Thuringians = Tervingian Goths II

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "faltin2001" <dirk at s...> wrote:
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, macmaster at r... wrote:
> > 
> > The main questions I would have regarding this theory are:
> > -- why wouldn't anyone 400-600 have called the 
> Thuringians "Goths"?  They
> > were allied to Theodoric's italian kingdom and generally appear as
> > themselves but no mention is made of Northern Goths.  the Gothic 
> name at
> > this time would be far more prestigious and I would assume that 
it 
> would
> > be much vaunted.
> > -- wouldn't this involve a major linguistic shift from East 
> Germanic?  Is
> > there any evidence of this?
> > 
> > Tom
> > 
> 
> Hi Tom,
> 
> excited that somebody actually did respond to this new and important
> theory I forgot to comment on you second point. The author Grahn-
Hoek
> does not discuss linguistics in the study and I don't really have an
> answer. I suppose the question is how 'major' was the different 
> between East- and West Germanic in 380AD. We know from historical 
> sources that at least two (probably three) West Germanic groups were
> incorporated into this Teruingi-Teuringi kingdom: Warnians, Anglians
> and Suebians. If the linguistic difference was mostly dialectual 
than
> this combination would have led to a levelling of the languages over
> the following centuries and there is no written evidence for the 
> Thuringian language/dialect before 800AD.
> 
> However, personal names are usually more conservative than the 
> language as a whole and several authors have in the past noted that
> Thuringian personal names (e.g. Ermenefrid, Artagais, Radagais, 
> Radaulf, Radegundis, Ermenegisl, Amalafrid etc.) are more typical 
of 
> East Germanic personal names than of West Germanic personal names.
>  
> Cheers
> Dirk



To add to my previous point: Berthold Schmidt in his archaeological 
study on Thuringia (in Studien zur Sachsenforschung, No. 13, 1999) 
shows that carriers of the Sintana-de-Mures/Chernyakhovsk culture 
settled in the centre of the later Thuringian territory. These people 
had come from the Black Sea region and their cultural characteristics 
are identical to graves discoverd between Danube and Dnjestr (e.g. at 
Tirgsor, Spantov, Independenta, Marosszentana and Oinac). Their 
migratory path from the Danube/Dnjestr region to middle Germany can 
even be approximiated by intermediate stations at Gross-Suerding 
(Zerniki Wielki) in Silesia and Liebersee (Kr. Torgau) in Saxony 
(Germany) to the core region of Thuringia. 

This geographical/archaeological evidence really limits the circle of 
East Germanic tribes that could have made up this group to Tervingi, 
Greutungi, Eruli, Sciri and Rugi. Schmidt noted that this group of 
East Germanic people was substantial in size, and he identifies 
almost 100 cemetaries of this group in middle Germany. It would seem 
odd that their name was not preserved along with the apparently 
smaller West Germanic groups of Warnians (Varni), Anglians (Angli) 
and Suebians (Nordsuavi), especially since their settlement areas 
seem to have encorporated the later 'royal centre'.

Cheers
Dirk














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