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Another small point. Our text:The Franks are first mentioned occupying territory between the Rhine and Weser.[163] The citation is to Malcolm Todd. I don't have his book and the page is not currently visible via Google Books. Having recently worked on the Franks article I have seen the original position of the Franks defined over and over in terms of the lower section of the Rhine around RomanGermania Inferior. The listing of tribes who were definitely Frankish is not easy, but the most certain ones do not stretch as far as the Weser. I can imagine some authors think they stretched as far as the Weser, because the area between Rhine and Weser is seen as a region with an archaeological culture. However, we don't really have clear definitions of the names of tribes living there in the third century, and there are indications that parts of the Weser might already have become "Saxon" (and perhaps Frisian?), whatever that meant at the time. Perhaps someone should look at Todd first, but other sources can be brought in to this discussion if necessary.Andrew Lancaster (talk)08:43, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Todd writes:A confederacy under the name ‘Franks’ formed itself out of the many small groups settled between the Rhine and the Weser and soon began to threaten the lower Rhine frontier and later the Channel coast. His own sources are: "P. Périn and L.-C. Feffer,Les Francs I (Paris 1987); E. James,The Franks (Oxford 1988), 34–51." So he actually does not directly talk about the territory they inhabited when first appearing in the Roman record, but about the area where they presumedly have formed.(Please email me if you need a copy of Todd's book). –Austronesier (talk)13:41, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for looking that up. It might be better to use another source. The idea that the new name involved people making new settlements is also not typical.
I have James, and on p.35 he actually writes thatFranci ... was used to refer to various Germanic peoples living just north and east of the lower Rhine in what are now the Netherlands and the north-western part of West Germany. That seems much more typical to me.
Looking at the Reallexikon of course there are several articles for this topic and many are a bit waffly, but for example the opening of the archaeological article is this:Als Ursprungsgebiet der Frk. hat den Schrift-Qu. zufolge das rechtsrhein. Vorfeld der röm. Prov. Germania Inferior, später Germania II genannt, zu gelten. The quote is from page 388, and I think this is correct:Ament, Hermann (1995), "Franken §6. Ursprungsgebiet", in Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.),Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 9 (2 ed.), De Gruyter, pp. 388–390,ISBN978-3-11-014642-4
The main history article in the Reallexikon starts like thisDie Frk. sind in den größeren Zusammenhang der Germ. einzufügen, die im Gebiet des niedergerm. Limes ihre polit. Unabhängigkeit von Rom bewahren konnten. The reference:Anton, Hans H. (1995), "Franken § 17. Erstes Auftauchen im Blickfeld des röm. Reiches und erste Ansiedlung frk. Gruppen", in Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.),Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 9 (2 ed.), De Gruyter, pp. 414–419,ISBN978-3-11-014642-4
I could go on but the main pattern I keep seeing is that they live on the non-Roman side of the lower parts of the Rhine including the delta, and approximately as far south asGermania Inferior went. (Somewhere north of Koblenz I believe.) --Andrew Lancaster (talk)16:10, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We haveAfter this major disruption, new Germanic peoples appear for the first time in the historical record, such as the Franks, Goths, Saxons, and Alemanni. There is an "standard" concern about wordings like this: that all or most of the peoples involved were not new. Connected to this, they did not (apart from the Goths) necessarily move much, and they were not necessarily political entities in any lasting or meaningful way, as was often assumed too easily in older scholarship. For Roman authors there was often an implication of new alliances being made, but we need to be careful about making that too simplistic. I was tempted to just insert"groupings of" after "new", but was wondering if anyone has a better idea. In reality these were new "categories", but that seems like a dry and uninformative word, and "groupings" perhaps carries the right fuzzy implication of alliances?Andrew Lancaster (talk)14:18, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Andrew, that is a valid concern in my eyes and we should probably use the expression "other groupings of Germanic peoples appear" since they were not necessarily single tribal units. --Obenritter (talk)20:07, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The letters of the Elder Futhark are arranged in an order called thefuthark, so named after its first six characters.The alphabet is supposed to have been extremely phonetic, and each letter could also represent a word or concept, so that, for instance, the f-rune also stood for*fehu ('cattle, property'). Such examples are known asBegriffsrunen ('concept runes'). Runic inscriptions are found on organic materials such as wood, bone, horn, ivory, and animal hides, as well as on stone and metal. Inscriptions tend to be short, and are difficult to interpret as profane or magical. They include names, inscriptions by the maker of an object, memorials to the dead, as well as inscriptions that are religious or magical in nature.
