Origin of the Goths: Slavic or Germanic?

[TrueMacedonian]

Pages 1 and 2 of Herwig Wolfram's 'History of the Goths' basically states that no one can claim the Goths because they did not necessarily "achieve the status of a nation, they dissolved at their downfall into a myth accessible to everyone. The results have been a long history of attempts to lay claim to the Gothic traditions."

http://books.google.com/books?id=xsQ...german&f=false

[George S.]

so where did the goths originate from originally??THey say the germanic people could be assyrian???

[TrueMacedonian]

Originally Posted by George S.

so where did the goths originate from originally??THey say the germanic people could be assyrian???

Who said this????

[Delodephius]

Originally Posted by George S.

THey say the germanic people could be assyrian???

O_O

Germanic people are Indo-European. They have nothing to do with the Semitic Assyrians. Where on Earth did you hear such a ridiculous thing?

[Onur]

Goths are just one of the Scythian tribe who lived in the north of Blacksea. So, the placement of their ancestral lands and their runic alphabet called as "futhark" in Germanic language, is the proof of their Scythian heritage. They slowly started to be assimilated among Roman society in 4th century. Then a civil war started in their eastern neighbors, Huns. As a result of that, many Hunnic tribes started to migrate to the west, in to the Gothic lands(north of Blacksea). Some Goths migrated to the further west(today`s France, Germany and then England), in to the Roman territory and the rest allied with Huns to attack Romans.

Btw, it`s highly possible that there was Slavic, Hungarian, Turkic people among Goths since these people lived in north of Blacksea too, formerly part of Scythian tribal union lived outside the Roman world.

Originally Posted by TrueMacedonian

Pages 1 and 2 of Herwig Wolfram's 'History of the Goths' basically states that no one can claim the Goths because they did not necessarily "achieve the status of a nation, they dissolved at their downfall into a myth accessible to everyone. The results have been a long history of attempts to lay claim to the Gothic traditions."

This is just a false propaganda. How come he can deny the role of Goths and other Germanic tribes contribution to the European history while it`s a fact that majority of Europeans speaks the language based on Gothic/Germanic??? Also, after the destruction of Roman empire, Goths ruled most of the Europe for centuries. They even ruled in Rome (during the reign of Theodoric the Great of Goths)

This book appears like a pro-Roman, pro-Hellenic propaganda which nullifies the contribution of formerly Scythian tribes to the formation of today`s Europe. They cant claim that just because Romans managed to assimilate most of the Goths in to their latin world.


I posted links of a discovery channel documentary about Goths and other so-called "barbarian" tribes. It shows how Romans tried to erase Germanic/Gothic traces in Europe after assimilating most of them;

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum...80&postcount=4

In this documentary, it shows the tomb of Theodoric in Ravenna, Italy. Theodoric ordered to built that himself and it`s looking like a yurt(kind of tent of Eurasian nomadic people), signifying his nomadic roots.

THey say the germanic people could be assyrian???

If Germanic people are Assyrian, then i am African and you can be Aborigine.

In 6-7th century, some pro-Roman historians wrote lies about the origin of Germanic people and told like they are Troyans or Ionians, ancient Greeks from Anatolia. This Assyrian claim is like that.

[George S.]

I think it could be in the bible where it shows after the flood noahs sons were certain nations.How true that is i don't know.We as macedonians Refer to the germans as Nemci i wonder why.

[TrueMacedonian]

Onur said;

Goths are just one of the Scythian tribe who lived in the north of Blacksea.So, the placement of their ancestral lands and their runic alphabet called as "futhark" in Germanic language, is the proof of their Scythian heritage.

Onur I have read Peter Heather's 'The Goths' and he never once made such a statement. What is your source? Any corroboration available would make this a more interesting topic.

Btw, it`s highly possible that there was Slavic, Hungarian, Turkic people among Goths since these people lived in north of Blacksea too, formerly part of Scythian tribal union lived outside the Roman world.

It's more than possible considering the many tribes, clans, and people's that lived on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. And the terminology you use "Scythian tribal union" is wrong. Today the modern terminology bestowed the name Cernjachov culture for the Goth's and other peoples that shared certain cultural traits from the Black Sea region. Again is this Scythian connection your assumption or is it a scholars view as well?

