The Neolithic Hypothesis

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu writes:

>I've seen some confusing arguments linking Jutes, Geats & Goths--based only
>on the resemblance on the names What's the scoop on that?

-- Jutes were from Jutland (the Danish peninsula joined to the mainland). The
Geats were the people between the Scanian Danes (Scania was part of Denmark
until the Early Modern period) and the Swedes proper; Beowulf (probably
Bjovulf in Scandinavia) was supposedly a Geat.

The Goths had a tradition claiming that they'd originally come from central
Sweden.  Historically, they first show up as the easternmost of the
Germanics, in what's now Poland -- the Vistula area.  By the 4th century AD,
their eastern branch was in the Ukraine and the western on the Danube.

My own guess is that the 'migration' of the Goths from Sweden was a movement
of leaders who provided organization, and that the bulk of the groups that
later became "Gothic" then took over this small element's foundation-myth.

By the time the Goths migrated into the Roman Empire they'd picked up a lot
of other elements as part of their ethnogenisis, of course.

>I've also seen arguments linking the Angles to the Frisians, claiming they
>were basically the "Frisians of Angeln."

-- the traditional account has the Angles leaving the mainland _en masse_ for
England, and other groups -- Danes and Frisians -- taking over their vacated
lands.  There were a good many of abandoned settlements in the area the
Angles were supposed to come from, at about that time, probably linked to
rising sea levels and the loss of farmland and pasture.  We'll probably never
know the details.

>And I've seen the argument that Scots [Lallans] & Northumbrian are
>essentially Modern Anglian while R. P. is basically Modern Saxon with some
>modest Anglian influence [e.g. I < ik instead of ich & 3rd ps -s instead of
>-eth].

-- Lallans developed from the Northumbrian dialect; Lothian was settled by
Angles, traditionally. Apart from that we'll never know... 8-).

Modern Standard English is essentially an East Midland dialect (with fairly
heavy Scandinavian influence) which became the predominant speech of London
due to in-migration during the later middle ages and the Early Modern period.