The letters of the Elder Futhark are arranged in an order called thefuthark, so named after its first six characters.The alphabet is overall extremely phonetic, but each letter could also be usedideographically to represent their name as a word, so that, for instance, the f-rune, which was named after the Germanic word for "livestock" (reconstructedProto-Germanic: *fehu,Old English:feoh,Old Norse:fé), could represent such, but also "loose wealth" (akin topersonal property) by extension (in English the word survives as 'fee'). Such examples are known asideographic runes. Runic inscriptions are found on organic materials such as wood, bone, horn, ivory, and animal hides, as well as on stone and metal. Inscriptions tend to be short, and are difficult to interpret as profane or magical. They include names, inscriptions by the maker of an object, memorials to the dead, as well as inscriptions that are religious or magical in nature.
@Ermenrich didnt find this an improvement and undid it.
Ait, so, first of, "The alphabet is supposed to have been extremely phonetic". This formats the fact like an opposition. It "is" overall phonetic. Then we have "and each letter could also represent a word or concept", which is flawed for several reasons. The "and" doesn't tell the reader anything about how common this was in relation to it being phonetic, which is weird since the phonetic use and ideographic use are completely different concepts. The ideographic use is a secondary use, and overall uncommon (not counting magic, which is a totally different discussion). Then we have "represent a word or concept". This also doesn't give the reader the full image, which is that the ideographic use specifically derives the rune's name. In turn, "the f-rune also stood for *fehu ('cattle, property')", just glosses over this, and the translation is insufficient. It means livestock, not just cattle (even if such was most common), with property being an extension of this sense, even so, it specifically means 'loose property' (like money), not fixed such. "Hippity hoppity, get off my *fehu" is incorrect.
Lastly, "Such examples are known as Begriffsrunen ('concept runes')." - this loanword is obsolete. They are called ideographic runes in English (including our Wikipedia article:Ideographic rune), which is also what the German term "Begriffsrunen" entails from the start. "Concept runes" is a lazy translation.Blockhaj (talk)03:18, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My 2 cents:
I would remove the "so" from "so named" (in both versions).
I prefer the "supposedly" of the current version. It warns the reader that this is a reconstructed and uncertain assertion. If you've ever seen WP cited on social media you'll know that the internet needs more such warnings. The value of "overall" is not clear here.
The proposed text is longer, and reads less fluently. We should keep digressions like these to a minimum:in English the word survives as 'fee'). Such examples are known asideographic runes. We can try to use wikilinks instead to help readers.
I think in the 20th century the term "concept runes" in the current version is a useful one because "concept" is widely understood by non-academics. We could add a wikilink toideographic rune though.
I think what you mean by "loose wealth" would normally be expressed by in European languages with words meaning "movable". Seepersonal property.Loose wealth will not be immediately clear to many readers. An old word which might be useful here is "chattel", but overall the whole distinction being made is a difficult one to explain to younger readers especially, in this age where the richest people alive don't need "bricks and mortar". I am open to the idea of using "livestock" instead of cattle in the current*fehu ('cattle, property'), and a wikilink topersonal property could be attached to the word "property". Potentially, we could add a wiktionary link tothe entry there for *fehu also. --Andrew Lancaster (talk)06:38, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, i did consider the complexity of fehu as an issue and considered switching it for something simpler like jāra, which just mean yearly harvest.Blockhaj (talk)06:56, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is it certain that GermanBegriffsrune is obsolete as a loan in English language runology? I seem to still encounter it. This is not a topic that gets a lot of discussion in English runology but here is a book from 2012 I read through today that utilizes it:[1]:bloodofox: (talk)08:27, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's obsolete in the sense that there is an established English term for it, so there is no need for us to use it. The average American Joe unfamiliar with the term wouldn't understand it, unlike ideographic rune, which at least is an English construction.Blockhaj (talk)08:56, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we need more evidence before stating that the term is obsolete. In any case, I found the new text longer, bulkier, and more difficult to understand.