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I won't even bother quoting Liebeschuetz - what he says is freely available online and anyone can check it and see that he says Tacitus mentions a common Germanic language. Pohl however, says: Die Peukiner waren in Sprache und Kultur wie die Germanen, ihr Aussehen entsprach aber eher den Sarmaten; trotz sprachlicher und kultureller Übereinstimmung konnten die Cotini und Osi keine Germanen sein, weil ihnen die germanische Freiheitsliebe fehlte; (The Peucini were like the Germani in speech and culture, but their appearance accorded rather with the Sarmatians; despite linguistic and cultural conformity [to the Germani], the Cotini and Osi could not be Germani, because they lacked the Germanic love of freedom). The source does not support that these people spoke "Pannonian" and "Gaulish".--Ermenrich (talk) 13:56, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ermenrich: editorial judgement is needed. These two passing remarks (no argumentation, and in the case of Liebeschuetz, there is no citation) about Tacitus are errors. See Tacitus Germania 28 & 43. Also, they conflict with secondary sources more focused on these exact points (e.g. RLA), and as simple asides, they clearly can't be portrayed as part of some notable debate. WP has an established methodology for such cases. Even the best sources contain errors or odd passing statements, and we do not normally use those. Also see my edit summary concerning the can of worms "freedom loving", which you imply Tacitus wrote. (He just says paying tribute is not Germanic.) Simple solutions include deleting bits of this, weakening the wording, using other sources, or perhaps even lengthening the whole discussion. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:40, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we can substitute our own readings of Tacitus for what Pohl and Liebeschuetz say - and Tacitus consistently includes Germanic words, so I'm not sure why you think that's an error. The general rule here, which you know, is to follow what reliable sources say about primary sources. Here we have the additional issue of translation from Latin to a modern language.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:06, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I stand by the "common language" issue, since Tacitus most definitely does talk about the Germani having a common language as at least one criterion for determining Germanicness - however, do you have a source for the Osi and Cotini issue?--Ermenrich (talk) 21:24, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Your reaction is surprising: 1. You are rewriting what I said: I colour some key words red above. Note sources (RLA, start with "Osi", "Cotini") but I was writing believing that you know, or could quickly confirm, that these passages where Tacitus mentions languages have been commented upon in print many times. I don't know of any other modern commentators who'd back-up these two wordings you want? Please be open to checking? 2. We do not have to cite every idea from every RS we use, obviously. We can't. We still have to make editing judgements. And best practice is to be aware of more sources than the one you use, to keep an eye out for anything unique to a single source, which is honestly what I believe you'll find these cases to be. 3. Translations do not require an RS, but there are enough translations around for these passages, so that should be no issue anyway?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:23, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am interested to learn where Tacitus mentions a single "common language". For now I believe that he only indicates that such a thing as a Suebian language and/or a language typical of Germania existed, and that some but not all Germani spoke one of them. AFAIK none of his comments about this relate to the regions west of the Elbe unfortunately.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:23, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

1) If you have access to the sources, then you should quote them here or cite them when making changes to what another RS says. It is incumbent on the editor bringing the argument to cite sources if they conflict with another source, not tell the person who cited the original source to do so. Nevertheless, I have now looked and so I will remove the incorrect information from Pohl. I'm not sure why you are describing these as "asides" that are being used to portray things as "part of a debate". The point is that Roman sources are inconsistent about how they use the term Germanic and Pohl cites this as an example (whether he's wrong or not). 2) Tacitus mentions language as one of the things that he uses to determine whether something is Germanic or not. Nowhere does it say that all his Germanic peoples spoke it (in fact, he explicitly seems to say some don't). Common does not mean universal. 3) Tacitus is 100% a wp:primary source - you're arguing against an interpretation of that source (that Tacitus mentions a common Germanic language) based on your own interpretation of the text.

In fact, the article at GAO on the Osi seems to prove the point on language: Tacitus says at first they are Germani and then that they aren't because they speak Pannonian An der ersten Stelle werden sie als Germanorum natione bezeichnet, an der zweiten heißt es Osos Pannonica lingua coarguit non esse Germanos. Diese Differenz der Aussagen hat dem Verständnis immer Schwierigkeiten gemacht (In the first passage they are called "of the nation of Germans", in the second "[their] Pannonian language proves that the Osi are not Germani". This difference between the statements has always caused difficulties in understanding). The same for the Cotini: Über ihre Sprache besitzen wir die eindeutige Aussage bei Tacitus a. O.: Cotinos Gallica ... lingua coarguit non esse Germanos. (We possess a clear statement about their language in Tacitus: [Their] Gallic language proves that the Cotini are not Germani") Apparently speaking Pannonian or Gaulish means you aren't Germanic according to Tacitus.

We are not the only people editing this page and I think input from others would be helpful.--Ermenrich (talk) 22:43, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• If I have sources? "based on your own interpretation of the text"? Why do you write such things? Reminder: Now you looked at a source I suggested from the beginning, and if we are going to be petty, I was 100% right and this was not just my opinion. :) FWIW I think Pohl just got his sentence mixed-up.
• What to write: Your point 2 is correct, but it is the position you have been pushing the article away from: Pohl and almost all writers (Timpe etc) use these passages to show that Tacitus did NOT use language in a simple way to define who was Germanic. Although he indicated language was a factor, it was only one factor and he never states that there is ONE Germanic language. I think we can keep it relatively short. But if you want to discuss unusual positions it gets more complicated and controversial, and they can't be presented in WP voice.
• You oversimplify on one thing: Tacitus says the Osi both are (despite their language) and are not (because of their language) Germanic, in the two different passages. So, as the secondary sources point out, the "proof" of Tacitus was apparently not definitive for him.
• ONLY Liebeschuetz tries to claim there was one shared shared language. But you should read his whole chapter, not only p.97 with the most over-simplified statement and no citations. He cites Germania 43&46 on pp.94-5, where he also adds that the language might have been related dialects and shows that he has actually also using Isidore. Clearly he is just stretching the same passages Pohl and all others look at.
• Ermenrich, you went to great lengths to force me to promise not to answer you at length here anymore, and since then you've constantly written long posts which mis-state my arguments, imply that I have no sources, and bait me to give more detailed answers which you know full well I would much prefer to do. But why is it so important to you to insist on cherry-picking on this relatively clear issue? You seem to be desperate to find a way to bend our article towards Liebeschuetz's "revisionist" (so to speak) position?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:14, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have neither misstated your argument nor said you do not have sources. I have said that if you have (one has) sources, it is incumbent on that person to post what they say, not tell the person who has already provided a source to look them up themselves. This strikes me as just being polite.--Ermenrich (talk) 22:51, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You seem hellbent on removing any reference to the idea that the Germani (or many of the Germani) had a common language. And yet we know that many of them did, because of the existence of the Germanic languages, which were certainly spoken by peoples identified by the Romans as Germani (see also the chief counterargument to the nonexistence of the Germani, cited from the GAO article on the subject). According to the GAO article on the Osi, many scholars take the statement about the Osi being Germanic as a mistake (I assume by a copyist). Tacitus says no such thing about the Cotini, just that they are excluded from being Germanic by their language. No one is saying that language was definitive, merely that it was certainly a factor that Tacitus made use of. I'm not sure why including this bothers you so much.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:14, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You're second last sentence is fine, but similar to my edits which you have acted increasingly aggressively against with edits like this [1]. So, don't you seem hell-bent on using cherry picking to make WP say that there was a single Germanic language uniting the Germani in the period between Caesar and Tacitus? Doesn't this make a mess of the modern Jastorf proxy for Germanic languages, and take us back to the 19th century ideas that languages are permanently connected to the names of peoples and can only move by migration? This twists the sources badly, and leaves a large (western) part of the Germani in a grey zone. And who argues that "Germani" did not exist in this period? Your post is quite confusing, and I do not know which counterargument you are referring to. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:38, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Your ANI complaint was, erm, clearly not intended to encourage polite discussion. Being polite means longer posts. You can't have it both ways. OTOH aren't you being a bit over-dramatic? We've both being referring to the same set of online sources, and so we've both been telling each other to look-up things (as you do below), because we can both click on the links and get there quickly. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:38, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Have you ever for one moment wondered why you arouse such animosity, Andrew, as was expressed in so many of the responses to the ANI complaint against you? We've all seen how you operate, as demonstrated when you were harassing EdJohnston, who has shown remarkable patience with you, on his talk page and he asked you to keep your posts brief, and you responded with even longer posts. Why don't you stop playing the martyr and cut out the crap? We're all fed up with it. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone, anywhere, less self-aware than you. In short, knock it off. Carlstak (talk) 22:26, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How long have you been waiting for me to write a post long enough to start this nonsense again Carlstak? At least you've demonstrated my point.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:39, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Like I said, knock it off, Mr. Gigabyte of this page. Carlstak (talk) 12:56, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some quotes from reliable secondary sources on the languages of Germanic peoples:

• "Germanic tribes... did indeed possess both core traditions and a sense of shared identity, and... these had evolved well before their entry into the Roman world... [T]he Germanic tribes (Germanicae gentes) spoke the same language... Caesar and Tacitus certainly thought that the people they called Germans shared elements of a common culture. Tacitus certainly knew that they shared a language... [E]ven if the different gentes did not share a sense of German identity, they did share a language, or at least spoke closely related dialects... That is why the concept of ‘Germanic’ remains useful, even indispensable... Some traditions, especially language, all the tribes had in common." - Liebeschuetz, Wolf (2015). East and West in Late Antiquity: Invasion, Settlement, Ethnogenesis and Conflicts of Religion. Impact of Empire. Vol. 20. Brill. pp. xxv, 85–100. ISBN 978-90-04-28952-9. ISSN 1572-0500.

• "Caesar (Bellum Gallicium 1. 47), Tacitus (Germania 43) and Suetonius (4. 47) all refer to Germanic tribes speaking native languages which differed from those of the Gauls, and the philological evidence for the Germanic-ness of this language is provided by the names of persons, deities and places recorded on the Rhineland frontier." - Clay, Cheryl Louise (2008). "Developing the 'Germani' in Roman Studies". Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal. 1. Open Library of Humanities: 131–150. doi:10.16995/TRAC2007_131_150. Retrieved January 17, 2020.

