some subjects become big digressions, but very many are left out. Here is a comparison, which can hopefully help guide discussion and further editing. To me this comparison shows strikingly why we need to work bit by bit, always working from the latest version that many editors have helped copy-edit over the last months:
| Version 23 Dec 2019 | Version 30 Mar 2020 |
|---|---|
///Fall of the Western Roman Empire///
 Some of the Germanic tribes are frequently credited in popular depictions of the decline of the Roman Empire in the 5th century. Many historians and archaeologists have since the 1950s shifted their interpretations in such a way that the Germanic peoples are no longer seen as invading a decaying empire but as being co-opted into helping defend territory the central government could no longer adequately administer.[b] When the Roman Empire refused to allow the Visigoths to settle in Noricum for instance, they responded by sacking Rome in CE 410 under the leadership of Alaric I.[2] Oddly enough, Alaric I did not see his imposition in Rome as an attack against the Roman Empire per se but as an attempt to gain a favorable position within its borders, particularly since the Visigoths held the Empire in high regard.[3] Alaric certainly had no intentions to destroy the great city which was symbolic of Roman power, but he needed to pay his army and the spoils of the city not only afforded the ability to do that, its wealth made him "the richest general in the empire."[4] For the next year, Alaric extracted vast sums from the city; this included 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 5,000 pounds of oriental pepper, gilded statues from the Forum, and even the one-ton solid silver dome which Constantine once placed over the baptismal basin next to the Lateran basilica.[5] Not only was Alaric able to bleed Rome, he also established a Gothic confederation consisting of Theruingian and Greuthungic peoples, and he played the eastern and western Roman Empires off against one another for his benefit.[6] While Germanic tribes overran the once western Roman provinces, they also continued to strive for regional ascendancy closer to Rome's center; meanwhile the threat along the periphery from the Huns created additional difficulties for the Empire.[7] Sometime during the 4th or 5th century CE, the Bastarnae were defeated by the Huns, ending their regional domination.[8][9]  Assisting with defense eventually shifted into administration and then outright rule, as Roman government passed into the hands of Germanic leaders. Odoacer (who commanded the German mercenaries in Italy)[12] deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of the West in CE 476.[13] Odoacer ruled from Rome and Ravenna, restored the Colosseum and assigned seats to senatorial dignitaries as part of the process of consolidating his rule.[14] The presence of successor states controlled by a nobility from one of the Germanic tribes is evident in the 6th century – even in Italy, the former heart of the Empire, where Odoacer was followed by Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, who was regarded by Roman citizens and Gothic settlers alike as legitimate successor to the rule of Rome and Italy.[15] Theodoric ruled from CE 493–526, twice as long as his predecessor, and his rule is evidenced by an abundance of documents.[16] Under the Ostrogoths a considerable degree of Roman and Germanic cultural and political fusion was achieved.[17] Germanic kings worked in-tandem with Roman administrators to the extent possible to help ensure a smooth transition and to facilitate the profitable administration of once Roman lands.[18] Slowly but surely, the distinction between Germanic rulers and Roman subjects faded, followed by varying degrees of "cultural assimilation" which included the adoption of the Gothic language by some of the indigenous people of the former Roman Empire but this was certainly not ubiquitous as Gothic identity still remained distinctive.[19] Theodoric may have tried too hard to accommodate the various people under his dominion; indulging "Romans and Goths, Catholics and Arians, Latin and barbarian culture" resulted in the eventual failure of the Ostrogothic reign and the subsequent "end of Italy as the heartland of late antiquity."[20]  According to noted historian Herwig Wolfram, the Germanic peoples did not and could not "conquer the more advanced Roman world" nor were they able to "restore it as a political and economic entity"; instead, he asserts that the empire's "universalism" was replaced by "tribal particularism" which gave way to "regional patriotism".[21] The Germanic peoples who overran the Western Roman Empire probably numbered less than 100,000 people per tribe, including approximately 15,000-20,000 warriors. They constituted a tiny minority of the population in the lands over which they seized control.[c][d][e] Among these tribes, the Ostrogoths in Italy and the Visigoths in Spain are recorded to have enacted laws against intermarriage in order to preserve their identity.[f][g] The entry of the Germanic tribes deep into the heart of Europe and the subsequent collapse of the western Roman Empire resulted in a "massive disruption" to long established communication networks, a system that had in many ways "bound much of the continent together for centuries."[26] Trade networks and routes shifted accordingly, Germanic kingdoms and peoples established boundaries and it was not until the appearance of the Arabs in Iberia and into Anatolia that Europeans began reestablishing their networks to deal with a new threat.[27] ///Early Middle Ages/// The transition of the Migration period to the Middle Ages proper took place over the course of the second half of the 1st millennium. It was marked by the Christianization of the Germanic peoples and the formation of stable kingdoms replacing the mostly tribal structures of the Migration period. Some of this stability is discernible in the fact that the Pope recognized Theodoric's reign when the Germanic conqueror entered Rome in CE 500, despite that Theodoric was a known practitioner of Arianism, a faith which the First Council of Nicaea condemned in CE 325.