[gothic-l] Re: Ethnicity and religion/runes

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

--- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
> Hi Ingemar,
> You wrote:
> >n the North the Jutes. Bornholm shows, according to my
> >opinion of course, signs of both Goths and Burgundians - see my
> >Ring-name survey.
> >
>
> >This was a joke alluding to your tendency of saying the Germans
came
> >from the Celts.
>
> That must be wrong.  You can tell, because Germanic is quite
> a different language from Celtic. Germanic is attested
> in runic inscriptions, and it stayed approximately the same
> language until the syncopic period. Which means that we know
> qute a bit about what kind of language Germanic was, say in
> the time of Tacitus.
>
>

Hi Keth,

that is a misunderstanding. I certainly did not say that Germanic came
from Celtic. My view is that Germanic culture owes a lot to borrowings
from their Celtic neighbours, where it is often impossible to say
which language a certain tribe/people spoke. It seems to be the latest
view in Germanic history that Germanic people developled from
different iron age cultures with the influence from Celtic La Tene
cultures beeing a common 'unifing' trait. As for the Germanic
language, because of its composition of IE and non-IE components,  I
believe that it developed as IE-speakers moved northwards from
landlocked eastern areas, merging with non-IE sea-dwellers at the
Baltic Sea coast. This is of course a massive over-simplification.

cheers,

Dirk





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