• "Tacitus... considers Germanic to be a bundle of characteristics, the most significant of which is language. If a population lacks some of these characteristics, he hesitates to call them Germani... The modern expression "Germani" applies exclusively to "members of the same linguistic family" rather than to communities with an identical origin or self- identity or religion..." - Reichert, Hermann (2002). "Nordic language history and religion". In Bandle, Oskar [in German] (ed.). The Nordic Languages. Vol. 1. Walter de Gruyter. p. 390. ISBN 3110148765.

• "Germani – Collective name for a series of groups speaking related languages." - Heather, Peter (2007). The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Oxford University Press. p. 467. ISBN 978-0195325416.

• "[T]here evidently were widespread similarities which made the Germani seem to be a recognizable group of peoples in the eyes of Greeks and Romans. These included related languages and dialects, as well as other cultural traits...". - James, Simon; Krmnicek, Stefan, eds. (2020). The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Roman Germany. Oxford University Press. p. XVII. ISBN 0199665737.

• "[I]f we go back in philological history, we can, at least in theory, find some kind of common Germanic origin, get closer perhaps to the origins of that branch of the Indo-European language family whose speakers are known by the useful Roman name of Germani... How, then, does one investigate the concept of what is Germanic? The word is rooted in language and ethnology, of course, rather than in geography, and the original homeland, the Urheimat of the Germani is not Germany in any modern sense, but (as far as it can be determined at all) probably what is now Scandinavia and the North Sea and Baltic coastal areas. ". - * Murdoch, Brian; Read, Malcolm, eds. (2004). Early Germanic Literature and Culture. Boydell & Brewer. p. 1. ISBN 157113199X.

• "[W]e approach the world of the Germani from the language which they themselves used... - Green, Dennis Howard (2004). Language and History in the Early Germanic World. Cambridge University Press. p. 2.

Krakkos (talk) 10:42, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The intro to this thread was rather abrupt but FWIW the 2 issues I was being challenged about were 1. whether Tacitus reports the Osi and Cotini as Germanic speakers, as an odd sentence in Pohl seems to say, and 2. whether Tacitus says that "his" Germani were united by a shared language, as claimed by Liebeschuetz. On 2, the relevant wording Ermenrich was insisting on were [2] [Tacitus in his Germania (c. 98 CE), depicted the Germani as sharing elements of a common culture,] with Tacitus also making reference to a common language. IMHO I've now shown that Tacitus does not do either, according to authorities on the relevant passages in Tacitus. T actually refers to a distinct northeastern part of Germania called Suebia (Germania: 43 "dirimit enim scinditque Suebiam continuum montium iugum"; 45/6 "Hic Suaebiae finis"), and Suebian language. (There were also non-Suebian Germani in the west such as those involved in the Arminius and Batavia rebellions. T never discusses their language.) Highly cited authorities on the relevant "Suebenbegriff" passages in Tacitus (including those cited by Ermenrich, Pohl, Liebeschuetz) include Dieter Timpe and Allan Lund.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:42, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Then how do you explain the quotes above added by Krakkos that say that Tacitus does discuss language? Besides Liebeschuetz we have Hermann Reichert. Clay makes the same point, even citing Tacitus 43. You meanwhile keeping referring vaguely to scholars names but have not provided a reference that says that Tacitus does not discuss language.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:50, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have never said that Tacitus does not discuss Germanic languages as one criterion among several! Of course he does, and I have said so many times? We discussed it. You've tweaked my wordings. And yes, all the secondary sources are commenting on the Germania (28, 43, 45, 46) which are relatively simple passages that don't allow much room. BTW Clay also writes "languages", so on the key point you used Liebeschuetz for when you adapted the older wording, she does NOT agree. I am now really wondering what is going on here. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:58, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've missed some of the detail in those citations, so I will quote again in brief with some bolding:

"Caesar (Bellum Gallicium 1. 47), Tacitus (Germania 43) and Suetonius (4. 47) all refer to Germanic tribes speaking native languages which differed from those of the Gauls, and the philological evidence for the Germanic-ness of this language is provided by the names of persons, deities and places recorded on the Rhineland frontier."

So the "languages" are varieties of Germanic, which Clay then calls "this language", singular. You're also ignoring Reichert who specifically says

"Tacitus... considers Germanic to be a bundle of characteristics, the most significant of which is language.

So yes, both references support the statement by Liebeschuetz. Still waiting on a source that says the opposite.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:32, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So why did you accuse me of saying that Tacitus does not discuss language?? And why is this discussion still going? Neither of your quotes are from Tacitus commentaries and the contested point is about Tacitus. Clay ("languages ... this language") is a collective singular and there is no more about Tacitus. She also agrees with me that the question of how/when Germanic language came westwards is "controversial", and her specific argument is that it came to specific Germani first (not all). So that disagrees with Liebschuetz, as did the information about the Osi and Aesti, and as confirmed by secondary sources commenting on those passage. If we want to discuss a controversy we need to present both sides. You want to put the most extreme wording you could find in WP voice (even Liebeschuetz waters down his wording in other passages). Your Reichert quote has an abstract singular: language as a "characteristic". That's perfectly in line with my explanations to you. The article is not otherwise about this topic at all. BTW it is not disputed that some authors DEFINE Germani as Germanic-speaking people. It is hard to know what can possibly ever convince you. But just in case a common sense question helps: if there was one language uniting all Germani, why do you think Tacitus talked about Suebian languages?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gee, I don't know why we're still having this conversation. Could it be because you keep saying Tacitus doesn't say something three reliable secondary sources say he says? We have three sources saying that Tacitus regarded language as an important feature of being a "Germanus" and two directly saying that this was a Germanic language in the modern sense (something which the current text does not say). I don't find your arguments for why we should disregard what is said in reliable sources convincing, particularly when you still haven't provided a secondary reliable source saying that Tacitus did not regard the Germani as having had some sort of common language.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:17, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

XXXXXX

Carlstak, I have sent you a personal message about your comment.--Berig (talk) 10:45, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Berig, I'm removing the offending comment, which Andrew has asked me to remove. I've left the Xs in its place rather than striking it out. I agree that it was out of line. Carlstak (talk) 11:38, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ermenrich, what's now clear: 1. You are reverting to insisting on mis-stating why your edit is contested, despite me objecting to previous mis-statements. See WP:BURDEN. 2. You've failed to find any secondary source to support your putting that one assertion of Liebeschuetz in WP voice (nor any passage in Tacitus which he could have used). 3. You are now using the strategy of demanding that I find a source that specifically says your wording is wrong. Your contested edit says that Tacitus says there was ONE SINGLE Germanic language which was shared by all the peoples he called the Germani. Not only can we see this is not true just by looking at Tacitus, but we've seen that secondary sources that comment on this topic say that Tacitus used language (abstract/collective singular) as one criterion among several, allowing for exceptions, and you and I have also recently discussed how modern secondary sources think many of the Tacitus Germani probably did not speak Germanic in this period (e.g. Sugambri). These disagree with Liebeschuetz. I doubt anyone will bother publishing a rebuttal of a single sentence in Liebeschuetz, especially given that Liebeschuetz himself does not insist on that strong wording throughout his article/chapter. FWIW, what is easy to source is that if Tacitus had made such a claim, then modern secondary sources (like Clay, Pohl p.47 etc) disagree with him. Your added words [3] represent deliberate cherry-picking, i.e. WP:UNDUE, so these words remain contested.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:51, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What does everyone else think?

@Bloodofox, Berig, Alcaios, Austronesier, Srnec, Carlstak, and Krakkos: While I'm sure Andrew and I can post back and forth for ever, nothing is going to be accomplished. So I ask the rest of you: is the bolded part of this text

Caesar and, following him, the Roman writer Tacitus in his Germania (c. 98 CE), depicted the Germani as sharing elements of a common culture, with Tacitus also making reference to a common language.

Currently cited to Liebeschuetz 2015 p. 97 undue as Andrew has claimed here and in his recent tagging?

The passage in Liebeschuetz is:

• "Caesar and Tacitus certainly thought that the people they called Germans shared elements of a common culture. Tacitus certainly knew that they shared a language..." - Liebeschuetz, Wolf (2015). East and West in Late Antiquity: Invasion, Settlement, Ethnogenesis and Conflicts of Religion. Impact of Empire. Vol. 20. Brill. pp. xxv, 85–100. ISBN 978-90-04-28952-9. ISSN 1572-0500.

It is, in my view further supported by these two passages from other sources:

• "Caesar (Bellum Gallicium 1. 47), Tacitus (Germania 43) and Suetonius (4. 47) all refer to Germanic tribes speaking native languages which differed from those of the Gauls, and the philological evidence for the Germanic-ness of this language is provided by the names of persons, deities and places recorded on the Rhineland frontier." - Clay, Cheryl Louise (2008). "Developing the 'Germani' in Roman Studies". Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal. 1. Open Library of Humanities: 131–150. doi:10.16995/TRAC2007_131_150. Retrieved January 17, 2020.

• "Tacitus... considers Germanic to be a bundle of characteristics, the most significant of which is language. If a population lacks some of these characteristics, he hesitates to call them Germani..." - Reichert, Hermann (2002). "Nordic language history and religion". In Bandle, Oskar [in German] (ed.). The Nordic Languages. Vol. 1. Walter de Gruyter. p. 390. ISBN 3110148765.

