Germanic tribes
The first mention of the Germanic tribes was found in the works of Pitheas, a Greek historian and geographer, referring to the 4th century B.C. In the 1st century B.C., Julius Caesar described them as a separate ethnic group different from the Celts. Later in the 1st century A.D., the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia gave the following classification:
1. Vindili ( Modern East Germany)
2. Ingveones (Modern West Germany, North Sea, Holland)
3. Istævones (Modern West Germany, the Rhine)
4. Herminones (Modern South Germany)
5. Pevkins and Bastarns (Modern Rumania)
6. Hilleviones (Modern North Germany, Scandinavia)
According to archeological evidence, the first Germanic tribes were relatively uniform, and in the 8th century B.C. they occupied territories in the southern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula and along the coasts of the North and Baltic Seas from what is now The Netherlands to the Vistula River. In the 3rd century B.C. they spread southwards, and beginning with the 1st century B.C. separate dialects began to appear. First, the Proto-Germanic language divided into Northern (Scandinavian) and Southern (continental), the latter later splitting into the West and East Germanic dialects. These three groups of Germanic tribes have different histories as they continued to spread over the territory of Europe, and in the 4th century A.D., the great Germanic tribal migrations began.
In the 19th century, the famous scholar Jacob Grimm classified these tribes into three groups: East Germanic, West Germanic and North Germanic.
Map courtesy of the Utah State University Web site: http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/images/12/36map10barbarianinvasions2.jpg
1. East Germanic tribes included Vandals, Burgundians and Goths.
Those who were called Vandals inhabited the territory between the Order and the Vistula rivers. They migrated to North Africa via Iberia (Spain).
Burgundians came to the mainland from the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. They migrated to the west and settled in the South-East of modern France (Burgundy) and in Western Switzerland and North-Western Italy.
The Goths were the most powerful tribes. They migrated from Scandinavia and first settled in the lower basin of the Vistula. In the 2nd-3rd centuries A.D., the Gothic tribes moved southeast to the shore of the Black Sea and the lower basin of the Danube, and can be categorized into two Gothic groups:
The Western group, The Visigoths (visigotae), invaded the Roman territory, moved to Southern Gaul and Iberia and founded the kingdom of Toulouse. Linguistically they were absorbed by the native population, who were Romanized Celts, but the kingdom existed till the 8th century.
The Eastern group – The Ostrogoths (ostrogotae) – settled in the basin of the Dniester, then crossed the Balkan Peninsula and founded their kingdom in Northern Italy with the capital Ravenna. They flourished in the 5th and – 6thcenturies under King Theodoric, then the kingdom fell. Though neither of the East Germanic languages survived, they are very important because they are present in written records referring to the 4th through the 6th centuries.
2. North Germanic tribes occupied the southern coast of the Scandinavian Peninsula and Northern Denmark beginning in the 4th century. They were practically isolated from other cultures, and their language is called Old Norse or Old Scandinavian. Separate dialects appeared after the 9th century in the Viking Age (800 – 1050 A.D.) when they started spreading beyond the peninsula. The dialects of Old Norse were brought to and spoken in Iceland, Ireland, Norway, the Hebrides, the Orkney, Shetland and Faroe Islands from the 10th to the 13th century.
Linguistic differentiation corresponded to the political division of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and so the North Germanic languages were Old Swedish, Old Danish and Old Norwegian. In the 9th century, Norwegians from West Scandinavia inhabited Iceland and islands around the North Sea (the Shetlands, the Orkneys, and the Faroe Islands). As a result, two more languages began to develop – Old Icelandic and Old Faroese. Runic inscriptions from the third century through the 9th centuries preserve our earliest traces of the language. In many areas, these tribes were linguistically assimilated by the native population, and so these languages infused with those of the locals, ultimately phasing out in favor of the local tongue. We may find one such example in England, where the Scandinavian dialect was replaced by the English language, while on some islands it merged with English, producing a dialect. It is important to note that the Icelandic language is more isolated than the others which the text has explored, and therefore retains a more archaic character of vocabulary and grammar.
3. West Germanic tribes lived between the Slavonic tribes in the east and the Celtic tribes in the West. They spoke distinct dialects. This group consisted of several various tribes: Anglian, Frisian, Jutish, Saxon (Low German), Franconian, High German, Bavarian and some others.
Franconians, or Franks, lived along the Rhine River. Angles, Frisians, Jutes and Saxons occupied the coastal area of the modern Netherlands, western Germany and southern Denmark. High Germans occupied the mountainous southern part of modern Germany while Low Germans lived in the lowlands of the North. In the 3rd through the 5th century, Alemans and Bavarians occupied the territory in the South of modern Germany and moved farther south to the Alps.
At the end of the 5th century, the Franks (Istaevones) moved to the west of Gaul, a region of Roman languages. Their empire included France and half of Italy. Its western part became the basis of France and they were linguistically assimilated by the Romanized Celts. The eastern part had mixed population of various West Germanic tribes.
In the 4th – 5th centuries, the Saxons moved from the North Sea coast to the Southwest in the direction of the Rhine River. In the 5th and 6th centuries, Frisians, Jutes and Anglo-Saxon tribes moved to the British Isles, and it is at this time that the Old English language began to develop. The first writings were made in runes, or modified Latin letters. Later, about the 7th c., together with Christianity, they adopted the Latin alphabet.
ALPHABETS
The first writings in the Germanic languages didn’t appear before the 3rd century. The earliest alphabet the Germanic tribes used was the runic alphabet. It was used by different tribes from the 3rd to the 9th century. Runes were modified Latin letters so that they might be cut on hard surfaces, such as wood or stone. The runes were symbols, each indicating a separate sound. They could even indicate a word beginning with that sound and therefore were called by that word. This alphabet was mostly used by Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians.
Another alphabet is the Gothic alphabet, found in written records of the 4th -6th centuries. In the 4th century, Ulfillas (311-383), whose father seems to have been a Goth and his mother a Greek (Cappadocian), a Gothic bishop, made a translation of the Gospels from Greek into Gothic using a modified form of the Greek alphabet. Our knowledge of Gothic is almost wholly due to a translation of the Gospels and other parts of the New Testament made by Ulfilas. It is written on red parchment with silver and golden letters, and so is called the Silver Codex. It is one of the earliest texts written in a Germanic language, and therefore is a prime example of a very early stage in the development of modern Germanic language. Except for some runic inscriptions in Scandinavia it is the earliest record of a
Germanic language we possess.
With the spread of Christianity the Germanic tribes were exposed to the Latin language through religious texts. The Latin alphabet was enlarged and adapted to meet the demands of every particular Germanic language.
Language changes are not always evident because oral language existed before written records appeared. For this reason, it is sometimes necessary to compare how other related languages developed in order to gain insight into the development of OE and to restore OE phenomena, and so it is important to know what the Old Germanic languages were like.