Talk:Germanic peoples

Question
What specific sources say that the Germanics stopped being a grouping of people that are categorized by being made up of generally Germanic speaking Ethnicities and Nations? Zyxrq (talk) 02:35, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The question seems to be written in order to make a point "between the lines", but when read as a serious question it is difficult to understand. On the one hand, people who speak Germanic languages are categorized as people who speak Germanic languages, and so there is no "stopping" and no controversy because we are just talking about languages.
 * On the other hand, if we think separately about ethnicities, the wording is "begging the question". In other words, it demands that we make a certain assumption which would already be an answer to the question. Strictly speaking we do not know if there was ever any single Germanic-speaking "ethnicity". But even if we accept the simplified logic that any people sharing a single language must by definition be a single nation or ethnicity, which is questionable, then you still have to remember that Germanic is not a single language. So at best, we could only apply that logic to very early, prehistoric, phases of the language family when the peoples involved could still understand each other, and presumably lived in a single region. People certainly can't automatically be assumed to share a single ethnicity just because they speak related languages. Urdu and Spanish are related languages.
 * The other gorilla in the room here is that our modern concept of Germanic peoples is originally based upon classical authors like Caesar and Tacitus who used a more geographical conceptualization of what being Germanic meant. Much confusion is created by people writing as if the classical "Germani" were a single united people speaking a single language. There are many good reasons to say that they were not. The classical "Germani" and the Germanic-speaking peoples of the classical period are overlapping sets, but certainly not identical.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:02, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for helping me understand. Zyxrq (talk) 20:11, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Why it is not the same for Slavic languages and slavic peoples? Or Baltic peoples for instance. All the same arguments could be made, yet those are classified as ethno-linguistic groups 37.84.23.1 (talk) 09:35, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Those articles are now corrected. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:42, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @37.84.23.1 it could be that those other topics should also eventually be changed in Wikipedia, but on the other hand I see no particular reason why every group of languages will have the same type of connection to cultures and ethnicities. The Baltic speaking peoples might not have spoken one language recently but they do come from a specific identifiable region, and ethnicities or nationalities are often geographical in nature. So there might be some reason that scholars still treat them as sharing a common ethnic identity although I am not confident about this myself. In the case of Slavic peoples I suspect that things are fuzzier, but it could be that this identification is specifically a modern one with an ancient name, so to speak, as with the so-called Celtic peoples whose feeling of being connected is a modern phenomenon, and not reflective of any historically continuous connection between language and identity. Short version: every case is different.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Germanic peoples also come from a specific identifiable region, just as Baltic peoples do. In fact, every ethnic group does have their "homeland" and it is strange to think otherwise, since it is basically how ethnicities and languages originated in the first place. 37.84.23.1 (talk) 13:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
 * This is WP:NOTAFORUM. Discussion here should be limited to improving the article, not discussing the competing definitions of ethnicity. Further forum-like posts will be removed.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:27, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

once occupied?
I think this should be updated, its not like the germanic people no-longer live in england/netherlands/france/germany etc, so to refer to where we live in the past tense seems a bit strange 84.71.92.188 (talk) 21:03, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The past tense is correct. Presumably you are assuming that "Germanic-speaking peoples" are the same as the subject of this article, the "Germanic peoples" of the Roman era. While there is real debate about whether such an equation can or should be made in specific periods of history and in specific regions (read the article) there is no modern ethnicity uniting modern Jamaicans, Nigerians, Australians, Scots, Austrians etc. Unfortunately Wikipedia itself was once one of the internet sources which promoted such confusion, but the article is now more carefully written. Unless you are bringing new sources, please take your time to read the article. It is likely to contain answers to whatever doubts you have.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * What means here—in the event that it is not clear to you—is that scholars no longer make the conflation between the ancient Germanic peoples and the contemporary German-speaking world. These ancient peoples were not some monolithic assembly of ethnically related groups as promulgated by 19th and early 20th century racialists, who passed on specific idealized characteristics to modern Europeans. Just as Andrew makes plain, you'll want to carefully read the article in its entirety to understand why these once pseudo-scientific eugenicist ideas connecting the ancient past and modernity were specious in so many ways.--Obenritter (talk) 13:04, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Two pre-print articles to watch
Witnessing a huge amount of discussion about two pre-print articles from a plethora of scholars (including Guus Kroonen and Peter Heather) with the potential for big impact on this and related articles. They are as follows: I'll be following. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 17:25, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * "Steppe Ancestry in western Eurasia and the spread of the Germanic Languages" (2024): https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.13.584607v1
 * "High-resolution genomic ancestry reveals mobility in early medieval Europe" (2024): https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.15.585102v1.full