Andrew argues that these last two sources actually disagree with Liebeschuetz and that Liebeschuetz represents an "extreme" perspective. I leave it to the rest of you to decide who is right.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:17, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The two last sources obviously support Liebeschuetz.--Berig (talk) 13:39, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree that they clearly support Liebeschuetz. I see nothing "extreme" about his view. Carlstak (talk) 16:28, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: if an editor maintains that the sources don't support Liebeschuetz, it is a clear case of WP:NOTHERE.--Berig (talk) 19:54, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What?? Are you joking? Great way to gather feedback ... if WP were a cult. At the start of a call for feedback an involved admin announces that if anyone disagrees with their preference, they should not be on Wikipedia! Why bother asking for feedback? What is going on here? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:57, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree with Andrew on this point, Berig - the comment seems like it could hinder honest feedback.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:07, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I am probably tired.--Berig (talk) 21:17, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Reichert quotation surprises me. "The most significant of which is language" is about the opposite of what I thought of Tacitus' Germania. I'm also unsure why Liebeschuetz thinks "Tacitus certainly knew that they shared a language" (singular). Tacitus certainly provides evidence of Germanic language(s) spoken by his Germani, but where does he refer to a common language or a group of related languages? Take his treatment of the Aesti: they call amber glesum but their language is more like that of the Britons than the Suevi. My understanding is better summed up by this quote:

• "Tacitus, however, says nothing of a Germanic language, and it is certainly not a major distinguishing characteristic of his Germani." — Patrick J. Geary, Language and Power in the Early Middle Ages (Brandeis University Press, 2013), p. 4

So, as regards the text in bold ("with Tacitus also making reference to a common language"), I think we should modify it in at least two ways. We should not refer to Tacitus "making reference", since Liebeschuetz infers only that he "knew". Given the nature of language, we should not read too much into Liebeschuetz's use of the singular "language". I'm not sure what we're left with after that. The truth, I think, is that modern scholars care about language in a way Tacitus did not (and could not). It is they who conclude from the evidence Tacitus provides that he is speaking primarily of a linguistically distinct group. Srnec (talk) 23:01, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for providing a source Srnec. Let's see what else we can find and what other editors think (I'd like to reduce my involvement in the discussion from making arguments). (FYI, it's Germania 43 that this all rests on as far as I know).--Ermenrich (talk) 23:36, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Srnec:, as I mentioned above, L cites ch. 43 and 46 in a footnote on p.95. I agree, Reichert's comment is unusually "close" to L's position, but IMHO it is still incompatible with it, because he admits that there were Germani who did not meet some of the several criteria. He also does NOT say there was ONE language. Does that make sense to you? Did you look at Clay?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:50, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In a conversation with Andrew Lancaster in my talk page, I have made a point that the textual record about Germanic peoples in Antiquity is finite and quite limited, and consequently historical scholarly exegesis engages to a good deal in endless mastication of and speculation about the same material (in complete contrast to the archaeological record, where analysis can hardly catch up with new discoveries). This also includes moot extrapolations such as "Tacitus certainly knew" (Liebeschuetz). I consider Geary's assessment more faithful to the Tacitus text. A good starting point for rephrasing is Clay's careful statement which clearly separates between explicit negative characterization by Classical primary sources (Germanic tribes speaking non-Gaulish lects), and modern linguistic analysis of onomastic evidence (plus very few lexical items) that can be gleaned from these sources. I won't go into Liebeschuetz's singular of "language". Without Swadesh lists and sociolinguistic surveys at hand, this is a bold claim about the Germanic dialect continuum (or continua) in the Classical period ;) –Austronesier (talk) 07:28, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Note how Clay flip-flops between "languages", "language" and "dialects" in the same paragraph. This clearly indicates we shouldn't give too much weight to these semantic details when made by non-specialists (i.e. non-linguists). –Austronesier (talk) 07:49, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Would something like “Caesar, Tacitus, and Strabo all mention the Germani speaking languages distinct from Gaulish” be an acceptable compromise?—Ermenrich (talk) 12:04, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We should note that Suetonius talked about "the Germanic language", and that Caligula forced a group of Gauls to learn that language in order to present them as Germani:

• Suetonius, in an ironical story about a mock triumph organised by Caligula, explains how to create barbarians: The emperor selected tall and handsome Gauls, “forced them not only to dye their hair reddish and let it grow long, but also to learn the Germanic language and to bear barbarian names” - Pohl, Walter (1998). "Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic Identity". In Pohl, Walter; Reimitz, Helmut (eds.). Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of the Ethnic Communities, 300-800. BRILL. p. 53. ISBN 9004108467.

We should also note, as Liebeschuetz, Reichert and Clay says, that Caesar and Tacitus were aware that the Germani had their own language(s), that Tacitus considered language to be a defining characteristic of the Germani, and that modern philology evidences that this language was Germanic. Krakkos (talk) 13:19, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ermenrich: yes, that is the kind of wording I would prefer. You are adding the Caesar and Suetonius, presumably because of Clay? Those are less frequently cited and a bit more "fleeting" but I have no big problem with that. @Krakkos: that's a good observation about Suetonius and I also noticed that translation, but the problem is that this "the" is coming from the old school translator. The translator could also have written "a Germanic language". The difference is not possible in Latin, which is here [4]. FWIW, here is a recent translation which uses no article, just "German". A modern German edition on De Gruyter says "sie mußten auch noch Germanisch lernen und barbarische Namen annehmen". --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:51, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If the main issue is language vs. languages I'm fine with any wording that makes it clear that Roman authors (who, except for Caesar, were actually never on the frontier as far as I know, though see Rübekeil in Interrogating the Germanic on the apparent accuracy of their linguistic transcriptions of Germanic words) perceived the Germani as speaking a language/languages other than Gaulish. I'm neutral on whether we need to include that modern scholars identify this/these language(s) as Germanic on the limited lexical and onomastic evidence - that may be better handled in the language section.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:00, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Next to Clay, another good template to follow (unless you really want to name Caesar and Tacitus in this context) is in James & Krmnicek's introduction to The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Roman Germany, cited above by Krakkos:

• Nevertheless there evidently were widespread similarities which made the Germani seem to be a recognizable group of peoples in the eyes of Greeks and Romans. These included related languages and dialects, as well as other cultural traits famously set out by Tacitus in his Germania.

Here's a link via WP Library[5], if you want to read the full text (I especially recommend the two paragraphs preceding this quote for inspiration how to present this topic, including the perennial question of etic and emic identity). –Austronesier (talk) 14:35, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ermenrich, Not necessarily relevant to the wording, but I do not think the only question is whether T specified a plural or singular (he did neither). The other Q has been whether he said ALL Germani spoke one of these non-Gaulish languages. He did not, and in fact he said almost nothing about the language of the western Germani where a Celtic-associated La Tène culture dominated until the time of Tacitus (e.g. Roymans p.29). Clay writes about that region, for example, and accepts that some of Tacitus's Germani probably spoke Gaulish as well, at least in the early phase of the Caesar to Tacitus period. That is not a radical claim of course but she clearly thinks it is consistent with Tacitus.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:18, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrew Lancaster: Where does Clay accept[] that some of Tacitus's Germani probably spoke Gaulish as well? I can't find such a statement there from a first – admittedly not all too thorough – reading. Well, and if she really does so: since you ascribe so much exegetic force to Clay, are you willing to follow her too in two other less peripheral points? Thus 1) her main proposition, i.e. the bold claim that the adoption of the exonym Germanus by individual mercenaries in Roman service is sufficient proof to conclude that their home communities self-identified in the same way; and 2) her cooptation of the long-debunked German 19th-century folk etymology of Ger- in Germani as "spear"? If so, I see you in a completely new light... –Austronesier (talk) 19:38, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would also like to see an explicit quote on Tacitus saying that some of his Germani spoke Gaulish. We discuss the fact that modern scholars think the Germani cisrhenani may have spoken a Celtic language in a separate paragraph at the moment, as well as the arbitrariness of the Rhine boundary at the beginning of the section. While nearly every scholar does discuss this, I have yet to see one explicit use this information to reject the notion that the Romans perceived the Germani as speaking a language different from the Gauls. I'd favor citing the Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology on Roman Germani on this.

Anyway, as I have pointed out before, we cannot use our own interpretation of what Tacitus says. We need to follow what secondary sources interpret him as saying. So saying "Tacitus does not say that" isn't an argument if we have RS saying he does.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:35, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'll answer on your talk pages, because I don't think these questions and challenges to me help the thread. But Ermenrich I think you are misrepresenting me in several ways.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:23, 1 September 2021 (UTC) (Just to make sure it does not look like I am hiding it, I've admitted Austronesier has a point about one particular statement I made. But I don't think it changes the basic fact that Clay does not support Liebeschuetz.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:47, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ermenrich, my concern would be with any statement which insists, in WP voice, that Tacitus describes the Germani as ALL speaking a SINGLE language, or indeed any statement that he said NONE of them speak Gaulish. Tacitus does not use the modern linguistic definition to "define" Germani, and we've seen many secondary sources which insist on this. I think our wording should also not conflict with Geary's quote which Srnec found?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:47, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not whether any or every Germanus spoke the same language. The issue is whether the romans perceived them as doing so. Keep in mind we mention that the Romans regarded the Sarmatians, Goths, and Huns as speaking one language, although they spoke Iranian, Germanic and possibly Turkic respectively. We have several sources besides Gerry that say that they did regard there as having been some sort of “Germanic “ language(s), and this should be included.

Perhaps Austronesier could propose a compromise wording that could finally bring this long winded discussion to a conclusion? I think all parties respect his editing.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:59, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ermenrich, I'd also be interested in A's proposal, but the issue in the sentence as it now stands is neither of those things, but rather it is about what Tacitus wrote? If you want to change it to "the Romans" then, my concern is the same, because Tacitus is the main Roman source for this (e.g. in the polemic of Liebeschuetz). "Several sources" are not enough to define a field consensus and put a statement known to be controversial (e.g. the Geary quote) into WP voice. We have to use some judgement to decide how much we want to write in this article, and if we keep it short, we should keep the wording very neutral. It is for example true that several texts indicate the existence of language (one or more languages, because the Romans never specified) considered typical of Germani and different from Gaulish. Unless we attempt to include a major discussion about the Roman definition, including discussion about how Germanic moved west to the Rhine into the La Tène area, I personally think that should be good neutral base line for our short summary.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:45, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew, you keep acting like this information is not in the article when it is:

Although Caesar described the Rhine as the border between Germani and Celts, he also describes a group of people he identifies as Germani who live on the west bank of the Rhine in the northeast of Gall, the Germani cisrhenani.^[1] It is unclear if these Germani spoke a Germanic language, and they may have been Celtic speakers instead. Some of their names do not have good Celtic or Germanic etymologies, leading to the hypothesis of a third Indo-European language in the area between the rivers Meuse and Rhine.^[2] According to Tacitus, it was among this group, specifically the Tungri, that the name Germani first arose, and was spread to further groups.^[3] Tacitus continues to mention Germanic tribes on the west bank of the Rhine in the period of the early Empire, such as the Tungri, Nemetes, Ubii, and the Batavi.^[4]

Given that this is already in the article, I'm not sure why you keep insisting that we include it. If you specifically want a statement about it being unclear when the Germanic languages spread to the Rhine, go ahead and add it there rather than holding a completely unrelated part of the article hostage.

