Toledo

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Ingemar Nordgren" <ingemar at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> Dear Oscar!
> 
> Evidently we all have been victims for a great complot. We have been
> told there were Goths once upon a time but this evidently is only
> fantasies. 



Hi Ingemar,

I'm afraid the Goths that you tell about most of the time are indeed 
fantasy.








Also the assumption that  the Goths should have two sets of
> laws and administration - one for the Goths and one for the Romans,
> where Latin was needed of course,is evidently only bad rumours.



Different social groups require different laws. The native provincial 
Iberians largely submitted to the laws set by the secular Roman 
authorities. The Catholic clerics submitted to church law and the 
military was subject to the "lex Romana Visigothorum", i.e. the Roman 
law for the visigothic realm.





 The
> Goths never did exist and we also do not exist but we just beleive we
> do. 


Lets say you (and many others) believe in an old and antiquated image 
of the Visigoths, which simply is no longer acceptable in the light of 
the evidence. You should now that much of what we know is perception 
and interpretion. Look, Oscar wasn't even aware that the Visigoths were 
the Roman federate army and that they didn't drive out any Roman 
legions from Spain. Your knowledge would be better used to inform and 
explain such things.








I am not even convinced there is a great master Dirk - it is maybe
> just a brain ghost in our heads. Anyhow  - Gothic is now called a dead
> language but how long did it survive-if it ever existed? 


You, of all people should know the answer to this as we can all assume 
that you are familiar with the modern literature.


Gothic may indeed never have existed as such, but they may just have 
been East Germanic, which we typically equate with Gothic. The 
Visigoths (I hope you know that Jordanes or Cassiodorus invented this 
name, or is that new to you as well?), lost their Germanic language 
during the 5th century, after having lived among Romans for some 5 or 
more generations. The Ostrogoths may have stuck with Gothic a little 
longer. Theoderic never referes to Gothic, but he uses the term "our 
language". Yet, this "our language" had almost certainly very little in 
common with the Gothic of the Wulfila bible. Instead, it was probably a 
military pidgin with many Germanic, Latin and some Greek words.


Cheers, and I am always glad to help you out of some of your confusions 
(of which unfortunately there are many)

Dirk




> 
> Hot greetings from a confused Ingemar
>


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