[28] Theodoric's Germanic subjects and administrators from the Roman Catholic Church cooperated in serving him, helping establish a codified system of laws and ordinances which facilitated the integration of the Gothic peoples into a burgeoning empire, solidifying their place as they appropriated a Roman identity of sorts.[29] The foundations laid by the Empire enabled the successor Germanic kingdoms to maintain a familiar structure and their success can be seen as part of the lasting triumph of Rome.[30] In continental Europe, this Germanic evolution saw the rise of Francia in the Merovingian period under the rule of Clovis I who had deposed the last emperor of Gaul, eclipsing lesser kingdoms such as Alemannia.[31] The Merovingians controlled most of Gaul under Clovis, who, through conversion to Christianity, allied himself with the Gallo-Romans. While the Merovingians were checked by the armies of the Ostrogoth Theodoric, they remained the most powerful kingdom in Western Europe and the intermixing of their people with the Romans through marriage rendered the Frankish people less a Germanic tribe and more a "European people" in a manner of speaking.[32] Most of Gaul was under Merovingian control as was part of Italy and their overlordship extended into Germany where they reigned over the Thuringians, Alamans, and Bavarians.[33] Evidence also exists that they may have even had suzerainty over south-east England.[34] Frankish historian Gregory of Tours relates that Clovis converted to Christianity partly as a result of his wife's urging and even more so due to having won a desperate battle after calling out to Christ. According to Gregory, this conversion was sincere but it also proved politically expedient as Clovis used his new faith as a means to consolidate his political power by Christianizing his army.[35][h] Against Germanic tradition, each of the four sons of Clovis attempted to secure power in different cities but their inability to prove themselves on the battlefield and intrigue against one another led the Visigoths back to electing their leadership.[36] |
///5th century. The western empire divided into kingdoms///
 In the 420s, Flavius Aëtius was a general who successfully used Hunnish forces on several occasions, fighting Roman factions, and various barbarians including Goths and Franks. In 429 he was elevated to the rank of magister militum in the western empire, putting him in control of much of its policy. One of his first conflicts was with Boniface, a rebellious governor of the province of Africa in modern Tunisia and Libya. Both sides sought an alliance with the Vandals based in southern Spain who had acquired a fleet there. In this context, the Vandal and Alan kingdom of North Africa and the western Mediterranean would come into being.[37]
In the subsequent decades, the Franks and Alamanni tended to remain in small kingdoms but these began to extend deeper into the empire. In northern Gaul, a Roman military "King of Franks" also seems to have existed, Childeric I, whose successor Clovis I established dominance of the smaller kingdoms of the Franks and Alamanni, who they defeated at the Battle of Zülpich in 496. According to Guy Halsall, a similar process to this may have occurred in Southern Britain, which was similarly isolated, though Romanized, and left to defend look after itself. The lowland fertile areas which would become England were also inhabited by a mixture of Romanized people and military forces, including many from northern Germany, who retained an ethnic distinctiveness typical within late Roman units. Unlike Northern Gaul it is often assumed that many small English kingdoms subsequently formed, and only gradually merged into larger units. However, as pointed out by Halsall, this "FA Cup Model", is only an hypothesis, and not evidence-based.[39] In 476 Odoacer, a Roman soldier who came from the tribes of the Middle Danube in the aftermath of Nedao, became King of Italy, removing the last western emperors from power. He was replaced in 493 by Theoderic the Great, described as King of the Ostrogoths, one of the most powerful Middle Danube people of the old Hun alliance, and raised up and supported by the eastern emperors. His large Ostrogothic kingdom was ended only in 542 when the eastern emperor Justinian made a last great effort to reconquer the western mediterranean. The empire was unable to hold Italy for long, and in 568 the Lombard king Alboin, a Suebian people who had entered the Middle Danubian region from the north, entered Italy and created the Italian Kingdom of the Lombards there. These Lombards now included Suevi, Heruli, Gepids, Bavarians, Bulgars, Avars, Saxons, Goths, and Thuringians. As Peter Heather has written these "peoples" were no longer peoples in any traditional sense.[40] Older accounts which describe a long period of massive movements of peoples and military invasions are over-simplified, and only describe specific incidents. According to Herwig Wolfram, the Germanic peoples did not and could not "conquer the more advanced Roman world" nor were they able to "restore it as a political and economic entity"; instead, he asserts that the empire's "universalism" was replaced by "tribal particularism" which gave way to "regional patriotism".[21] The Germanic peoples who overran the Western Roman Empire probably numbered less than 100,000 people per tribe, including approximately 15,000-20,000 warriors. They constituted a tiny minority of the population in the lands over which they seized control.[i] Apart from the common history many of them had in the Roman military, and on Roman frontiers, a new and longer-term unifying factor for the new kingdoms was that by 500, the start of the Middle Ages, most of the old Western empire had converted to the same Rome-based Catholic form of Christianity. |
References
| |