Furthermore, Tacitus is not the only (primary) source, we have mentioned the notion of a Germanic idiom in Caesar, Suetonius, and Strabo as well. As I've said, perception is not reality. I don't see you objecting to including information on the Romans thinking that the Sarmatians and Goths spoke a "Gothic" or "Scythian" language. We need to follow what secondary sources say, not your personal reading of Tacitus.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:00, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here's my idea of it, as requested:

• Classical authors rarely address the question of language. For Tacitus (Germania 43, 45, 46), language was a characteristic, but not defining feature of the Germanic peoples (Pohl 2004a:9-10). In the few passages where Tacitus and other Roman authors (Caesar, Suetonius) mention the language (or languages) of Germanic tribes or individuals, it is described as distinct from Gaulish (Clay 2008).

I have to admit that "characteristic, but not defining" came first, and I have subsequently looked for a source that best fits my personal interpretation of Tacitus. This is actually bad practice, and I leave it to you to decide whether my reading of Tacitus and my reading this into Pohl are adequate. With Clay, I have only made a slight adjustment to accommodate the fact that Caesar only talks about Ariovistus (hence, "individuals"). –Austronesier (talk) 14:42, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any special reason we need to cite Clay? I think that source was just brought here for the talk page discussion and I did not think anyone was arguing that it was important new information for this sentence. More importantly, this wording still means that all Germani spoke a non Gaulish language, and the last sentence seems to insist there was one language (it). In answer to Ermenrich, we have secondary sources which say the Germani on the east of the Rhine probably also spoke Gaulish at first. Between the time of Caesar and Tacitus (the Arminius period) Germanic languages were supposedly moving west. No one knows the details. I mentioned Roymans and Toorians above for example. Toorians sees the Chatti as a Celtic people who became Germanic dominated relatively early, but it is just an example of the fact that modern scholars do not believe in a Rhine linguistic boundary.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:17, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The last sentence seems to insist there was one language No. Really, no. Ermenrich long has moved on, and you're still beating the same horse carcass. (What's a world without strawmen?) Replace "it" with "their speech" or anything.

Any other source than Clay that describes the way how Germanic sermo actually appears in classical texts (viz. in every instance as non-Gaulish) would do. Anything else belongs somewhere else in the article, as already explained by Ermenrich. –Austronesier (talk) 15:35, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: A small number of passages by Tacitus and other Roman authors (Caesar, Suetonius) mention Germanic tribes or individuals speaking a language distinct from Gaulish. Any problem with that? It is not perfect for anyone. The aim I have is to leave all the arguments out of this passing reference.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:47, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine, but we should additionally give some weight to the fact that the Peucini sermone, cultu, sede ac domiciliis ut Germani agunt. Thus one tribe could speak like the Germani without conclusively being Germanic in Tacitus's classification. For Tacitus, there was a Germanic way of speech, which modern linguists equate with a bundle of closely related languages, most likely (based on our knowledge from similar loosely-defined networks of ethnolinguistic groups all over the world, like the Akan, Mizo, or Malays) a dialect continuum. It was just one criterion to include a gens among the Germani, and of course only imperfectly overlapping with other criteria, per Pohl (Ermenrich, please translate, I'm lazy right now): weil es universell anwendbare eindeutige und objektive Merkmale eben nicht gibt und die Zuordnung zu ethnischen Verbänden immer nur auf Grund einer bewußten oder unbewußten Abwägung von Kriterien erfolgt. This applies to Tacitus as well as to modern scholarship.

Since both Reichert and Geary bother to mention language as a characteristic, we should also do so when talking about Tacitus. They only differ in the weight attributed to it, ranging between "most significant" and "not major"; to this I could add Pohl's "nicht entscheidend" ('not decisive'). Personally, I go with Geary and Pohl, who only downplay the role of linguistic cohesiveness, but NB do not ignore it. That's why I still argue to include something like For Tacitus (Germania 43, 45, 46), language was a characteristic, but not defining feature of the Germanic peoples (Pohl 2004a:9-10). –Austronesier (talk) 10:24, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All those remarks sound reasonable to me. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:39, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Are we agreed on something like: A small number of passages by Tacitus and other Roman authors (Caesar, Suetonius) mention Germanic tribes or individuals speaking a language distinct from Gaulish. For Tacitus (Germania 43, 45, 46), language was a characteristic, but not defining feature of the Germanic peoples (Pohl 2004a:9-10). (I just took Andrew's statement and Austronesier's last call for an addition and put them together). Or what's the developing consensus on wording?--Ermenrich (talk) 18:25, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds ok to me. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:29, 5 September 2021 (UTC) BTW on a related side issue can we please keep references to the primary sources in cases like this where the secondary literature is about a specific text? I'm also a bit concerned about us switching to penguin editions when there are better online options we can link to (and we did not use the penguin editions). I prefer Perseus to Loeb links when available because Loeb is not open to the public.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:46, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So, a few colleagues and I have been reading the four volumes of The Pre-Christian Religions of the North (Brepols, 2020), which contains extensive material on the pre-Christian religions of the ancient Germanic peoples.

This is certainly one of the most monumental works in the field on the ancient Germanic peoples, featuring contributions from John Lindow, Rudolf Simek, Judy Quinn, Jens Peter Schjødt, Anders Andrén, Terry Gunnell, and numerous other contemporary scholars. It's also about as cutting edge scholarship on the ancient Germanic peoples and their neighbors as one can find, surveying essentially every aspect of ancient Germanic studies.

I'm not seeing any mention about any notable controversy about the concept of the ancient Germanic peoples so far. I also notice that Pohl is cited once and Goffart is neither cited nor mentioned a single time throughout the book's 2,121 pages. Has anyone here spent time with this? :bloodofox: (talk) 02:42, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Are any of them historians? I’m not sure how much attention religious studies is paying to the controversy.—Ermenrich (talk) 02:50, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's a book about the pre-Christian beliefs of the Norse people(s) from the time when they actively enter history. This is beyond the definition of ancient Germanic peoples by most – including "conservative" – scholars. So there is naturally little overlap with Goffart's research area. But it's not true that the book is blind to the general controversy–it contains prime scholarschip, after all. Quoting Julia Zernack in Vol. II, chapter 10.1:

The subject of the present handbook — the ‘Pre-Christian Religions of the North’ — has traditionally also been referred to as ‘Germanic religion’ (sometimes ‘religion of the Teutons’, ‘Germanic paganism’), ‘Germanic mythology’ or ‘Germanic religion and myth’. These composite terms pose terminological issues, not least because they make reference to the decidedly ill-defined and moreover ideologically weighted concept of ‘Germanic’, which has more or less lost its scholarly value as an analytical category.
The concept of ‘Germanic religion’ is not completely unknown in other academic languages, but the relevant studies refrain from assuming the comprehensive perspective implied by the term ‘Germanic’ when they in fact only discuss the myth and religion of Northern Europe (e.g., Turville-Petre 1964; also Böldl 2013), Anglo-Saxon paganism (e.g., Stanley 2000; Wilson 1992) or Old Norse religion (Steinsland 2005) respectively, though Ewing (2008) provides a counter-example. The terms used are rarely identical in meaning; there is no internationally consistent nomenclature for the manifold historical manifestations of pre-Christian religions in Northern Europe. (p. 551–552, volume 2)

The religion of the Norsemen surely has inherited much from a common (Northwest) Germanic source, as can be seen from the big overlap with the more fragmentarily attested beliefs of the West Germanic area, but it is not the ancient Germanic religion. It is definitely important to include what is known about pre-Christian beliefs of Germanic-speaking peoples in this aricle, but simple extrapolation of Norse faith back into the common Germanic period is not what modern scholars do. Norse beliefs are an important piece in the puzzle, but they are a topic of their own right, not just a tool to supplement the lacunae in our knowledge of the Germani in the Roman record (based on the implicit, and IMO degrading idea that their religion was entirely static). That's what 19th and early 20th century scholars did. –Austronesier (talk) 08:13, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Uhhh, are you confusing these four volumes with something else? Specifically, these are the books we're discussing. As anyone can tell by looking at the book's table of contents (or better yet reading the contributions themselves, which I'm currently venturing), there's a reason these four volumes are called The Pre-Christian Religions of the North and not The Pre-Christian Religion(s) of the *Norse*. And that's because these four volumes cover the Bronze Age up until Christianization and all the way into the 19th century—with a scope of the entire ancient Germanic culture sphere—and beyond. For example, from Lindow on page 104:

It has long been understood that even when the Indo-European daughter languages have words that are formally comparable, the concept of reconstruction is fraught, since each word’s semantics depend so heavily on cultural parameters (Untermann 1985). Nevertheless, comparison within both the Indo-European and Germanic areas allows helpful reconstruction. For example, Émile Benveniste shows that although the etyma were different, several Indo-European languages show a two-part division in adjectives for the sacred, as in, for example, Latin sanctus and sacer (1969: ii, 179–207). Within Germanic the distinction apparently existed as well and was captured in such pairs as the Gothic forms hailags and weihs. furthermore, *hailagaz (also found in the runic corpus) seems originally to have had a connection with words meaning ‘hale, healthy’ (Benveniste 1969: ii, 186–87), and it is not inconceivable that the two notions originally informed one another. Such an interaction may be visible in the medical instruments found at Helgö, which suggest that a site containing the derivative of *hailagaz in its first component may have been a place both for healing and for cult activity (Frölich 2011; see also Zachrisson 2004a, 2004b). Wulfila’s preference for weihs in his New Testament translation may also support this possibility, since Christian doctrine does not conjoin medical treatment on earth with God’s holiness. (Lindow 2020: 104)

Again, this is typical of discussion throughout much of these four meaty volumes. There are chapters on the early Germanic Matronæ, frequent discussion of objects like the Nordendorf fibula brooch, frequent mention of Jordanes and Procopius, and the Germani. Lots and lots of discussion on Tacitus. This is a comparative work centered on the ancient Germanic peoples, with a particular focus on their northermost extension (as is just about always the case from a comparative context due to the volume and value of the Old Norse corpus). Glance at Andrén's "The Spatial and Temporal Timeframe" and Schjødt's "Continuity and Break: Indo-European" alongside his "Continuity and Break: Germanic". Simek's chapter on "Encounters: Roman" is entirely about early Germanic contact with the Roman Empire, Słupecki's contribution about the relationship between the Slavs and the ancient Germanic peoples opens with "Slavs and Germanic peoples have been in contact ‘since the beginning of time’, which is natural considering the common Indo-European origin of both ethnic groups". There's a chapter dedicated to the Matronæ. In fact, you might want to just glance at the index in volume four.