—-Ermenrich (talk)12:10, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Using the term “German” to describe the ancient Germanic peoples of Late Antiquity is inappropriate and misleading because it retroactively imposes a modern national and ethnic identity onto diverse, loosely connected tribal groups with no shared sense of a being a culturally and linguistically unified people. Even if they shared traditions and some mutual intelligibility of their languages, they were no monolith as the term "German" otherwise implies. Moreover, the Nazis deliberately conflated these ancient Germanic tribes with the modern German nation, imposing racial and ideological myths of Aryan superiority and ancestral purity onto a complex, fluid historical reality. This not only distorts scholarly understanding but also perpetuates the ideological baggage of Nazi propaganda, which sought to legitimize expansionism and genocide by claiming continuity with an imagined ancient Germanic past. Using “Germanic” instead preserves the necessary historical distance and avoids legitimizing racist and nationalist narratives. Any such interchangeability of the terms has been largely discredited by almost all of academia and does not belong on Wikipedia and any perpetuation thereof is unacceptable. As a PhD scholar of this subject arena, I am vehemently opposed to conflating the terms.--Obenritter (talk)20:39, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(copied from talk:Zacwill#Germanic) I can only reiterate what's already been said: using "German" suggests identity of Ancient Germanic peoples with modern Germans, and has an obvious nationalist tinge to it that modern scholars try to avoid. This is a well-known issue in scholarship about which much ink has been spilled. There's no reason for Wikipedia to use the term "Germans" rather than "Germanic peoples" and especially not for the term "Germanic" to be changed to "German".--Ermenrich (talk)18:07, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And to add toObenritter's very good points: it's not just the Nazis who misused the notion of continuity of Germans and Germanic peoples - it has a long pedigree leading up to them and was just as problematic in the 19th century as it was in the 1940s. On the opposite side, it also feeds/fed myths about German national character is inherently domineering and warlike because the Romans were unable to conquer them and nonsense like that. It's just generally not a good conflation to be making.--Ermenrich (talk)21:17, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is problematic because Germany should be inclusive and back then they weren't inclusive. Black African Germans have no connection to ancient Germany but they are just as German as Arminius, even more so infact because the symbolize anti-racist ideology which is the arc of history leading to the end of history where there is one race the human race united by transnational capital.70.177.96.77 (talk)19:08, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The user may have a point about certain phrases such as 'Germanics' not being a proper word but I still do not see why these should be changed toGerman instead ofGermanic peoples orGermanic (noun). The term Germanic is preferred by academics and does not have the potential to conflate modern Germans with the ancient Germanic tribes.Traumnovelle (talk)22:48, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, we are not saying the term Germanic is problematic by itself, but reducing it to just "Germanics" is a linguistic—if not reductionist—novelty, as scholars of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages now refer to them as Germanic peoples, largely speaking. For this article,Ermenrich—a PhD scholar of Germanic literature and languages—has done an exemplary job in explaining the nature of the term, its historical use, and has characterized it very well throughout the page, using some of the finest scholarship available on the matter in German and English sources. Many of us have expended a great deal of effort in keeping this page free from problematic linguistic conflation (few as much as Ermenrich andAndrew Lancaster, among others) and in keeping the history of the Germanic peoples in its proper historical context over the years. Having stated all that, I wonder why this matter is not clear enough, given the quite erudite way it's already explained in the article. To be honest, I wish scholars would just use the German word,Germanen for the ancient Germanic peoples so we can be done with this discussion for all time.--Obenritter (talk)18:18, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Zacwill is correct that "Germanics" and "Germanians" are not acceptable. Moreover, "Germanic peoples" is not necessarily a synonym for "(ancient) Germans", since it refers to groups of people and not groups of individuals. I find the use of "Germans" less problematic than others when the context is clear that these are ancient people but I wonder how often it is supported by primary sources, as opposed to a more specific name.Srnec (talk)20:12, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In many of these arguments or disagreements, one of the preconditions for there being a disagreement in the first place is the willingness to ignore context. This reminds me unpleasantly of a similar discussion regarding the (partiallydis)continued academic usage of "Anglo-Saxons". Within the context of Ancient and Early Mediaeval Europe, and of linguistics, there simply is not an issue with established terms like "Germans" or "Germanic peoples / languages". IfMarboduus is called German on here or anywhere else, the number of readers who immediately leap to the conclusion that he likely sported Birkenstocks and a fanny pack when going to battle and must have been partial to a camper van holiday