Obenritter I have been working on Theodoric and Clovis, Romanitas and Arianism, etc. I also reduced discussion of England given the consensus that actually it is hard to know what happened in detail. The relevant section is now called 5th and 6th centuries. The western empire divided into kingdoms. That title maybe need to be shortened, but I leave it there for discussion. Some ideas:
- "5th and 6th centuries"
- "5th and 6th century kingdom formation"
- "From Roman emperors to Barbarian kings (420-568)"
While that drafting is certainly not finished, I will see what feedback it gets and next I will consider that gap from 568-800. (A gap which existed in all past versions I think.) I am thinking there was not enough to deserve a full section, so will try to fit smaller references into the Early Middle ages.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:58, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
- Latest section title attempt: From Western empire to medieval kingdoms (420-568). And Charles Martel is now added. I have not added many sources, while I wait for feedback or edits by others, so everyone please feel free to point to anything most urgently needing a source. (I don't believe in automatically adding as many sources as possible. And here we are dealing with sections that summarize matters detailed in other articles.) BTW I personally would also be quite open to the idea of discussing re-shortening these history sections also if concerns are building. Undoubtedly it is healthy to have some back and forth about exactly what events were important to understanding Germanic peoples.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:33, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
- It looks like you have a handle on this and understand my concerns. Not sure if I am helping or hurting the developmental process, so I will step away as real life takes precedence. --Obenritter (talk) 10:39, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
- That puts a weight on me! :) I will keep trying. I hope others can give input too.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:04, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
- It looks like you have a handle on this and understand my concerns. Not sure if I am helping or hurting the developmental process, so I will step away as real life takes precedence. --Obenritter (talk) 10:39, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
- Latest section title attempt: From Western empire to medieval kingdoms (420-568). And Charles Martel is now added. I have not added many sources, while I wait for feedback or edits by others, so everyone please feel free to point to anything most urgently needing a source. (I don't believe in automatically adding as many sources as possible. And here we are dealing with sections that summarize matters detailed in other articles.) BTW I personally would also be quite open to the idea of discussing re-shortening these history sections also if concerns are building. Undoubtedly it is healthy to have some back and forth about exactly what events were important to understanding Germanic peoples.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:33, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Early Germanic drafting
- Hi Andrew Lancaster, I'm still working on my draft on the Origin of Albanians, but I'll soon propose a new section for the Proto-Germanic period (i.e., pre-Roman). As I said in another discussion page, I'm not fond of the denomination "Early Germanic" as it unclear which period it is referring to: either we use 'proto-Germanic' as linguists do, or 'pre-historic period' like historians and archeologists. To keep this section short, I won't be using the approach I traditionally introduce in articles I've been restructuring (separating linguistic, material, genetic and historical evidence). I will rather write a synthesis of what is attested about the pre-Roman period, and of what has been securely reconstructed based on a cross-examination of those different scientific fields. Azerty82 (talk) 09:31, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- I agree about being careful of unclear terms like "early". I have doubts about "proto-Germanic" because it is not only linguistic, but also "abstract" in a sense. (Maybe I'm wrong.) Concerning duplication, arguably the article already has a duplication problem for the earliest evidence, but maybe a new section can help us reduce some other sections. Archaeology for example is currently discussed under the definition discussions (my fault!), in the language section and in the prehistoric section which already exists. (It could potentially also be discussed in the 4th-3rd centuries BCE section.) You should look at those sections I guess.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:14, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- Proto-Germanic wouldn't be indeed fully appropriate, as it describes the state of a language before its earliest direct attestation. "Prehistoric period" is, I think, the best denomination. This is the one currently used in the article. My idea was not to create a new section, but rather to rewrite the history>prehistory section. A more global restructuration could lead to a new section called 'culture', and featuring sub-sections the likes of 'languages', 'religion', etc. Again, the difficulty is separating the different periods of history from the 'common' Germanic culture up until the final disintegration during the Migration Period. By 'common', I'm not referring to a romanticized 'Urkultur', but to a period where beliefs and dialects were still very closed to each other. Stay tuned, Azerty82 (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- All sounds reasonable.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:34, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- Azerty82 I just realized we kind of lost the original question which is what do you think about this section? It is being proposed that we should remove it. Given that it is currently the linking section to Early Germanic culture, your thoughts on this seem relevant.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:36, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