Second, exactly where are you finding this quote from Julia Zernack? Zernack is not a contributor in any of the book's four volumes and, according to volume four's index, Zernack is only cited twice (p. 1233 & 1375, cf. p. 2119). Those two citations are on the subject of Heimdallr and Old Norse prose. The pages you mention discuss nothing similar (volume II's pages 551-552 fall in the middle of Schjødt's "Kings and Rulers"). So what's that about?

As another example (of the very many I could paste here), here's an actual quote from the book from Schjødt's "Continunity and Break: Germanic", specifically discussing Tacitus's Germania:

With the few examples presented here, the fundamental problem regarding the literary sources written by Greek and Latin authors seems quite clear: Because it is very often hard to prove that the Germani of the Early Iron Age shared rituals and mythic traits with the Scandinavians of much later times, does this mean that Tacitus and his colleagues from antiquity and the early Middle ages cannot be used as sources for Scandinavian religion? Definitely not! It only means that they, as with ethnographers of much later times, believed that it was possible to portray a religion that was not consistent as if it actually was. They had to generalize, as we all do when we attempt to characterize a people, not to speak of a whole group of peoples. Therefore, it is the task of the modern interpreter to go behind the texts and with an open mind attempt to analyse structures that may be tacit. The extreme position, for example, that the gods described by Tacitus were the ‘same’ as those of the scandinavians of the Viking age appears quite unrealistic, but the other extreme, that there was no continuity at all, is hardly better. The gods were by no means the ‘same’, but in certain respects they shared features, attributes, and functions to such a degree that it is hard to postulate that these are due to pure coincidence. Obviously, no text — not Tacitus’s works and no other texts, for that matter — should be taken at face value. in that sense, source criticism of the kind undertaken by Picard and many other highly qualified historians and philologists is always useful — and necessary. it only becomes problematic when it is assumed that there was ever an unambiguous reality that could have been grasped by the author of the source if he was only clever or honest enough. There was not, and the reality we attempt to reconstruct must reflect that.

As to the continuity problem, it should be emphasized that both the denial of any sort of continuity and the acceptance of every piece of information as an exact parallel to phenomena we know from a much later period are both unrealistic viewpoints. Not least archaeology seems to support that continuity as well as breaks in continuity characterized the pagan religion right from the beginning of the iron age and until the Christianization. (Schjødt 2020: 268)

Schjødt uses the phrase Germanic peoples throughout this section. The phrase and Germanic-this-or-that can be found throughout these volumes in thousands of instances and all from the best-known and most highly cited scholars in the field—and in the year 2020. This is unquestionably modern, as-cutting-edge-as-it-gets scholarship from specialists: These philologists, folklorists, and historians of religion certainly know their field(s) better than anyone else alive today. As a result, everything they publish is open to high levels of scrutiny, including—of course—notoriously fierce peer-review (which, if you haven't had to pleasure to experience yourself a few dozen times, is all too often where the cheap shots ring out and ideological axes go to grind). As for your last paragraph, I have no idea what you're getting at: Anyone contributing to this discussion is expected to be operating with an understanding of fundamental aspects of modern philology, folklore studies, and this side of the humanities in general. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:09, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's quite a funny misunderstanding on my side. The series The Pre-Christian Religions of the North obviously comprises several subseries. I have got hold of The Pre-Christian Religions of the North: Research and Reception (published 2018, only two volumes, so I have overlooked these important details), while you are reading The Pre-Christian Religions of the North: History and Structures (2020). "Research and Reception" is entirely Nordic-focussed[6]. I have now downloaded a copy of "History and Structures", too.

I like this part of your quote from Schjødt: it should be emphasized that both the denial of any sort of continuity and the acceptance of every piece of information as an exact parallel to phenomena we know from a much later period are both unrealistic viewpoints. This is the kind of balanced complexity we need here. –Austronesier (talk) 19:57, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree.--Berig (talk) 20:56, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, I figured it was something like that. I should have included a link with my initial post. Enjoy—lots of great commentary there. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The book edited by Schjødt et al. goes into the beef, so agree, there's lots of interesting material there. The two volumes edited by Ross are equally recommendable, focussing on the bumpy history of views on pre-Christian Nordic religion in scholarship, arts and pop-culture, from the Gesta to the contemporary age. –Austronesier (talk) 22:16, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In any case, it’s still not surprising that Goffart would not be cited and Pohl only once - they aren’t experts on religion or culture but history. The quote from the other volume certainly shows that the book series is aware of the issue, however. It even suggests that it influenced the title.—Ermenrich (talk) 22:39, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some interesting additional excerpts from Julia Zernack in Vol. II, chapter 10.1

Since the term [‘Germanic’] continues to be used nevertheless, it is now only suitable as a conventional collective name for a multitude of temporally and geographically distinct phenomena which can be attributed to speakers of a Germanic language... ‘Germanic’ is a modern coinage which is based on the foreign appellation Germani as used by Caesar and Tacitus but does not have the same meaning... It is a strangely unresolved question as to why the term ‘Germanic’ is still in use, given that it is ideologically compromised...". 10.1 – On the Concept of ‘Germanic’ Religion and Myth. Julia Zernack. The Pre-Christian Religions of the North. Vol. 2. 2018. pp. 527-538

Krakkos (talk) 15:52, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nice quote,Krakkos. It touches on a lot of what we've been arguing about here: Caesar's Germani ≠ modern Germanic, and also the very problematic nature of the term itself. That seems like something worth repeating in the article. But I wonder if the section on modern definitions and controversy is getting a bit bloated (so is the section on the ancient terminology, for that matter - but I suppose there's just a lot to say on both counts!).--Ermenrich (talk) 18:27, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't say that Zernack represents an NPOV position here. What strikes me is "distinct phenomena", which is at variance with the fact that scholars often connect these phenomena. I can name several phenomena in Old Norse literature that scholars explain by comparing with accounts of the Germanic tribes of the classical era. The reason why Germanic is still in use is because scholars still see similarities between phenomena and assume that they go back to common Proto-Germanic ones.--Berig (talk) 18:49, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I am a bit troubled by the minimizing of language as a common denominator. Language is not only words, but entails a complex semantic structure that is interrelated with cultural phenomena.--Berig (talk) 18:59, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This isn’t a topic where you can find something that’s not in some way a point of view. I’m not suggesting we adopt her view as our own, merely that it deserves to be mentioned in the article.—Ermenrich (talk) 20:55, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, I would agree that this deserves to be mentioned somewhere, but it looks to me as if the "Modern definitions and controversies" and "Classical terminology" sections deserve their own merged article. Then all the editors with their points of view could go hog wild there, and save this article a little of the disputation that might arise. Just joking about the "hog wild", but you all know what I mean. Hate to be repetitious, but surely this is a case where the opposing points of view could be fleshed out, without being burdensome to this article. Carlstak (talk) 23:34, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A good idea!--Berig (talk) 15:35, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The devil is in the details. I have long proposed that this article's content should, at least in most sections, be summaries of specialized "main articles", so the principle espoused here clearly makes sense to me. But one topic which has no other obvious article is the Julio-Claudian Germanic peoples or Germani, e.g. the people who Arminius united, or who fought together with Roman subjects in the Batavian revolt. (="Classical terminology".) All the other uses of the term "Germanic peoples" are "abstract conceptions" (to use the term sometimes given here), sometimes used to categorize various things in various branches of academia. I have no problem with that, but these usages are not as notable or well-known outside of specialist circles, whereas the history of Rome is not only an academic topic, but also a topic long-term and very broad international public interest. That is important according to WP policy, and so is WP:COI. None of the academic disciplines involved seem to deny that they are claiming a link to Arminius and Civilis and the rest? So there is a big gorilla sitting here in the middle of the room. It would be ironic if these original Germanic peoples, who have no other name or article, were removed, and the article would become a catalogue of how various academic disciplines use the term which would not exist without them. I have asked many times on this talk page where the article is which handles these peoples as its main topic. I don't say we need a solution right now, but I think the question can not be avoided in the long run, so I raise it once again.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:22, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with these usages are not as notable or well-known outside of specialist circles. In the 19th and 20th century, der Germanenbegriff (sorry for using the German term, but I can't think of anything in English with the same precision) has developed a life of its own, which is very popular and goes well beyond the Germani of Teutoburg and the Batavian revolt. The popularity and wide currency of this widened concept that continues until today is whole point of the critical discussion that has emerged with the Vienna and Toronto school.

