East Germanic languages

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East Germanic
Gothic
Geographic
distribution:		 Eastern Europe
Genetic
classification:		 Indo-European
 Germanic
  East Germanic
Subdivisions:


The East Germanic languages are a group of extinct Indo-European languages in the Germanic family. The only East Germanic language of which texts are known is Gothic; other languages that are assumed to be East Germanic include Vandalic, Burgundian, and Crimean Gothic. Crimean Gothic is believed to have survived until the 18th century.

Based on accounts by Jordanes, Procopius, Paul the Deacon and others, linguistic evidence (see Gothic language), placename evidence, and on archaeological evidence, it is believed that the East Germanic tribes, the speakers of the East Germanic languages, migrated from Scandinavia to the area between the Oder and the Vistula rivers, ca 600 BCE – ca 300 BCE. In fact, the Scandinavian influence on Pomerania and northern Poland from period III and onwards was so considerable that this region is sometimes included in the Nordic Bronze Age culture (Dabrowski 1989:73).

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

There are also archaeological and toponymic evidence that Burgundians originated in the island of Bornholm in Denmark (Old Norse: Borgundarholm).

The East Germanic tribes, related to the North Germanic tribes, had migrated from Scandinavia into the East of Elbe (Vandals, Burgundians, Goths, Rugians and others).[1]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ 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.

[edit] References

  • 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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