- Yes you can remove it. It's almost entirely based on old scholarship (Owen, 1960) an primary sources alone (Tacitus, Caesar). I'll use more recent commentaries of Roman writers for the section. Btw, could you all use the function 'edition' in 'cite book' instead of 'year' or 'date' for ancient writers? It is quite surprising to read things like "Caesar, Julius (2019)" ;-) Azerty82 (talk) 08:02, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
- That is indeed a good point about those templates which I have mentioned before also! I hope you do not mind keeping links to the Perseus project texts as well though on those primary sources, because I guess I am not the only person who like to have them. Concerning the section in question, is there any other section where we can put a section link to Early Germanic culture?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:08, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
- Yes you can remove it. It's almost entirely based on old scholarship (Owen, 1960) an primary sources alone (Tacitus, Caesar). I'll use more recent commentaries of Roman writers for the section. Btw, could you all use the function 'edition' in 'cite book' instead of 'year' or 'date' for ancient writers? It is quite surprising to read things like "Caesar, Julius (2019)" ;-) Azerty82 (talk) 08:02, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
- Azerty82 I just realized we kind of lost the original question which is what do you think about this section? It is being proposed that we should remove it. Given that it is currently the linking section to Early Germanic culture, your thoughts on this seem relevant.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:36, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
- All sounds reasonable.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:34, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- Proto-Germanic wouldn't be indeed fully appropriate, as it describes the state of a language before its earliest direct attestation. "Prehistoric period" is, I think, the best denomination. This is the one currently used in the article. My idea was not to create a new section, but rather to rewrite the history>prehistory section. A more global restructuration could lead to a new section called 'culture', and featuring sub-sections the likes of 'languages', 'religion', etc. Again, the difficulty is separating the different periods of history from the 'common' Germanic culture up until the final disintegration during the Migration Period. By 'common', I'm not referring to a romanticized 'Urkultur', but to a period where beliefs and dialects were still very closed to each other. Stay tuned, Azerty82 (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- I agree about being careful of unclear terms like "early". I have doubts about "proto-Germanic" because it is not only linguistic, but also "abstract" in a sense. (Maybe I'm wrong.) Concerning duplication, arguably the article already has a duplication problem for the earliest evidence, but maybe a new section can help us reduce some other sections. Archaeology for example is currently discussed under the definition discussions (my fault!), in the language section and in the prehistoric section which already exists. (It could potentially also be discussed in the 4th-3rd centuries BCE section.) You should look at those sections I guess.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:14, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- Hi Andrew Lancaster, I'm still working on my draft on the Origin of Albanians, but I'll soon propose a new section for the Proto-Germanic period (i.e., pre-Roman). As I said in another discussion page, I'm not fond of the denomination "Early Germanic" as it unclear which period it is referring to: either we use 'proto-Germanic' as linguists do, or 'pre-historic period' like historians and archeologists. To keep this section short, I won't be using the approach I traditionally introduce in articles I've been restructuring (separating linguistic, material, genetic and historical evidence). I will rather write a synthesis of what is attested about the pre-Roman period, and of what has been securely reconstructed based on a cross-examination of those different scientific fields. Azerty82 (talk) 09:31, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- I agree with Obenritter about removing the sections "Roman descriptions of early Germanic people and culture" and the "Genetics" sections altogether, and for the same reasons. Srnec (talk) 16:53, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
- Well just to be clear, I don't feel any strong attachment to either. I've given some reasons to be cautious above, and also suggested an option of keeping a short "culture" section somehow in order to maintain a link to Early Germanic culture. But these are all just my typical cautionary style of thinking through what can go wrong.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:34, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
archaeology section(s) and pre-Caesar (pre) history sections
Eventually we need to look again at the several archaeology sections we have. Perhaps they need to merged. I hope that my recent work on the introduction to the Definition section, making it more able to stand on its own, can help us imagine more options. These are:
- "Archaeological evidence" [2] in the large Definitions section [3]. I think it can be moved out of the Definitions section.
- The urheimat paragraph in the language section. [4]
- The final paragraph in the Prehistory section [5]
Azerty82 maybe this fits well (or not well) with your ideas?
- Idea=> One approach might be to start by splitting out an archaeology section from the language section, and merging the other two into that?
