[gothic-l] Re: dirk

[Francisc Czobor]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "sunnytjatsingh"
<sunnytjatsingh at y...> wrote:
> Hi All, this message was sent to Dirk only - I have included in for
> all to read, please see Dirk's response:
>
> Dear Sunny, ......
>
> Sunny wrote:
>
> > Dear Dirk,
> >
> > This is my first posting on this site, I was referred to this
site
> by
> > Ravi.  Please note, I am not here to offend anyone, and nor do I
> have
> > any motivation, political or otherwise, other than the striking
> > similarities between my people, South Asian Jats, and the Gothic
> > people in addition to other tribal groups.
> >
> > Leaving Christensen aside for a second let us discuss the
> > relationship, if any, between the Goths and the Getae.  Keep in
mind
> > the Thracian Getae are just one component of the Getic nation, who
> > probably entered the Balkans at a very early time period.
> >
> > Let's get started, here are few extracts; your comments will be
> > most
> > appreciated:
> >
> > Now Jordanes in his Getica says, "the Getae we have proved in a
> > previous passage to be Goths, on the testimony of Orosius Paulus
> > (Mierow 1966: 66)."
> >
> > Wolfram adds, "Still Orosius listed the three wildest Scythian
> > peoples of his day: the Alans, Huns, and Goths (Wolfram 1988:
> > 28)."
> > Thus Orosius identified the Goths with the Scythian Getae, but
also
> > used the word "Scythian" generically, probably
> > geographically, to
> > apply to Huns.  Does this not suggest that the Goths came
> > from "Scythia" or "Sarmatia" like the Alans?
> >
>
> Sunny, the Goths are a Germanic people. We know that they spoke
> Germanic,
> that their names were Germanic and that much of their culture was
> Germanic. Ancient authors applied lables to different groups based
on
> their geographic and ethnological knowledge. According to this
> knowledge,
> barbarians living north east of the civilised Classical world were
> Scyths.
> Hence, they called the Goths Scyths and used naive fold etymology to
> identify them with the Getae. However, Getae, where a Thracian
people
> and
> not a Germanic people.
>

Dirk is right - we don't have to mix the things this way.
The Scyths properly were an Iranic people, like the closely related
Sarmatians and Alans. But in ancient time the Greek authors used to
extend this denomination to any ferocious Barbarians coming from
north. This was taken over later by Roman and then by early mediaeval
(for instance, Byzantine) authors. Thus were designated successively
as "Scyths":
- the Germanic Goths and Iuthungi;
- the probably Turkic (anyhow Altaic) Huns;
- the Finno-Ugric Hungarians
and many others.
As you see, sometimes "Scyth" was used as a generic term
for "Northern Barbarian". Sometimes such identifications were taken
over by the national tradition of some peoples involved: for
instance, in the XIXth century many Hungarians were still persuaded
that they are the descendants of the Scyths or of the Huns, which is
as false as the identification of the Germanic Goths with the Thracic
Getae.
On the other hand, it is no correct the affirmation that the Thracian
Getae were a component of a Getic nation. In fact, the Getae were a
component of the Thracian linguistic group. Herodot wrote "The Getae
are the wisest and bravest among Thracians".

Francisc

GUTANI WIHAILAG



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