This is just a false propaganda. How come he can deny the role of Goths and other Germanic tribes contribution to the European history while it`s a fact that majority of Europeans speaks the language based on Gothic/Germanic??? Also, after the destruction of Roman empire, Goths ruled most of the Europe for centuries. They even ruled in Rome (during the reign of Theodoric the Great of Goths)

Depends on how you look at it really. Can the Germans in Germany and Austria lay claim to the Goths? Can Poland? Where does fiction begin and reality take us?

This book appears like a pro-Roman, pro-Hellenic propaganda which nullifies the contribution of formerly Scythian tribes to the formation of today`s Europe. They cant claim that just because Romans managed to assimilate most of the Goths in to their latin world.

Actually Peter Heather's book 'The Goths' touches upon the identity, culture, and ethnicity of the Goths. His view is not that far off from Wolfram's.

[Onur]

Originally Posted by TrueMacedonian

Onur I have read Peter Heather's 'The Goths' and he never once made such a statement. What is your source? Any corroboration available would make this a more interesting topic.

Goths and all other Germanic tribes lived under the assimilation of Latin world, especially after 400 AD. Their former pagan lives and nomadic traditions has been ignored and then condemned because of their new religion, christianity. Their language and runic script has been associated with sorcery and satanism because christian Romans considered their druids&shamans as evil. As you know, after ~400 years, same process has been followed for various Slavic tribes, Bulgars, Hungarians in 9-10th century when they have been converted in to the christianity. Because of that, it was necessity for them to condemn their former traditions, sometimes including their language. Thats why all we got today about the former lives of Germanic, Slavic, Bulgar, Hungarian tribes are few archeological findings of 20th century cuz they destroyed pretty much everything associated with their pre-christian era.

You know, Romans used christianity as a tool for assimilating many different tribes, societies in to the Roman, Latin world. But, even with this fact, the Goths who earned high ranks in Roman world wrote their own history. They ignored many elements about themselves because of christian dogmas of medieval era but they wrote that they are descendants of Scythians. Also some Roman historians of 5-6th century wrote that all Germanic people including Goths are the descendants of Scythians but after the integration of Germanic tribes in to the latin world, many Roman historians tried to falsify the origins of Germanic people by trying to give them more "lofty" ancestors in their own eyes by writing like Germanic tribes descended from Troyans and/or ancient Hellenes.

I leafed through in my books for you, then tried to find same pages in Google books;






"Historiography: ancient, medieval, & modern" by
Ernst Breisach


I can find more sources if you like but this book is considered as masterpiece for the history of historians. It analyzes how the history of the world and the historians themselves from Homeros `till today.

Also, we know from Roman, Arab, Jewish accounts that Germanic tribes`s ancestral lands was around north of Blacksea and they migrated in to the Roman world because of Hunnic expansion to the Europe, either for seeking refuge in Roman empire or to destroy Rome by allying with the Huns. We know from Gothic king of Rome, Theodoric that he had nomadic traditions, because he built his own tomb looking like a yurt(tent home). Theodoric also ordered writing the history of Goths and they presented Germanic tribes as descendants of Scythians. We know that Germanic people used Runic script before they become christians. So, who might be the origin of Germanic tribes for you? Assyrians, Greeks or Scythians?

Depends on how you look at it really. Can the Germans in Germany and Austria lay claim to the Goths? Can Poland? Where does fiction begin and reality take us?

Because of heavy assimilation of Goths in latin world, and condemnation of their traditions, it`s very difficult to tell something about that. At least nothing you can say about this can be considered as a fact. But we can safely say that Germans, Austrians, Dutch etc. are clearly associated with Goths since they speak a language evolved from the language of Goths.

We can also say that most Europeans today are the descendants of these Germanic tribes because the population of them was much higher than Latins of Rome. I mean the descendants of Angles, Goths, Saxons, Scots, Celts constitutes the population of today`s Europe much more than the descendants of the latins of Roman elite, some Spaniards, some French and Italians of today.

[Onur]

There was an alphabet named "Gothic script" in medieval era. It`s created by Romans or by christianized Goths in ~400 AD, just for the purpose of serving as a transition of their integration(or assimilation) in to the Latin christian world. I checked Wikipedia article for that and it`s quite good;

The Gothic alphabet is an alphabet for writing the Gothic language, created in the 4th century by Ulfilas (or Wulfila) for the purpose of translating the Christian Bible.[1]

The alphabet is essentially an uncial form of the Greek alphabet, with a few additional letters to account for Gothic phonology.