 * Interesting, we will have to see when they come out and how we should incorporate their conclusions into the article.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:14, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The main new data in the first article is Danish, which is certainly a good thing. As is frequently true, the conclusions are not so simple and readers should be careful of the artificial cluster names. For example the name South Scandinavian might be seen as implying that the researchers discovered a strong genetic distinction between South Scandianvians and their neighbours in what is now Germany and Poland. Although they use selected data from other studies none of those include data from neighbouring areas to the south, so they can't really test the Jordanes-based "womb of nations" idea against its competitor, the Jastorf culture. Indeed, that culture is only mentioned in the abstract, despite the fact that the abstract implies that it will be a critical topic to be examined. The article will in any case add to ongoing discussion, along with many other such articles. At key moments Y DNA is used to justify decisions, which I think is methodologically questionable.
 * The second article is also interesting and also worth careful reading. It also discusses the Viking age. The wording concerning clusters is more careful in this article. See the following examples. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:51, 7 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Our modelling provides direct evidence of individuals with ancestry originating in northern Germany or Scandinavia appearing in these regions as early as the first century CE
 * We reveal evidence of expansion southwards and/or eastwards of likely Germanic speakers carrying Scandinavian-related ancestry in the first half of the first millennium CE. We note that ‘Scandinavian-related’ in this context relates to the ancient genomes available, and so it is entirely possible that these processes were driven e.g. from regions in northern-central Europe.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:51, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The gap about the Jastorf culture in the paper by the Willerslev team is explained in the section "Expansions of Scandinavian ancestry during the Migration Period": The period between 2800 and 1575 BP is described in the archaeological and historical literature as the time of Germanic migrations moving south into continental Europe. The lack of samples from this period, especially from Germany, limits our ability to determine when these migrations may have occurred. Even before the emergence of archaeogenetics, cremation as the default burial practice has proven to be a source of frustration for physical anthropologists.
 * Maybe we can already try to draft a preliminary version for expanding this article by making use of the preprints in draft- or user-space, and incubate these changes until the papers have been published (and after cross-checking for potential changes made to the manuscripts in the meantime). –Austronesier (talk) 16:00, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * We currently have a very short section on genetics - I'd suggest leaving the caveat statement the same as they currently are, namely: The use of genetic studies to investigate the Germanic past is controversial, with scholars such as Guy Halsall suggesting it could represent a hearkening back to 19th-century ideas of race. Sebastian Brather, Wilhelm Heizmann, and Steffen Patzold write that genetics studies are of great use for demographic history, but cannot give us any information about cultural history.. I leave it to those wiser than I in archaeogenetics to drafts the rest.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:22, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Ermenrich (talk) 17:22, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I am personally not so sure yet what we could safely take out of these articles. The stronger conclusions are mostly unexciting, matching other articles (which is indeed where most of the data comes from). The more controversial implications are likely to be difficult to agree how to summarize. (One might even think the more controversial stuff is deliberating written in an obfuscating way.) So as a first step I agree with Ermenrich. But I would personally be open to proposals. I just did not yet see anything easy or practical yet.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:36, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

A plea for short sentences
FWIW, I would like to make a gentle suggestion that this edit might not be an improvement:. The edsum: "the first sentence of the lead needs to give a definition of some sort, it can't just say "thing x existed"." The change is that a few words are added: The Germanic peoples lived in Northwestern and Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. => The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people who lived in Northwestern and Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. The shorter sentence is at least as definition-like as the longer one. The added words (in bold) add no meaningful information. Note: Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:22, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * They are "peoples", so adding "groups of people" is meaningless. The ... peoples ... were historical groups of people.
 * They lived "during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages", so "historical" also adds nothing?