- Idea=> These considerations also focus attention on the rest of the prehistory section which is arguably not prehistory at all. The rest is a quote from Caesar, but it needs to be explained together with modern archaeological evidence. So I would propose moving it all into a merged archaeology section. I would say that linguistics and archaeology are the real prehistory discussion, and our history section needs no separate prehistory section?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:52, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Azerty, now I tried such a re-structuring. I think it helps address points raised by both you and Calthinus, and hopefully gives a better base for various possible ways of working further. There is now a prehistory section which can now be worked on more directly.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:19, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, this is a welcomed improvement, thank you. I'm working on my draft for now; you can follow the progress here. Azerty82 (talk) 10:46, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Good to hear. BTW thinking about the difference now between the Definitions and Debates sections now, I do not claim to have perfectly followed the ideas of either you or Calthinus, but done something I think is simpler. I will start watching your draft. I had checked in before and noticed that until now it is mainly just some short notes from an Indo-European handbook. The language of the Cimbri and Teutones is not a simple consensus anymore though and I think we are already mention it. The idea of including discussion about runic evidence is interesting, but a lot of it is also not necessarily as straightforward as a handbook might report? Another type of evidence we are not mentioning is river names and the like. There will be a question how much detail to give here of course, in contrast to other articles like Proto-Germanic, Germanic parent language and Negau helmet. (We currently have no urheimat article for Germanic I think.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:42, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, my draft is only based upon one source for the moment. I try to use the dialectical method in my contributions, as I'm doing on my draft on the Origin of Albanians: I first redact a general introduction based upon handbooks (they're built to give general statements beyond scholarly debates), then I "adjust" every statement with the help of contradicting/nuancing sources in order to reach a "balanced" presentation at the end of my work. Azerty82 (talk) 12:51, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- OK, so apart from my remarks here so far (also in the section above) I don't see any point making details comments on that draft yet, but I look forward to seeing it evolve. If we have detailed remarks that are specifically about the draft, not bigger editorial decisions, then I suppose we can use the draft talk-page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:54, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Note that my draft, from now limited to the /languages/ section, consequently uses the term Germanic speakers. I am very careful with words, as linguistic evidence gives us information about a language and its speakers, not necessarily about a people. Azerty82 (talk) 21:26, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- That does not seem to make any difference concerning anything in the draft yet? Again being devil's advocate, you have added a second Indo-European textbook source, but of course these sources will not create any dialectical dynamic, because they are apparently just deferring to older research from non-linguists. They do not seem to be reflecting any of the newer scientific skepticism which is now more than 40 years old, and not exactly cutting edge. The languages of the four named tribes has been seriously questioned for a very long time, for the simple reason that there is no significant linguistic evidence. (The Cimbri and Teutones, can be linguistically described as having names which CAN NOT BE Germanic though, but also this is an old conclusion.) First sound shift before 500 BCE is not a simple consensus as far as I know. Concerning personal names: Attila and his family, for example, had Gothic names, and Gothic clearly became a sort of standard language in that empire and in the Roman military. There is therefore long-standing skepticism about whether signs of Gothic culture such as Gothic personal names prove anything about what languages peoples spoke before Attila's empire. I also understand there is insufficient linguistic evidence to help us debate something as refined as whether there was a dialect continuum as early as 200 AD, etc. To have a proper discussion about the points raised in the draft so far might require a long technical article? I also suppose that linguistic speculations which have created no consensus due to lack of evidence are things we should be cautious about spending too much text on in this specific article. The real-world problem is still that linguistic textbooks are mainly deferring to other fields, because they have to. It is probably too early for me to be making too many comments, but at least these remarks help define the challenge. Of course we should search for any extra contribution linguistics can make. However, linguistic textbook repetitions of things not based on linguistic evidence, only based on what people from other disciplines said a long time ago, won't normally have much value for this article? Sorry for raising challenges like this, but I hope you will take it the right way!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:23, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Nowhere it is written in my draft that the Cimbri and Teutones spoke a Germanic language. They have a Germanic tribal name. The linguistic continuum until 200 AD is evidenced by runic inscriptions (I don't understand why you're dismissing that as "mere speculations"): e.g. Primitive Norse raunijaz (pronounced rauniiaz; Øvre Stabu spearhead; 2nd c. AD), Gothic ranja (pronounced raniia; Spearhead of Dahmsdorf-Müncheberg; 3rd c. AD); Primitive Norse harja (prunounced haria Vimose inscriptions; 2nc c. AD), Gothic harjis (hariis; Codex Argenteus); etc. My sources are recent and reliable anyway. If there is a consensus within a scientific field, I think it should be mentioned in the article. Azerty82 (talk) 22:41, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- By the way, a dialect continuum does not imply that Gothic speakers and Primitive Norse speakers were fully able to understand each others. A dialect continuum is... a dialect continuum. Azerty82 (talk) 22:58, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- My final word: sorry Andrew Lancaster, but I will not go into endless discussions again: (1) based on your previous comments on the “Second Consonant Shift” and the “lack of evidence for a dialect continuum”, it is clear that your knowledge of historical linguistics is limited; (2) if I want to introduce recent and reliable sources in the article, especially consensual statements within a scientific field, there is nothing you can do against it as per Wikipedia rules. Azerty82 (talk) 23:09, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- @C: Your recommended draft and changes make perfect sense to me and has my support as a fellow Wikipedia editor, speaker of Germanic languages, and historian. Each and every change does not require this level of disputation. Collaboration is not about one person being the sole arbiter of content and I am glad you bring these points to the fore. Your expertise in this domain (linguistics, archaeology, and history) is recognized based on the contributions you've made over many years, and the professional-level translations you've provided; if there are any places where there is substantiated academic contestation to any of the points you make, I am sure you'd welcome their inclusion. Do not however, refrain from making them.