[gothic-l] Re: Gothic Identity, was: Heyerdahl searching for Odin

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

Hi Steve,

In my hurry yesterday I missed one of your points. You wrote:


"English language and
> culture extend over wide tracts of the world yet there is no
question of its
> place of origin or even the period of time with its constituent
elements
> coalesced into what we currently recognize as English."


Clearly, we know a great deal about English language and culture, yet
when it comes to establishing the geographical origin of people who
were linguistically and culturally English the problems start to
mount.

Consider the following example. One English merchant family took
possession of the island of Antigua in the late 17th century and
brought in slaves from West Africa, who quickly adopted the English
language, played cricket and drunk Pimms at garden parties :-). Some
50 years later some of the decendants of the Slaves make an attempt to
settle on a neigbouring small island. The venture goes wrong, the
settlement dissappears after some years. Modern archaeologists and
historians trying to establish the **Origin** of these settlers find
evidence that they spoke English, played cricket and drunk Pimms at
garden parties and even their village was called Georgetown. So
clearly these were Englishmen and we know all about their
Anglo-Saxon-Romano-Celtic **origin**.

I am not saying that this example is directly analogous to the problem
of Gothic origin, but to establish the geographic/ethnic origin of
people who are 'tangible' only through their linguistic and perhaps
cultural characteristics is an almost impossible task.  Especially
since we are removed from the events by over 2000 years and we don't
even know if our understanding of Gothic would have meant anything to
the people who we belief to have been Goths.

cheers,
Dirk






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