I have asked many times on this talk page where the article is which handles these peoples as its main topic Oh the irony of it...[7] ;) –Austronesier (talk) 18:41, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the irony. Carlstak (talk) 19:02, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)I am raising a concern I've raised in the past, so what's the irony? I am saying the Germani are the topic that unites all the academic spin-off concepts and they have no other home. A simple problem with any other option is that the Latin term Germani is translated into English as Germanic peoples and we never found any authority for treating those two terms as having different definitions. That remains important to WP policy, and also for deciding what is practical. WP is not supposed to be developing new academic terminology. OTOH if the academic Germanenbegriff is truly a separable topic from the Germani, then maybe it could have its own article? After all, "peoples" has a common meaning which is very different from "concept". But that is not what I was saying. I was only saying that the tendency to reduce, simplify and downplay coverage of the Germani raises some fundamental issues. We can and should start moving discussion about various spin-off topics to specialized articles. This article can not be the main article for so many topics. But there is a good reason why the Germani have no other article. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:22, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think I speak for all involved when I say: oh brother. Must every topic get hijacked by this?--Ermenrich (talk) 19:54, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ermenrich the point raised by others was not "every topic" at all, but specifically "this", "Classical terminology" sections deserve their own merged article. Then all the editors with their points of view could go hog wild there, and save this article a little of the disputation that might arise. Just joking about the "hog wild", but you all know what I mean. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:21, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I need to add that I understood Carlstak's comment to be a good faith proposal. I am not being sarcastic about that. The idea of trying to split these topics up better, and the problems that could cause if done badly, has been something many of us have thought about since 2019 I think? I responded in good faith. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:38, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I made a good faith proposal, and Ermenrich is certainly speaking for me. This incessant hand-wringing is wearisome and downright boring. Enough already. Let's just get about the business of constructing the article(s). That's not too much to ask. Carlstak (talk) 01:20, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No I don't accept that such over-dramatization and ad hominem are helpful or consistent with WP policy at all Carlstak. The article is under-going enormous change by a small group of like-minded editors, and no-one I've noticed has been "hijacking" that. The last thing this article needs is for this talkpage to become even more aggressively defensive about any points raised by other editors. This is still Wikipedia. To me it seems that the "classical terminology" section is already rather minimal now and the two sections you mention are important for letting readers understand the overall article. IMHO removing or significantly reducing such discussion would fundamentally change the article. Please keep such concerns in mind. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:06, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Neither is arguing against consensus helpful or consistent with WP policy, see Wikipedia:Tendentious editing.--Berig (talk) 07:07, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's an amazing statement about WP policy to see coming from any admin, let alone an involved admin, but it reminds me of another shocker you posted not long ago [8]! I'm going to colour some relevant words red in my last post. There is obviously no clear proposal or consensus at this time, but even if there was it would be completely in accord with WP policy for me to express disagreement with TWO PEOPLE, let alone raise a point about a "devil in the details". As you are an admin I have to suppose that you are knowingly, and not ignorantly, making-up these fake policy-interpretations?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:16, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lobbed grenades, code red alert, and soap-operafication of the talk page aside, the article stands at 197,000 bytes presently, so it would seem desirable to go ahead and spin the "Modern definitions and controversy" and "Classical terminology" sections off, because I'm sure some of the excellent editors here would have commentary to add. I believe it was the desire to explicate every detail of the "Germani" controversy that led the previous iteration of the article astray and made it so confusing and convoluted, with no logic thread to follow. Regardless of the problems the present version may have, it's superior to that muddled text. Whenever I read such bewildering content as that was, I suspect that the mind that produced it is muddled and disordered as well. Carlstak (talk) 17:49, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Folks, you're starting to get deep into the personalization problems again. Dial it back. Ealdgyth (talk) 18:13, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)I support a spin-off article on "Definitions of Germanic", "Controversy about the Term Germanic" or whatever other title fits best. That section remains too long and doesn't actually summarize the dispute in much detail yet. Sections on the Toronto and Vienna Schools and their positions would be helpful, as well as counter positions among historians. We could split off sections for culture etc. there as well. Then we could cut down the sections here without losing anything.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:22, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am still certainly not opposed to the principle of more, bigger and better spin-off articles, but IMHO the "Classical terminology" section is not just of historical value so it can't be reduced too much. Between Jastorf and the first good linguistic evidence scholars still effectively use classical reports (with a grain of salt) to determine who they call Germanic.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:54, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking only for myself, but no one has any intention of building a wall/excluding the Roman Germani! But in all seriousness, I don't think that anyone is suggesting we totally throw out information on the Roman era Germani. Just that the main subject of this page is a group of peoples speaking a Germanic language, in which case whether the Roman era ones did is less important. And for the record: despite your continued claims to the contrary, I've seen no evidence of scholars arguing that Arminius united a group of Celtic speakers. The names in his family tree (Segimer, Segimund, etc.) are also easily etymologized as Germanic, besides Arminius's own and his brother's, which are Latin.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:24, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The way I read the proposals (about this article) above was that there should be further reduction of any discussion about definitions and doubts, and implicitly, further reduction about what historians say. Concerning Arminius I do not disagree of course. The point I would make if that was the topic is that the alliance was probably not united by one language at all. These were not language-based nation states. The Cherusci themselves (the westernmost allies in the group) were perhaps Germanic speaking though, yes. We've already seen texts about how the Sugambri and Chatti may have been Celtic speakers. Polycentric origins: these wars probably played a key role. But in any case linguistic and archaeological evidence does not constitute the reason why the whole alliance is seen as Germanic - Roman texts still do. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:20, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Minor question: Wasn't Arminius a Latinized form of the Germanic "Ermin"? Carlstak (talk) 12:13, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Carlstak the exact origin is unknown and can’t easily be derived from Germanic. I think since he was a Roman citizen it was most likely a Latin name (like his brother Flavius). I don’t think anyone buys that the name is Germanic anymore.

And Andrew - language more than anything else constitutes the reason why he would continue to be discussed in an article on Germanic peoples. Whatever doubts you may have, the Germanic peoples certainly all spoke Germanic by late antiquity and it is in fact a tautology to say so. Whether everyone the Romans called Germani did, is an entirely separate question.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:39, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks, Ermenrich. Carlstak (talk) 12:42, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ermenrich:, 1. Remember I replied to a proposal to REDUCE coverage of definitions and doubts in this article. I was not proposing any change myself. 2. In answer to your conversational comments, my reading: would you not agree that the languages spoken to the west of the Jastorf/Suebi in the Caesar-Tacitus period simply aren't known and only subject to variable speculation? 3. Rather than always suggesting (e.g. "tautology") that they might not have all been Germanic, can't we better agree that the "Roman" Germani are called Germanic (by scholars) for different reasons, by a different methodology so to speak (less reliant on linguistic information, more dependent upon Roman information), than the "Germanic peoples" of late antiquity? (It is like your formulation that different fields use different definitions, in case it helps.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:37, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I should point out that the proposal I raised concerns about above has the theme of removing and avoiding reliable sources which are minimizing [...] language as a common denominator, and in context this is connected to yet another push to claim that historians (not only the sources named in the discussion but also the whole part of academia which cites them) are not relevant to the topic of this article, even in the period where there is no clear linguistic evidence.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:26, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

yet another push to claim that historians are not relevant to the topic of this article: This is an abysmally lame straw argument against the bluesky observation that historians are not the only scholars who work about this topic and thus do not own the definition of "Germanic peoples" (oh, and btw actually they don't act like that in IRL academia). –Austronesier (talk) 07:14, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• "Tacitus... considers Germanic to be a bundle of characteristics, the most significant of which is language. If a population lacks some of these characteristics, he hesitates to call them Germani... The modern expression "Germani" applies exclusively to "members of the same linguistic family" rather than to communities with an identical origin or self- identity or religion..." - Reichert, Hermann (2002). "Nordic language history and religion". In Bandle, Oskar [in German] (ed.). The Nordic Languages. Vol. 1. Walter de Gruyter. p. 390. ISBN 3110148765.

• "Germani – Collective name for a series of groups speaking related languages." - Heather, Peter (2007). The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Oxford University Press. p. 467. ISBN 978-0195325416.

• "[T]he Germani [are] defined by modern scholars as a population group in central and northern Europe speaking Germanic languages or dialects." - Hachmann, Rolf (1973). The Germanic Peoples. University of California Press. p. 49.

• "Historians today tend to differentiate these peoples linguistically: “Germanic peoples” are those who spoke Germanic languages." - Rosenwein, Barbara H. (2018). A Short History of the Middle Ages. University of Toronto Press. p. 21. ISBN 144263622X.

Krakkos (talk) 07:50, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If I may offer this observation: the chief dispute about Germanic peoples is not whether or not they spoke Germanic languages. This is a red herring Andrew has become attached to for some reason. The debate is whether the fact that they spoke Germanic languages allows us to assume - and use a mixture of Roman and much later sources to reconstruct - a Common Germanic culture as scholars have historically done and some still do. And as far as archaeology is concerned, the dispute also concerns whether we can connect archaeological remains to historically attested human populations without very firm evidence. Does this accord with your understanding as well. Austronesier?—Ermenrich (talk) 11:55, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ermenrich: FWIW this is a different topic than the proposal made above about removing discussions from of this article. Above you mentioned two topics: Caesar's Germani ≠ modern Germanic, and also the very problematic nature of the term itself. If I understand correctly you are saying the first of these is not really much of a controversy? I AGREE. It is a perfectly orthodox, and not only among historians, to say that we don't know if the Germani were all Germanic speaking in this period (even though we traditionally discuss them in the group). It would also be orthodox is you replace Caesar with Tacitus. There is a specific period and region where there is a specific issue. If the article can admit this, and such admissions will not be removed, my concern is handled. Does that make sense? To be clear, if I have misunderstood what people were proposing then great! No need for further discussion in that case.

@Austronesier: I'm sorry but I have no idea what "bluesky observation" you are talking about, but I think it has nothing to do with the proposal made above or anything I've written. I responded to a proposal, which I understood within the context of the posts leading up to it. I did not make a proposal. Is there a chance you've misunderstood me?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:16, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No. –Austronesier (talk) 14:20, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

After interacting with an Italian this morning, and thinking about this subject while doing some rather tedious work, it struck me that our accursed (;-) Germanic peoples article entirely lacks the perspective of Italian scholarship, which one would think surely has bearing on any discussion of Tacitus (Tacito), Caesar, Arminius, the Germani, nay, the whole topic of the ancient Germanic peoples. May I say that the article is very German POV-centric (I'm a quarter German), given that we have a bunch of Germanic studies experts writing here, but no representation of the Italians? We do have Alcaios, but he's French. I'm surprised that no Italiani have jumped into this, but on second thought, maybe not so much. I mean, just look at this page. They'd rather argue about food (so would I, it's more fun, especially in that lovely language, hand gestures and all). Anyway, Barbara Scardigli is the only Italian scholar I see cited in the article, and she was writing in German. By the way, she wrote Germani in Italia. Has anyone read it? (It's in Italian.) Carlstak (talk) 03:25, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think most relevant literature is in German or English, perhaps at least partially because a lot of scholars on the subject do not read Italian (although I suppose the classicists should).--Ermenrich (talk) 14:35, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is probably a lot of good and relevant scholarship in both Romance and Slavic languages.--Berig (talk) 15:07, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt it. Eastern European academics are still often fairly nationalist in orientation and they're more likely to work on the issue of Slavic identity than Germanic identity anyway.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:09, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think you are right about East European scholarship in general.--Berig (talk) 16:19, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Uh,oh. Here come the angry English-speaking Poles.;-) Carlstak (talk) 18:11, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, guys. I would expect the Italians to have plenty to say about the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, for example, but the Italian WP article doesn't look all that great, or even as good as the English version, although that isn't really a reflection of Italian scholarship. Carlstak (talk) 18:11, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Same thing with it:Germani. Translations of German and English works dominate in the ref section, there is even a translation of a popular non-academic book which was my first very early encounter with the Germanic peoples. –Austronesier (talk) 18:53, 17 September 2021 (UTC) [reply]