--Obenritter (talk) 00:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- Quite evidently, the idea of dismissing an entire scientific field of research by saying that "linguistic textbooks [repeat] things not based on linguistic evidence", as above written, never came to my mind. Prof.Dr. Goffart, like any other reliable source, will be included in my draft. I have no agenda. My only aim is, modestly, to reach the historical truth, not to confirm my preconceived ideas. Azerty82 (talk) 01:01, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- @C: Your recommended draft and changes make perfect sense to me and has my support as a fellow Wikipedia editor, speaker of Germanic languages, and historian. Each and every change does not require this level of disputation. Collaboration is not about one person being the sole arbiter of content and I am glad you bring these points to the fore. Your expertise in this domain (linguistics, archaeology, and history) is recognized based on the contributions you've made over many years, and the professional-level translations you've provided; if there are any places where there is substantiated academic contestation to any of the points you make, I am sure you'd welcome their inclusion. Do not however, refrain from making them.--Obenritter (talk) 00:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- That does not seem to make any difference concerning anything in the draft yet? Again being devil's advocate, you have added a second Indo-European textbook source, but of course these sources will not create any dialectical dynamic, because they are apparently just deferring to older research from non-linguists. They do not seem to be reflecting any of the newer scientific skepticism which is now more than 40 years old, and not exactly cutting edge. The languages of the four named tribes has been seriously questioned for a very long time, for the simple reason that there is no significant linguistic evidence. (The Cimbri and Teutones, can be linguistically described as having names which CAN NOT BE Germanic though, but also this is an old conclusion.) First sound shift before 500 BCE is not a simple consensus as far as I know. Concerning personal names: Attila and his family, for example, had Gothic names, and Gothic clearly became a sort of standard language in that empire and in the Roman military. There is therefore long-standing skepticism about whether signs of Gothic culture such as Gothic personal names prove anything about what languages peoples spoke before Attila's empire. I also understand there is insufficient linguistic evidence to help us debate something as refined as whether there was a dialect continuum as early as 200 AD, etc. To have a proper discussion about the points raised in the draft so far might require a long technical article? I also suppose that linguistic speculations which have created no consensus due to lack of evidence are things we should be cautious about spending too much text on in this specific article. The real-world problem is still that linguistic textbooks are mainly deferring to other fields, because they have to. It is probably too early for me to be making too many comments, but at least these remarks help define the challenge. Of course we should search for any extra contribution linguistics can make. However, linguistic textbook repetitions of things not based on linguistic evidence, only based on what people from other disciplines said a long time ago, won't normally have much value for this article? Sorry for raising challenges like this, but I hope you will take it the right way!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:23, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Note that my draft, from now limited to the /languages/ section, consequently uses the term Germanic speakers. I am very careful with words, as linguistic evidence gives us information about a language and its speakers, not necessarily about a people. Azerty82 (talk) 21:26, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- OK, so apart from my remarks here so far (also in the section above) I don't see any point making details comments on that draft yet, but I look forward to seeing it evolve. If we have detailed remarks that are specifically about the draft, not bigger editorial decisions, then I suppose we can use the draft talk-page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:54, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, my draft is only based upon one source for the moment. I try to use the dialectical method in my contributions, as I'm doing on my draft on the Origin of Albanians: I first redact a general introduction based upon handbooks (they're built to give general statements beyond scholarly debates), then I "adjust" every statement with the help of contradicting/nuancing sources in order to reach a "balanced" presentation at the end of my work. Azerty82 (talk) 12:51, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Good to hear. BTW thinking about the difference now between the Definitions and Debates sections now, I do not claim to have perfectly followed the ideas of either you or Calthinus, but done something I think is simpler. I will start watching your draft. I had checked in before and noticed that until now it is mainly just some short notes from an Indo-European handbook. The language of the Cimbri and Teutones is not a simple consensus anymore though and I think we are already mention it. The idea of including discussion about runic evidence is interesting, but a lot of it is also not necessarily as straightforward as a handbook might report? Another type of evidence we are not mentioning is river names and the like. There will be a question how much detail to give here of course, in contrast to other articles like Proto-Germanic, Germanic parent language and Negau helmet. (We currently have no urheimat article for Germanic I think.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:42, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, this is a welcomed improvement, thank you. I'm working on my draft for now; you can follow the progress here. Azerty82 (talk) 10:46, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Misunderstandings. I appreciate all the concerns etc, but please note everyone that I was commenting on a drafting process, and so my comments have to be seen in the light of a specific version of a draft. I see my edits as supportive of both the drafting, and, obviously, the idea of trying to see what can be added to this article from linguistics. Clearly feedback on drafts is often wordy. Sorry. Perhaps I should have posted on the draft talk. I presented my remarks as being admittedly too early, but defining some challenges to keep in mind. It is simply a fact that linguistic evidence from the early period is fragmentary. But that challenge is not a simplistic questioning of linguistics, but also related to questions about this article: e.g. of avoiding duplications, and of what can fit in this article. I will just respond on two points as examples:
- No one is arguing against the relevance of Runic evidence. But much of it has multiple possible interpretations, and might require long discussion. For example the draft emphasizes (or emphasized) an early dating of the Negau helmet.
