Goths/ Prestige of Scandinavia

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/14/01 10:55:41 PM Mountain Standard Time,
X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

> Pliny made the Goths members of the Vandals and there is no
> mention of that in Jordanes.

-- the linguistic evidence indicates a very close link between Vandals and
Goths; they were both East Germanic speakers -- unlike the Alemmanni or
Franks or Saxons.  The personal names are identical, for instance, and quite
distinct from more westerly German groups.

The historical evidence bears this out.  The Goths seem to have been the
easternmost of the Germanics and the Vandals early, and close, neighbors.

The tradition of Scandinavian origins probably refers to the antecedents of
the ruling clan/clans rather than the Gothic ethnos as a whole, which was
mixed to begin with and became more so later.

There's no reason that the tradition couldn't be true in that sense; besides
the Geats/Gotar of Sweden, whose name is at least suggestive, there are
plenty of subsequent historical analogies.   The Scandinavians who, as the
"Russ", later gave their name to Russia, are an example.