 * I don't see how we can give a definition without saying what we mean. Just saying "the Germanic people lived" is certainly not enough for the opening sentence of an encyclopedia article (who/what were they?), nor is the sentence particularly long. "Historical" indicates that they no longer live there, "people group" or "groups of people" provides what exactly we are defining them as (not, e.g. a "nation" or "tribes"). If "Germanic people" were self-explanatory and we only needed to say that they lived in a particular place, then we wouldn't need the article!--Ermenrich (talk) 19:52, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll say this though: if someone can come up with a better definition than "historical groups of people", then by all means do so. We need something though.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:58, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Not sure "assemblage of peoples" is any better, since each Germanic group was a distinct assemblage/group. I am at a loss myself, since it's not really wrong.--Obenritter (talk) 20:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Maybe I am just missing something, but I'll just explain myself anyway. The short and long sentence both say they were peoples which necessarily means more than one group of people. They also both say where and when they lived. So clearly the short version says more than "that they lived in a particular place". "Historical" indicates that they no longer live there, yes, but so does the tense of "lived". I honestly don't see how the extra words add meaning, at least from a purely logical point of view. The repetition of equivalent words seems like something editors should trim. There are of course arguments for repetition and redundancy in specific situations, but that does not seem to be what you mean?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:25, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The Germanic peoples consisted of tribal groups (referenced as "barbarians" in some literature) who once occupied Northwestern and Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Perhaps this satisfies what you mean Andrew. --Obenritter (talk) 20:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * It looks like an improvement to me, but I suspect there will be objections to the term "tribal". A pity we can't just call them gentes like the Germans do!--Ermenrich (talk) 20:32, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * If you'll recall, I wanted to either reference them as "ancient Germanic peoples" or Germanen when all of us originally debated the naming convention. Tribal is an accurate description, despite people's misgivings. Let's see how this develops. Tightening my sphincter now. --Obenritter (talk) 20:45, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not taking sides, but I'll take a stab at it:
 * "The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northwestern and Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages." It tells us that the Germanic tribal groups were the peoples who are the subject of the article and sets them historically in antiquity on into the early Middle Ages, in as few words as possible. Carlstak (talk) 22:06, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with either 's or 's wording.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:50, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I might be missing something again but haven't we been trying to avoid the word tribal as part of the definition for some years now? (I don't believe I raised it.) The argument was that it is a loaded word within a definition because it implies a certain type of technology-level and social structure which historians now tend to see as part of Caesar's political rhetoric. What is the argument FOR using the word as part of the definition? Concerning the word barbarian I think it has a similar problem for normal readers who will see it as implying something about technology and society. If it is intended to mean that they were not Romans then this hardly needs to be mentioned? (I also still don't understand from a logical or policy point of view why the first sentence can't be simpler, at least given the broad scope that the article currently has.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:27, 23 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Can you point to any encyclopedia article that starts by saying "Thing X existed in place x" without first saying, in the most general terms, what "thing x" is? If it really is just my personal preference I'll drop the matter, but it strikes me as a really bad way to begin an article.
 * I've pointed to the issue of people objecting to tribal above as well. I have no opinion either way. I think Carlstak and Obenritter's version are fine, but if we want to get rid of tribal than we might need to rethink the sentence entirely. Could we say "various groups"? Or could we say "Germanic peoples is a term used by scholars to refer to" or something to that effect?--Ermenrich (talk) 21:53, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll just leave my remark about "tribal" here as a vote for now, and see what others think, and what rationales can be given. Concerning the short sentence proposal you are caricaturing, and ignoring my previous replies. The proposed short version had the same information as the long version, and they all contain more information than you claim: type of thing (peoples, plural), region and period. (The longer versions just used redundancy.) I don't find this amount of information is unusual for an opening definition. (Not all types of encyclopedia open with such definitions BTW.) I can't really follow your chain of reasoning to be honest. Do you seriously think it would be hard to find examples like this? A was one or more types of B, which existed in region(s) C during period(s) D. I think that format is pretty much ideal. I think run-on opening sentences are OTOH an unfortunate habit on WP that have nothing to do with policy, but just the way people keep adding adjectives and clauses to them. The best way to avoid that IMHO is to make the first sentence cover the lowest common denominator characteristics, and move non-consensus aspects to other sentences and paragraphs. This all seems pretty uncontroversial to me. I honestly can't see why you are reacting so strongly to this as if this is shocking you?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Here's my two cents which will not really come as a surprise to you, I guess :)
 * My first issue with "tribal" that this term is often connected to a specific kind of sociopolitical organization (whether understood in an evolutionary framework or not) that does not necessarily apply to all gentes that were labelled as Germanic in antiquity, for most of which we know little more than their name and location, and occasionally some anectodical characteristics. And even if the known features of their sociopolitical organization match with extant definitions of "tribe" or "tribal", I'd hesitate to use the labels in the same way I wouldn't be too happy for obivous reasons if these labels were applied to contemporary people groups let's say in interior South America, the highlands of NE India and SE Asia, or in New Guinea.
 * But that's just me. I am aware that "tribe" and Stamm are commonly used in the relevant literature of all "schools", and also that we use tribe all over the place in the article, so I won't object just because it now has become a question of the opening lede sentence. –Austronesier (talk) 19:15, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Bernard Mees's "The English Language before England" (Routledge, 2023)
Runologist Bernard Meet recently published The English Language before England (Routledge, 2023 — note that this says 2022 but my copy says "first published 2023"). Mees focuses primarily on early runic inscriptions in this one and it contains a huge amount of discussion very relevant to this article. We definitely need more runology coverage here (runes were developed by and, as far as can be seen, used solely by Germanic-speakers) but it gets little discussion on this article. This is an excellent source for contemporary discussion on the matter from one of the most visible runologists in the field. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 06:37, 1 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Perhaps you can point to errors and oversights in the current section on Germanic peoples? What isn't included there that should be? Keep in mind, the article is already overlong, and we already devote several paragraphs to runes - I'd suggest removing something from that section (perhaps the etymology) if we're going to be making any substantial additions.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:10, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Should runes and their relationship to the development of one Germanic language (English) really have that much shrift? Certainly, Mees deserves inclusion, but this article is about Germanic peoples writ large and the current section on runes keeps it fairly generic. Additional depth on runes might be better directed to the page specifically dedicated to it. Surely can find a way to integrate salient points in a manner that does not overburden the article.--Obenritter (talk) 21:00, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Although the title may imply otherwise, Mees's book is mainly about early Germanic stuff in general with a focus on early West Germanic inscriptions. I don't have time to contribute much right now but I will probably return to it in the future. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 23:06, 1 June 2024 (UTC)