Ulfilas is thought to have consciously chosen to avoid the use of the older Runic alphabet for this purpose, as it was heavily connected with heathen beliefs and customs.[2] Also, the Greek-based script probably helped to integrate the Gothic nation into the dominant Greco-Roman culture around the Black Sea.[3] The individual letters, however, still bear names derived from those of their Runic equivalents. The letter names are recorded in a 9th century manuscript of Alcuin (Codex Vindobonensis 795). Most of them seem to be Gothic forms of names also appearing in the rune poems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_alphabet

This is nothing more than modified Greek+Latin alphabet with letters carrying the same names of former Runic alphabet of Goths. This modified Greek/Latin alphabet quickly replaced Runic script and served for the purpose of christianization of Germanic people.

This should remind you an another story! This is quite same as the story of Cyril&Methodius creating an alphabet for recently christianized slavic tribes of that era, right? based on Greek/Latin letters again.

So, i believe neither Germanic tribes nor Slavic tribes was ignorant and illiterate savages b4 the creation of Greek/Latin based Gothic script and Cyrillic script respectively. This was just a Roman lie in both cases, just to degenerate their former non-christian cultures. I believe same thing for early Bulgars and Hungarians too. They just valued different things than Latins and they had completely different world.





These are the original Germanic Runic alphabets;

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/runic.htm

And these are Hungarian and Turkic runes just for the sake of comparison;

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/hungarian_runes.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Turkic_script

Edit: I just saw this in Wikipedia;

Pre-Christian Slavic writing
Pre-Christian Slavic writing is a hypothesized writing system that may have been used by the Slavs prior to the introduction of Christianity and the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets. No extant evidence of pre-Christian Slavic writing exists, but early Slavic forms of writing or proto-writing may have been mentioned in several early medieval sources.

The 9th century Bulgarian writer, Chernorizets Hrabar in his О писменех (An Account of Letters) briefly mentioned that, before the introduction of Christianity, Slavs used a system he had dubbed "strokes and incisions" or "tallies and sketches" in some translations (Old Church Slavonic: чръты и рѣзы). He also provided information critical to Slavonic palaeography with his book;

In the old days, the Slavs did not have their own letters, but read and divined by means of strokes and incisions, being pagan. After their baptism they were forced to use Roman and Greek letters in the transcription of their Slavic words but these were not suitable.[1]

Another contemporary source, Thietmar of Merseburg, describing a temple on the island of Rügen, a Slavic pagan stronghold, remarked that the idols there had their names carved out on them ("singulis nominibus insculptis" Chronicon 6:23 ).[2]

Etymological background
The Slavic word for "to write", pьsati derives from a Common Balto-Slavic word for "to paint, smear", found in Lithuanian piẽšti "paint, write", paĩšas "smudge", puišinas "sooty, dirty", from the same root as Old Slavic pьstrъ (also pěgъ) "coloured" (Greek πικρός), ultimately from a PIE root *peik- "speckled, coloured" (Latin pingō "paint", Tocharian pik-, pink- "paint, write"). This indicates that the Slavs named the new art of writing in ink, as "smearing, painting", unlike English which, with Old English *(w)rîtan English write, transferred the term for "incising (runes)" to manuscript writing. The other Germanic languages use terms derived from Latin scribere. A Slavic term for "to incise" survives in OCS žrěbъ "lot" originally the incision on a wooden chip used for divination (Russian жребий "number, tally mark", from the same root as Greek γράφω).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Chr...Slavic_writing

[Delodephius]

Originally Posted by George S.

I think it could be in the bible where it shows after the flood noahs sons were certain nations.How true that is i don't know.We as macedonians Refer to the germans as Nemci i wonder why.

I wouldn't put much faith even in the historical books of the Bible, and almost none into the mythological part, even if it is a memory of some past events. Most of what is written in the Bible are really copies of Babylonian and Sumerian myths and legends, and after the exile its more or less Persian imperial propaganda.

As for the word Nemci, the folk etymology (meaning how lay people describe origin of words) is that it comes from the word 'nem' which means 'mute', since the Germans could not speak Slavic languages. The opposite of this is the name Slověne (Slavs) which derives from the word 'slovo' which means 'word', since they spoke the language.

Most of that could just be nonsense. The origin of the word Nemci could be from a German tribe called the Nemetes, while the origin of the word Slověne is still unknown. It is most likely an Iranian (Scytho-Sarmatian) word.