- The Cimbri and Teutones had non-Germanic recorded names. The names given in the draft are modern reconstructions based upon the assumption that the names which were recorded were wrong, because "everyone knows" they were Germanic. In other words these reconstructions are based on non linguistic evidence. Also, by the way, this is already discussed in the article (and added by me, so it is strange to see it being implied that I am somehow arguing against inclusion of such information).
I think as a bit of general advice it is worth looking more at what is already in the article. I know I keep harping on about duplication and structure, but I think we have to keep those things in mind on an article like this, during a period of heavy work like this. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:44, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- Azerty82 I might as well address the remarks about 2 points were I apparently gave an impression of excessive ignorance. Surely I am ignorant, but also there might be misunderstandings about these points:
- I think that evidence of a dialect continuum is a much more specific thing than just evidence of a language having developed marked dialects. From what I am reading, perhaps you mean only the latter when you refer to the implications of runic evidence. There would need a lot of runic evidence to be that specific? From what I have seen runic evidence is used for example to discuss early distinctions between North, East and West Germanic. I am guessing you did not understand I was focusing on the word "continuum", not dialects as such.
- You recently reworked the Languages sections, and you apparently found no problem with the way Maurer's Istvaeonic (/Rhine Weser) is discussed there. I wrote that, and there is a source given. (It is surely not the only source which questions the evidence for this particular substrate.) In our previous discussion, we both saw it as a side issue (after all, this is not a specialist linguistics article) and so I think I mentioned at the time that I would not bother looking up sources etc.
- If I am making mistakes above then please let me know more, on my talk page if necessary, not only for my interest, but also so that I can avoid making Wikipedia worse.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:20, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- Andrew Lancaster, my previous remark was a direct reply to the argument that modern linguists don't know what they're talking about. I'm happy to see that you didn't take it as a personal attack, but rather as a surprise to read such a statement as "linguistic textbooks [repeat] things not based on linguistic evidence".
- As you noted here, the draft is still a work in progress and, as you saw it on the dedicated talk page, most of the remarks come from misunderstandings rather than concrete oppositions. I'm consequently adjusting the draft to make it clearer for the readers who don't have direct access to the sources I'm using.
- You can also notice that most modern linguists are indeed as prudent and sceptical as modern historians: they are not taking contemporary testimonies as the "holy scriptures" on Germanic peoples and languages (cf: the subsection /Classification/).
- Concerning your specific remarks, I prefer addressing them directly in the draft rather than making this talk page longer and more difficult to follow than it is already. Just notice that "Elbe Germanic" has always been written with quotation marks in the draft; I will again make the wording clearer to avoid such misunderstandings in the future. Azerty82 (talk)
- Ah, that was a misunderstanding. My comment about linguists using results from other disciplines is specific to certain types of conclusions. See the example I noted of whether the names of the Cimbri and Teutones must have been mistaken. It is also a point about avoiding duplication or similar strangeness. I have absolutely no stronger/warmer feelings about historians versus linguists but I do notice that in many such "human sciences" in recent decades, there is a general increase in methodological scepticism, i.e. being more "scientific". This means narratives which were traditionally presented as if absolutely certain, let's say that the Scirii spoke a Germanic language, are now at least a bit doubted, and so we have to be careful about when we use "Wikipedia voice" or otherwise imply a field consensus.
- I am now genuinely interested to know whether my two "ignorances" were misunderstandings or not.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:35, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- Concerning your two points, I'm now thinking that you're probably not the only reader to raise doubts or questions. So I'm going to provide justifications directly in the draft. I just have to reopen my copies of the books involved, as it is not explained in details in handbooks. It will be done by this evening (European time) if I have enough time today. Stay tuned, Azerty82 (talk) 12:45, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- PS: If you don't want to wait until this evening:
- 1. For the dialect continuum: Elmar Seebold (1998). "Sprache und Schrift" In: Germanen, Germania, Germanische Altertumskunde. (p. 95f in my edition)
- 2. On the Elbe Germanic debate:
- To be clear, because of the remote contacts induced by migrations, the generally accepted Germanic linguistic groupings are, chronologically: 1. East Germanic vs. Northwest Germanic 2. East Germ. vs. Anglo-Frisian vs. residual Northwest Ger. 3. East Germ. vs. Anglo-Frisian vs. North Germ. vs. Continental Germ. Internal divisions within the latter group are debated among linguists. Azerty82 (talk) 13:30, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- Volker Harm is cited in the article already on this point, and I am familiar with that article.
Insgesamt ist das Fazit zu ziehen, dass die Untergliederung des Voralthochdeutschen in Elbgermanisch und Weser-Rhein-Germanisch wenig plausibel ist.
