[gothic-l] Re: The Gothic and Eruli Proto-Vikings

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

--- In gothic-l at egroups.com, bertil <mvk575b at t...> wrote:
>>
> Sorry, but that is exactly what you are
> trying to do. That the Alemanni is regarded
> as an original German people is easily
> attested by the fact that Germany is called
> Allemagne in French.


Germany is called Alemagne in French because the Merovingian Franks
initially dealt with the Alamanni on the right bank of the Rhine and
later transfered the name to all modern Germans. Also, there is an
area in Germany called Franconia (Franken). So, by your logic this
must be the original home of the Franks, which it isn't. The name was
only bestowed much later. Most modern Germans have nothing to do with
the Alamanni at all. Some would say they are Saxons, Frisians,
Angeln,
Thuringians, Chatti (Hesse), Franks, plus different Slavic origins as
well.


>
> I, at least, seem to find a red line in your
> postings.




One may say that this is true for your postings as well.





The list of example you present are
> not, in my humble opinion, relevant.





Which list do you mean that is irrelevant?


>
> Of course one can use the first classical
> mentioning of a people as a basis but that
> is rather safe if you want to argue that all
> Germanic peoples originated in Germany, because
> on their migratory path through Europe they
> mostly happened to be in Germany.


Sorry, but I can only repeat: the fact that a certain tribe was
placed
by Tacitus to what is now Germany does not make this tribe
proto-modern German. In fact, this tribe may have had far less impact
on the later history of this territory than for example Slavs that
replaced them later. Similary, the fact that the Gothic history
states
that they come from Scandinavia does not make them proto-Swedish. I
only want to point to the danger of trying to attach some sort of
national emplems to those peoples like calling the Goths
proto-Vikings, which, in my view, is close to calling them
proto-Swedes.  It is safe to assume that Tacitus' attributions were
more or less correct at his time. Any further analysis must start
from
there, even if some people feel uneasy about that.


Have a look at the discussion on the archaeology list, especially the
comments about some Swedish scholars and their pre-ocupation with
Swedish Gothicsim.

In general, I believe we will have to (once again) agree to disagree!

greetings
Dirk




>


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