Yes, that's what I saw. At first I thought you were talking about The Wolves of Rome, the English translation of Valerio Massimo Manfredi's Teutoburgo, but I see he's not in the sources, and it wouldn't have made sense anyway, being so recently published (I haven't read it). I love the front cover graphics—so sexy. I would imagine that Arminius had a lot of personal magnetism in real life; that would help explain why he was so persuasive to all those German villages and rallied them to his cause, maintaining secrecy all the while.;-)

PS: I'm thinking we should restore the English WP Germani article. It's no longer a mirror of content in "Germanic peoples", and would be really useful if expanded. Perhaps Krakkos, who is knowledgable and writes well, would care to work on it again, and I imagine other editors would want to help. I certainly would, as time allows; I believe it could be stellar. Carlstak (talk) 02:25, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I expect them to be especially relevant concerning the Lombards and the Goths. I recommend the French scholar Michel Kazanski. His book Les Goths is outstanding, imho.--Berig (talk) 18:50, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I can half-assed read French, so if I ever have time, I would like to tackle Les Goths; it looks very good. There are so many things I want to read and to write about; my problem is that there are so many divergent things I'm interested in. I'm lucky to have a client now who is quite solvent and very understanding of why it's taking me so long to finish his project.;-) Carlstak (talk) 02:25, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I understand you. There are so many WP articles I dream of improving that I can hardly commit to any of them, when RL allows me to.--Berig (talk) 04:24, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure why the article seems to imply that Germans are not included in the broad Germanic category, as they obviously are. I added a one word clarification to specify this. Here was the change I made "In modern English, the adjective "Germanic" is generally distinct from "German" in referring not 'only' to modern Germans but ancient Germani or the broader Germanic group". The word in italics is the word I added. Without the word 'only', the article implies that Germans do not belong to the broad Germanic category.

I do not see why my edit was changed, as it almost appears as if the authors of this article are trying to intentionally imply to readers that modern Germans are not included in the broad Germanic category. I have found many Nordicists online doing this, implying that only the north sea, Scandinavian, and sometimes northern rhine groups belong to the broad Germanic category. As such, I find it suspiscious. Valdemarpeterson (talk) 22:45, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, the word in italics that I added was the word only. Valdemarpeterson (talk) 22:46, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How to use the word Germanic with MODERN people is not a simple topic at all, and this article went through years of debates about this. (One usage is/was clearly the controversial old racial idea which needs special discussion. Over the years some editors have claimed there is another modern usage which is not racial, but linguistic. However extensive discussion has showed that we can find few examples of good authors writing this way, and Jamaican people, and maybe even Irish people, are not seen as Germanic by such people, whereas Germans and Scandinavians, and apparently even Afrikaners, are apparently seen by such WP editors as more Germanic than English people. In short this is a can of worms which seems very much connected to internet understandings of the world rather than reliable sources. Step by step we've been trying to split the valid parts of the topic into different discussions.) ...But the main point of the sentence you adjusted is simply that Germanic and German do not mean the same thing. It might not be your intention, but your correction waters that statement down, whereas I think it should simply stand, as something which is not controversial or doubted?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:12, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

the article seems to imply that Germans are not included in the broad Germanic category: If there is a potential for misunderstandings/misreadings, it is our job to fix this. I have rephrased it, I hope this helps. Although you have to be aware that calling modern Germans as a people (or all other contemporary Germanic-speaking groups and nations, for that matter) "Germanic" is insular usage in modern scholarship. There are things that are characterized as "Germanic" and which have a continuity beyond the period of the ancient Germanic peoples, primarily their languages, but also – geographically and temporally more restricted – mythology and folklore. But this not what the sentence is about. –Austronesier (talk) 09:13, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the change, I believe the clarification was necessary. Valdemarpeterson (talk) 17:14, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I believe Germanic culture is indeed a relevant concept even today. But, I speak as one of those who have lived in both Germanic and Romance-speaking countries. Scandinavians who live in Flemish Belgium or German-speaking Switzerland sometimes remark how "at home" they feel in the Flemish or German-speaking areas compared to how "foreign" the culture feels when going to the French-speaking areas. I don't have that experience myself, but I do feel much more close to home when I visit friends in Dorset, England, than when I meet friends in France, or relatives in Spain. It is not a language issue because I am fluent in English, French and Spanish. This Germanic cultural commonality is probably easier to perceive when you have one foot firmly in Romance culture and another foot firmly in Germanic.--Berig (talk) 20:01, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

My piano teacher and at the same time mentor in all things philosophical once remarked: Der Germane flucht anal, der Romane genital. I thought that made sense, in spite of some considerable crossover (Fuck! Stronzo!) :)

I think it really depends on and varies with personal experiences such as you describe them; the Hessian Germanic part within me had experiences of relating more easily with Moravians and Slovaks than with Swedes and Norwegians, but if I told you the actual figures behind these encounters I would have to admit that these fall way below the threshold of any statistical significance. It probably also varies with location: I have grown up in Germania superior close to the limes (Google maps says I just need to walk four hours to reach the nearest Roman castellum), and this area has seen much cultural transfer with the Romance world (Huguenot churches all over the place!). –Austronesier (talk) 21:10, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, we could make a headcount to check whether only "some" scholars call for the abandonment of term or rather quite many of them. But no, this is not even challenged here. The conjecture is that even only "some" scholars acknowledge the existence of this very debate and actively engage in it; this is a rather bold claim, considering the fact that the contrary is easily sourced, and also considering the fact that prominent historians who continue to talk about Germanic peoples sine grano salis like Liebeschütz, Heather and others certainly have raised their voice within the debate. If they indeed ignored the debate, they wouldn't write and argue in defense of traditional terminology. –Austronesier (talk) 16:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would consider the word of the Reallexikon für germanische Altertumskunde to be a good summary of general scholarly opinion on this topic, and we quote them in the article saying "Germanic" "remains important for linguistics, but is no longer useful for archaeology or history." Even if we acknowledge that "not all scholars" call for the abandonment of "Germanic peoples", we can't just dismiss the word of such an important word of scholarship, meant to summarize the communis opinio of the field, as only "some" scholars finding the term controversial. The recent volume Interrogating the Germanic unites scholars from all disciplines - we also have recent work philologists such as Shami Ghosh Writing the Barbarian Past questioning it. Defenders include Neidorf, Heather, Liebeschütz - but the prominent voices are definitely participating in the debate. Rudolf Simek here: It is by no means easy to put a qualified date from when we can start talking about “Germanic religion”, the term “Germanic” being none too easy to define to begin with. Geographically speaking, we are dealing with the area covering the north German plains, the Lowlands and southern Scandinavia, as well as those areas settled by tribal entities described as Germanic on linguistic grounds and settling large tracts of land north of the Alps and west of the river Oder with the exception of areas already inhabited by Celts: Gaul, the Alps, Britain and Ireland..--Ermenrich (talk) 16:58, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Some time has passed and, frankly, I think not including "some" in this construction is highly misleading and greatly overemphasizes the arguments of a group of historians over the rest of the many active scholars in this field. It's today extremely common in Germanic studies, Indo-European studies, and any number of related fields to use the term "Germanic peoples" without asterisk or discussion about the term. This is simply not some white-hot topic for most scholars in the field, unlike what this sentence construction tells our readers. This should be obvious to those of you who are keeping up with recent scholarship in the field. Do we need to start breaking out quotes and examples of recent scholarship to illustrate this, or are we going to cherry pick material that does mention it to strongly emphasize it in the article, rather than the reality of the situation in the field? :bloodofox: (talk) 18:04, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with your argument is that you're making your own deduction, which is wp:OR. It doesn't matter if it's "obvious" to you. What better authority would you accept if you won't accept the Reallexikon? Why does the general remark of Heiko Steuer (a scholar who, by the way, supports discussion of "Germanic" in some way) that Germanic is now a problematic and controversial term (Heute von „Germanen“ zu sprechen, ist aus der Sicht der modernen Wissenschaft sehr umstritten., p. 28) not satisfy you? Steuer does not say "in the view of some scholars". He says "in the view of modern scholarship". The idea that it is "some" scholars who are discussing this is simply not true, and you're trying to ignore what the sources say by insisting that it is.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:07, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You're cherry-picking sources in an attempt to prop up your preferred view, and this does not accurately reflect modern a holistic reception of the topic. Again, the reality is that we see a tremendous amount of scholarship that comes out every year that makes zero comment on this controversy, material from scholars that continues to use the wording "Germanic peoples" without qualifier or mention of the discussion centered around this particular group of historians. It's clearly not being given the time of day by much of the field, particularly among specialists exterior to historians, and it's those specialists who produce the vast majority of the material on this topic.

Now, it's clear that you're pretty fixated on this discourse around historians and that this page has historically become exactly that—hyper fixated on what these particular historians are up to—but when extremely important, multi-volume works featuring many of the best known scholars in the field continue to use the phrase "Germanic peoples" without any need for qualification (like the 2020 volumes published by Brepols above)—and any number of other papers and books that come out month after month—then it is clear that this is hardly the massive controversy the wording you're so aggressively offending is nearly as impactful as what you're insisting on: The current wording is quite misleading and by no means represents the modern reality of the field. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:05, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If I understand you correctly, your argument is that some sources do not mention the controversy, therefore there is no controversy. Is that your argument? An argument from silence is not a good way of proving something and certainly does not contradict what is actually stated in reliable sources. Do you have any response to what is actually and explicitly said in the Reallexikon and by Heiko Steuer? Steuer, by the way, is an archaeologist. The Reallexikon is the work of a group of philologists, archaeologists, historians, etc. (which I'm sure you know already) - so how can you claim this is "cherrypicking"?--Ermenrich (talk) 21:16, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The vast majority of scholarship coming out on the ancient Germanic peoples makes zero mention of any kind of controversy. That is important and notable. I am not here to perform original research in response to this particular resource (the Reallexicon is just one example of a particularly German extension of modern scholarship on the topic—thousands of papers and books are published in this area a year).

In my opinion, you're fixating on this discussion and demanding its emphasis to the detriment of the many other discussions occurring in the field—there's plenty of brand new research coming out about early Germanic culture, for example—and insisting that we place what I deem to be inappropriate emphasis on what is just another discussion among historians. It's no secret that figures like Goffart have been centralized on this page years, and that this is clearly residual of that fixation.