That was more-or-less the same as what I said? - Thanks for the Seebold reference. I have looked at it passingly before. I see that he uses the term "Kontinuum" to refer to the "natural" condition which all the prehistoric languages he discusses always had, though the exact nature of the continuum was changing over time. So if you are following this author, basically your use of the word only means to imply that Germanic was a normal language? (And not anything based on specific linguistic evidence, saying something specific about that specific continuum?) I'd avoiding the word if that is all you mean, because readers (like me) might believe it is saying implying more? You could just say "dialects" to give the same understanding to readers that languages don't need to (and probably normally) stem from one single small homogeneous language. Do I understand correctly? BTW, concerning several key details, Seebold is basing some of his geographical proposals on archaeology, by equating material cultures to languages, rather than linguistic evidence as such.
- This discussion reminds me of a work I have not been able to track down. I wonder if anyone else has access to Hermann Ament's, Der Rhein und die Ethnogenese der Germanen.
- The Aesti, also mentioned in that part of the draft, are also discussed in the current article. My understanding is that Tacitus did not insist they were Suebian, just that they had similar customs and attire.
- Volker Harm is cited in the article already on this point, and I am familiar with that article.
- In any case, you don't want to say it, but I am optimistically thinking based on this information, that my ignorance is only moderate, and not "red alert". :) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:22, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- I only noticed afterwards that Harm was already in the article. I had removed the reference as you were already familiar with the chapter.
- Yes, the theoretical basis of historical linguistics is the Uniformitarian principle:
Unless we can demonstrate significant changes in the conditions of language acquisition and use between some time in the unobservable past and the present, we must assume that the same types and distributions of structures, variation, changes, etc. existed at that time in the past as in the present.
- cf: Donald Ringe > https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/110/pdf/ringe/uniformitarian-principle.html. Read also https://www.glossa-journal.org/articles/10.5334/gjgl.888/ for a global overview.
- Indeed, the dialect continuum is mainly based on the state of Germanic languages as attested after the 5/6 centuries CE and the Uniformitarian principle, both reinforced by early runic evidence from the 2/3rd centuries CE. Azerty82 (talk) 14:36, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- PS: For the Aestii, I only closely followed the wording of the source, but of course this needs to be nuanced with another secondary source (
Therefore, scholars hesitate to believe that the dialect of the Aestii, who belonged to the Gmc subgroup Suebi (...)
). Tacitus wrote (from the Loeb translation):Accordingly we must now turn to the right-hand shore of the Suebic Sea: here it washes the tribes of the Aestii; their customs and appearance are Suebic, but their language is nearer British (...)
. Azerty82 (talk) 14:46, 2 April 2020 (UTC)- Yep. The Latin and a link to the Perseus text is in a footnote in the article. "Aestiorum gentes [...], quibus ritus habitusque Sueborum", lingua Britannicae propior". FWIW Pohl, Die Germanen, translates them as having "Aussehen und religion wie die Sueben".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:06, 2 April 2020 (UTC) Actually, in "Telling the Difference" he gives English "religion and appearance" (p.121, as cited in our article). He usefully states that Tacitus "did not reach a decision".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:08, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- The part about Aestii is now better referenced. I'll add translations after comparing the different interpretations given by latinists and classical scholars. The section on early Germanic inscriptions has also been nuanced, as per Prof.Dr. Ludwig Rübekeil (a prudent linguist that you'll probably like). I'm going to further work on the draft this evening. Regards, Azerty82 (talk) 19:10, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, I know of Rübekeil. I can not see that specific article online unfortunately. Currently on the article I had the Aesti has probably Baltic. Does he say they might be Finnish/Finnic? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:17, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Therefore, scholars hesitate to believe that the dialect of the Aestii, who belonged to the Gmc subgroup Suebi and whose name lives on in modern Estonian, was similar to the Brythonic language (lingua Britannicae proprior), as Tacitus claims. Rather, it is considered to be a Finnish or Baltic dialect.
- Go to my profile and use the option to send me an email. I will give you a pdf version of the handbook. Azerty82 (talk) 19:20, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- OK, and Merci.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:22, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, I know of Rübekeil. I can not see that specific article online unfortunately. Currently on the article I had the Aesti has probably Baltic. Does he say they might be Finnish/Finnic? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:17, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- The part about Aestii is now better referenced. I'll add translations after comparing the different interpretations given by latinists and classical scholars. The section on early Germanic inscriptions has also been nuanced, as per Prof.Dr. Ludwig Rübekeil (a prudent linguist that you'll probably like). I'm going to further work on the draft this evening. Regards, Azerty82 (talk) 19:10, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- Yep. The Latin and a link to the Perseus text is in a footnote in the article. "Aestiorum gentes [...], quibus ritus habitusque Sueborum", lingua Britannicae propior". FWIW Pohl, Die Germanen, translates them as having "Aussehen und religion wie die Sueben".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:06, 2 April 2020 (UTC) Actually, in "Telling the Difference" he gives English "religion and appearance" (p.121, as cited in our article). He usefully states that Tacitus "did not reach a decision".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:08, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
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