East Germanic languages

East Germanics
Geographic
distribution		 Varying depending on time (4th-18th centuries), currently none (all languages are extinct)

Until late 4th century:[1]
Central and eastern Europe (as far as Crimea)
late 4th—early 10th centuries:[2]
Much of southern, western, southeastern, and eastern Europe (as far as Crimea) and North Africa
early 10th-late 18th centuries:[3]
Isolated areas in eastern Europe (as far as Crimea)
Linguistic classification Indo-European
Subdivisions
ISO 639-5 gme
Glottolog (not evaluated)
goth1244  (Gothic)[4]
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One of the proposed theories for the approximate distribution of Germanic dialect groups in Europe in around AD 1:
  East Germanic

The East Germanic languages, also called Oder-Vistula Germanic languages, are a group of extinct Germanic languages of the Indo-European language family spoken by East Germanic peoples.

The only East Germanic languages of which texts are known are Gothic and its dialect, Crimean Gothic. Other languages that are assumed to be East Germanic include Vandalic and Burgundian, though very few texts in these languages are known. Crimean Gothic, the last remaining East Germanic language, is believed to have survived until the 18th century in isolated areas of Crimea.

History

Territories inhabited by East Germanic tribes, between 100 BC and AD 300.
Europe in 476 AD with Germanic kingdoms and tribes distributed throughout Europe.

By the 1st century AD, the writings of Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, and Tacitus indicate a division of Germanic-speaking peoples into large groupings with shared ancestry and culture. (This division has been appropriated in modern terminology about the divisions of Germanic languages.)

The expansion of the Germanic tribes 750 BC – AD 1 (after the Penguin Atlas of World History 1988):
   Settlements before 750 BC
   New settlements by 500 BC
   New settlements by 250 BC
   New settlements by AD 1

Based on accounts by Jordanes, Procopius, Paul the Deacon and others; linguistic evidence (see Gothic language); placename evidence; and archaeological evidence, it is believed that the East Germanic tribes, the speakers of the East Germanic languages related to the North Germanic tribes, had migrated from Scandinavia into the area lying east of the Elbe.[5] In fact, the Scandinavian influence on Pomerania and northern Poland from period III onwards was so considerable that this region is sometimes included in the Nordic Bronze Age culture (Dabrowski 1989:73).

There is also archaeological and toponymic evidence that Burgundians lived on the Danish island of Bornholm (Old Norse: Burgundaholmr), and that Rugians lived on the Norwegian coast of Rogaland (Old Norse: Rygjafylki).

Groups

Possible East Germanic-speaking tribes include:

See also

Notes and references

  1. ↑ From origins until the beginning of the Migration Period.
  2. ↑ From the onset of the Migration Period until extinctions of major East Germanic languages with the last one occurring in the early 10th century.
  3. ↑ From the last major extinction until the 18th century demise of Crimean Gothic.
  4. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Gothic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  5. ↑ The Penguin Atlas of World History, Hermann Kinder and Werner Hilgemann; translated by Ernest A. Menze; with maps designed by Harald and Ruth Bukor. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-051054-0, 1988. Volume 1, p. 109.
  • Dabrowski, J. (1989) Nordische Kreis und Kulturen Polnischer Gebiete. Die Bronzezeit im Ostseegebiet. Ein Rapport der Kgl. Schwedischen Akademie der Literatur, Geschichte und Altertumsforschung über das Julita-Symposium 1986. Ed Ambrosiani, B. Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien. Konferenser 22. Stockholm. ISBN 91-7402-203-2
  • Demougeot, E. La formation de l'Europe et les invasions barbares, Paris: Editions Montaigne, 1969–74.
  • Kaliff, Anders. 2001. Gothic Connections. Contacts between eastern Scandinavia and the southern Baltic coast 1000 BCE – 500 CE.
  • Musset, L. Les invasions: les vagues germanique, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1965.
  • Nordgren, I. 2004. Well Spring of The Goths. About the Gothic Peoples in the Nordic Countries and on the Continent.
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