In probably-never-been-more-active fields of ancient Germanic studies, Indo-European studies, and the many related fields circulating this topic, the term "Germanic peoples" not at risk of going anywhere anytime soon and is not even particularly controversial, despite what the lead implies to readers. Otherwise one would find a lot more discussion about this problem, less of its use, and there'd even be a realistic push to abandon the phrase. In reality, work after academic work comes out today that simply makes zero mention of this white-hot controversy. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:26, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No-one is fixated on a "group of scholars". This group of scholars simply has managed to set the tone in historical studies for the last twenty years, with strong opinions that have elicited equally strong reactions. The debate is highly noticeable, notable and has a high impact on various disciplines. This is what we are talking about. Nobody should advocate here that one group or the other is right. –Austronesier (talk) 21:27, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And if this tweak[9] resolves the issue, sure, at least for my part, it's perfectly fine. –Austronesier (talk) 21:31, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Austronesier on both points. I also resent the notion I'm "fixating" on scholars when my only concern is that the page accurately represent what's said in reliable sources. And what's said in reliable sources is that the notion of Germanic peoples is controversial. You can vaguely mention as many individual works of scholarship that don't mention a controversy as you want, that does not negate what is explicitly said in reliable sources on the subject. We don't get to substitute our own judgment for what RS say.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:43, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Vaguely mention"? This is classic WP:UNDUE, and it'd be quite simple to outright list many, many uses of this in very recent pieces, far more recent than what you're clinging to here. Should I start build a laundry list of articles from 2019-2022 that discuss the ancient Germanic peoples without mention this supposedly massive controversy?

This article has long rotated around the opinions of a handful of individuals—and Goffart especially, who the article for a while deferred to at every turn—but the current wording of this part of the lead is completely undue emphasis on what appears to be a pet fixation that has long plagued accurate coverage in this article. While we've seen some progress on this article, a lot of readers are being misled about a grand controversy that is in reality far smaller and highly restricted. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can quote (and have quoted) explicit sources (including hostile ones) saying there is a controversy. You can't quote any sources saying there isn't. I don't see how you expect to have a discussion like that. You're making an argument that isn't falsifiable ("These scholars don't mention a controversy so there isn't one. Any scholars who do are wrong.") Also far more recent? Steuer is from 2021. The Interrogating the Germanic volume is from 2020.--Ermenrich (talk) 22:10, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Kindly strike out your invented quote of "These scholars don't mention a controversy so there isn't one. Any scholars who do are wrong."—that is not a quote from me, and it is not representative of my comments.

There's a controversy among a group of scholars, the field at large is hardly being rocked by it, and there's been no grand response to date to the notion of purging this phrase from our collective vocabularies. Germanic peoples is still extremely commonly used without any kind of caveat or reference to a controversy. That's an easily cited fact. These sort of inward-looking deconstructions of terminology and concepts are hardly unique to ancient Germanic studies. They're typical of the humanities. Meanwhile, anyone navigating this landscape either engages, adjusts, or ignores it. Sometimes it leads to significant impact, sometimes not. So it goes.

(I also see we even have ill-considered words like "recently" in the article. How recent is that going to be a decade from now? Three decades from now?)

What's notable about this situation on this page is the aggression coming from you in particular about it—reacting intensely negative about suggestion of including the simple word some to qualify that the vast majority of scholars in the field have made no comment on this purportedly huge controversy. To me, placing this front and center and without qualifier raises a red flag and is exactly why we have policies like WP:UNDUE. I see we still have significant work to do on this article. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:14, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

please provide sources for your assertion that only “some” scholars are debating the term “Germanic people”. Sources that say that, not ones from which you infer that there is no controversy. So far you have been unable to counter either Steuer, the Reallexikon, or the volume on Interrogating the Germanic, all of which state there is controversy. As a veteran Wikipedian, you are surely aware that we can’t do that here.—Ermenrich (talk) 22:29, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As a veteran editor, I have indeed seen these very things happen before, and I've seen articles slowly or quickly change in reaction to them. The landmark Brepols 2020 volumes I discuss above discuss the ancient Germanic peoples quite extensively and from many angles, yet make no mention of this purportedly so-massive-it-needs-to-be-in-the-opening-paragraph-and-how-dare-you-insert-a-qualifier controversy. But it's just one of many. I've considered this a few times over the past year, and what brought my attention to this again was a 2021 piece from runologist Tineke Looijenga, whose abstract opens with "This paper deals with the runic alphabet, the indigenous script of Germanic people ..." followed by similarly discussion in the paper's body ("How the runes were lost and won...", 2021, in VELEIA 39). As I see it, this is a matter of undue emphasis—there's quite a lot going on out there in academia surrounding the topic of this article—and if nothing else, the statement requires a qualifying "some". I don't have a lot of time for Wikipedia these days, but I'll return when I do. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:46, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

no one disputes that runes were used by Germanic speaking peoples or that they spoke similar languages or had similar religions. You can’t take those things to infer that there is not a scholarly controversy about the appropriateness of the term Germanic outside of a linguistic sense. As I said, you appear to be unable to provide sources that explicitly support your point of view. ≥What is all the more baffling to me is that the text says in no uncertain terms that only SOME scholars call for the abandonment of the term “Germanic.” The extra “some” you would like to add is therefore not only completely unnecessary, but, in your words “misleading “. This is a debate being held by the leading scholars in the field, and I’ve provided evidence even someone like Simek is aware of it. By the way Heiko Steuer, who is, as I've said, an archaeologist, argues explicitly in favor of Germanic identity here, from 2022, so the idea that citing him for their being a controversy is someone "paying too much attention to a group of historians" is obviously nonsense.—Ermenrich (talk) 23:14, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Now where's this emphasized "SOME scholars" in the "text" you're going on about now? It's certainly not in the lead—you've made sure of that. Since this is purportedly such an all-encompassing contorversy, funny how so many leading scholars in the field simply seem to ignore it in their publications about the ancient Germanic peoples. And what's this business about "someone like" Simek—what are you trying to say about Simek? :bloodofox: (talk) 05:23, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that there is a controversy about the term "Germanic" (and Germanic gentes) should not be in dispute here, since many leading scholars have been debating this ad nauseam for several decades in its multifarious dispositions, whether they are archaeologists, philologists, or historians. Any suggestion that this has not been a major area of concern worth mentioning is patently absurd. The whole notion of "Germanic identity" and its misuse has rendered the term an intellectual minefield going back to the very notion of Völkerwanderung. Classicists and period historians have deliberately mentioned this problem in a number of articles and books. These people include: Geary, Collins, Burns, Halsall, Cameron, Heather, Ghosh, Liebeschuetz, Gillett, Bowersock, Effros, Innes, McIrney, Christie, Demandt, Pohl, Birns, Brather, Steuer, Goetz, Wolfram, Chrysos, Goffart, Brown, Amory, Gruen, Arnold, Backman, and many others. It's so prominent that I can hardly fathom anyone claiming expertise in Germanic studies would dare say otherwise. To this end, I fully support and am in lock-step with Ermenrich and Austronesier here. --Obenritter (talk) 14:06, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's no dispute about a debate and controversy existing. That much is obvious. The question is of how prominent this controversy should be represented in the article above all else, and whether or not we should include the qualifier some to make it clear that not all scholars have engaged with it. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:06, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Bloodofox, this has a much bigger political and ideological dimension than a mere phrasing on WP. I hope you understand the guilt by association that any scholar or editor who writes on Germanic culture may attract.--Berig (talk) 16:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly I don't think political sensitivity has anything to do with it, and I think this apparent dog whistle (it is not the first time this insinuation has been made) is silly. Austronesier, Ermenrich and Obenritter are just plain right that here on WP we have a straightforward approach to questions like this which tells us what to do. We don't cite people who never "engaged" in a topic, and demanding that we should count people who did not engage with a topic would be OR to the point of being deliberately silly. That many tendered academics don't engage in discussions about whether their field's traditional terminology needs cleaning up is not unusual in any way (in any field). The edit being demanded WOULD in effect being denying the significance of the debate, and there is no other way I can read it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:02, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a chapter to the bibliography and added it to part of the article as well by Sebastian Brather (archaeologist), Wilhelm Heizmann (philologist), and Steffen Patzold (historian) from 2021 that summarizes the history and current state of the field of Germanic studies/germanische Altertumskunde. They say, among other things, the following (quotes in German followed by my translation to English):

All of this ought to make clear that especially archaeologists and historians find the term "Germanic" increasingly problematic. The text we're arguing about in the lead is this: The very concept of "Germanic peoples" has become the subject of controversy among modern scholars, with some calling for its total abandonment. The text is quite clear that only some scholars advocate the total abandonment of the term, which is also all that Steuer says, to whom it is cited. But changing it to say that the concept has only become a subject of controversy among "some" scholars is to misleadingly minimize the scale of the debate.--Ermenrich (talk) 23:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I disagree with your approach here and argue that your preferred wording is misleading to readers and not representative of the reality of the field. Inserting some would indeed reflect the reality of the situation: As anyone who is following the field is aware, many well-known scholars in the field, particularly scholars who have been involved in the field for some time, simply continue to use the phrase Germanic peoples without commenting on this controversy. Additionally, the fact that this particular matter is so aggressively highlighted in the lead over all else—your preference—is a big read flag.

However, as this article appears to be, as usual, doomed to be a warzone for whatever faction decides to roll in this or that year, I have zero interest in pursuing the matter any further: A nasty combination of axe-grinding, relentless emphasis on personal fixations, and the eternally slippery matter of identity are exactly why I've long avoided this article and only reluctantly decided to get involved once I had seen it had somehow turned an auxilary article on Goffart. Too bad, but it is what it is, and plenty of other articles need more attention than this one. :bloodofox: (talk) 01:24, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If people want another weapon in their arsenal, might I suggest Mischa Meier's recent Geschichte der Völkerwanderung, a prize-winning recent monograph on the late antique world, written by the Professor of Ancient History at Tübingen. Numerous reviews, including Kulikowski, have suggested this ought to become the standard textbook for understanding of debates on ethnic identity, Germanic peoples, etc, in late antiquity. Suffice to say, it sides with the sceptical position. It's getting a lot of traction in the German popular press, as well. It's a source worth checking out in any case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:908:618:CC60:24:C542:BB34:7B12 (talk) 20:01, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]