Origin of the Goths: Slavic or Germanic?

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Delodephius

I do think that any member has the right to ask questions and investigate the purpose of other members, to see their motives.

You're absolutely correct.

You are both welcome here, and while you don't see eye to eye on some things (same applies with everybody else), in this instance Onur has become defensive rather than positively responding to some of the questions posed. At the end of the day, if you're going to make an assertion you need to be able to corroborate it. When someone tells me that Germanic tribes lived in yurts - which is common for Turkic and Mongol peoples - then one would think that a request for elaboration is to be expected.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Delodephius

I just read in a dictionary (and also found a similar entry on Wikipedia), that "mir, měr, mierz, myr" could also mean "prestige" in Common Slavic, besides "peace" and "world".

http://blog.oup.com/2009/04/peace/

Peace migrated to English from French. Pax, the etymon of peace, stood for “something fixed, united, joined together”; hence pact. Among its numerous, often barely recognizable cognates, whose meanings go all the way from “make firm; satisfy” to “seize, receive” and thereby “make firm,” the ancestor of Engl. fair “beautiful, pleasing” turns up (Germanic f corresponds to Latin p, as in the pater ~ father couple), and it is especially interesting. Peace, with its show of stability, was clearly understood as a good thing. In most Slavic languages the word for “peace” is mir, known to the outside world from the name of the space station “Mir,” though in Russian mir has two senses: “peace” and “world.” This word is akin to mil- “nice, pleasant.” The sense attested in the English adjective fair does not seem to have been present in the closest cognates of pax, but the Germanic-Slavic parallel is not fortuitous: peace is something “fixed” and “beautiful.” Another curious coincidence may be worthy of note. Russian mir “world” developed from “community of farmers,” so that “togetherness” yielded “peace.” Obviously related to pax is Latin pagus “(rural) district, the country,” originally “landmark fixed in the earth,” whence paganus “rustic,” later “pagan.” Once again living together, in a community, became inseparable from “peace.”

I have the book written by Anatoly Liberman, it seems like an interesting read, good information on etymologies and the formation of words.

[Onur]

There is an Hapsburg`s ambassador to Istanbul named Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq from 1552 to 1562 AD. He stayed in Istanbul for 10 years but traveled all around Turkey and constantly sent reports to Vienna.

We were talking about the tulips in Holland in other thread. This ambassador was Flemish (Dutch) in origin and this guy was the first man who brought tulips to Europe from Istanbul gardens;

He was an avid collector, acquiring valuable manuscripts, rare coins and curios of various kinds. Among the best known of his discoveries was a 6th century copy of Dioscorides' De Materia Medica, a compendium of medicinal herbs. The emperor purchased it after Busbecq's recommendation; the manuscript is now known as the Vienna Dioscorides. His passion for herbalism led him to send Turkish tulip bulbs to his friend Charles de l'Écluse, who acclimatized them to life in the Low Countries. Less than a century later tulip mania was sweeping the United Provinces and ruining its financial markets. Busbecq has also been credited with introducing the lilac to Europe (though this is debated)[2] as well as the Angora goat.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogier_Ghiselin_de_Busbecq

He was also the guy who attested the last remaining Goths in Crimea and noted their language for the last time. He calls them as Tatars at first because they were the horsemen of Crimea but he thinks that they either should be the descendants of Goths or Saxons because they were speaking German language.

http://www.archive.org/stream/lifele.../n373/mode/2up

It`s funny that he relates their habit of eating horse meat without cooking is some kind of barbarian custom. Actually, what Gothic nomads did was, what we call as "pastirma". Pastirma, "pressed meat" in Turkish is the best and easiest meal for mobile horsemen. They were slicing the meat, putting under the saddle to let it dry faster with the horse`s heat generated from it`s skin. It was practical because dried meat doesn't get spoiled and doesn't need cold to be preserved.

It`s also interesting that he mentions about the chief of Tatars who raised among these Goths. So, we can say that these last remaining Goths of Crimea who didn't migrate to the Europe, mingled with Tatars or Slavs and disappeared from history.

[Voltron]

So basically you guys invented beef jerky then you claim to be the ones that developed all that delicate "Turkish Cuisine" we Greeks eat.
Beef jerky and yoghurt the primary diet of nomads.