is, frankly, negligible. And itis ultimately about that, isn't it -- or did I get my wires crossed? If so, then we should give the study of history some credit. It has long outgrown the kind of "Germanentümelei" that would turn Arminius into aHermannsdenkmal and draw a direct line from him to Luther to some horrid people from the 20th century. "Germans" or "Germanic peoples / tribes" for the historical population is as fine as calling theUlster cycle or theEoganachta Irish. There are so many modern ethnonyms that are borrowed or derived from Antiquity that it becomes tedious to have to argue this same point all the time. Those who study older history should not be (mis)guided by people who instrumentalise history for their own populist or jingoist agenda.Trigaranus (talk)21:11, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No it is not “fine” - modern scholars don’t do it. Have you been reading what we’ve written here or what has been cited in this article?—Ermenrich (talk)21:45, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for recognizing that I have never argued for replacing "Germanic" with "German" in all contexts. My beef is specifically with the use of "Germanic" as a noun (e.g. "the Romans fought a force of Germanics at Teutoburg"). There is simply no such word. Our options are: a) replace "Germanic" with "Germanic [noun]", or b) replace "Germanic" with "German". The latter is, in my opinion, the best option in many cases. Taking thepolygenism article as an example, are we really to write "Scythians and Germanic peoples", despite the fact that Julian himself spoke of Scythians and *Germans* (Γερμανοί)?Zacwill (talk)22:05, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In that case,Germani is probably the best translation. Julian was not concerned with the religion of the Germans, but an ancient group of peoples, with whom the modern Germans have limited continuity, and not any more than the modern English, Dutch, or Scandinavians. Regardless of whether some editors think our readers ought to understand this, a good number of them will not.--Ermenrich (talk)14:18, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Context is not the strong suit of the average reader and those arguing semantics here don't do it lightly. The risk that people will properly infer is not worth the potential negative consequences, especially when the latest scholarship has already been applied. Let's keep it that way, shall we? --Obenritter (talk)19:24, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree we should avoid the nouns Germanics and Germans. The noun German is used in academia sometimes but specialists in this topic have become more careful about it for the obvious reasons discussed. Our aim as editors, apart from reflecting academia, is also clarity. German creates misunderstandings, and this is something we explain in the article using good sources. I am not aware of any academic position in disagreement with that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk)20:55, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to fix some, but it is not always easy. I wonder what others think is the best fix for the phrase "Germanics and Celts". I lean towards "Germanic and Celtic peoples" (where peoples are in view). In some cases I hesitate to change it without knowing what the primary sources say, e.g.,Arminius, who led the Germans to victory. Is Germani accurate here?Srnec (talk)03:09, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the approach we've used in the past is to use Germani and Germanic peoples as roughly equivalent, and in general either would be better than Germanics or Germans.--Andrew Lancaster (talk)04:03, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The simple problem is that this noun simply isn't normal English. Neologisms can be great solutions but on WP we need to wait for publications to use them first.--Andrew Lancaster (talk)17:42, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, it is in some use at least, here are two books of the same translator:
These are not suitable examples to show that English-speaking academics are widely using this terminology - to say the least. We can't cite Wikipedia or Wiktionary as academic sources, and the Kossinna translator who seems to be pushing the word does not seem to count as a major reliable source to me.--Andrew Lancaster (talk)20:07, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The translator Trevor Sutcliffe is not a linguist and he is responsible for the translation of Kossinna's German textsDie Herkunft der Germanen: Zur Methode der Siedlungsarchäologie andDie Indogermanen: Ein Abriss: I. Teil: Das indogermanische Urvolk using "Germanics" forGermanen. It is well-known thatGustaf Kossinna's ideas were embraced posthumously by theNational Socialists and that after his death, his followers held high-profile positions under the Nazi regime, as our WP article about him says. Sutcliffe appears to hold antisemitic and Nazi-adjacent views, at least according to his verifiedTwitter account.Carlstak (talk)21:27, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, its irrelevant here what political bias the original author had, as we are talking nomenclature here. He still translated GermanGermanen, which is the German term for what we are trying to name here.
Scripta Islandica, Isländska sällskapets årsbok 57/2006 (quoting Carole P. Biggam (1997): "Continental Germanics pressed into service a dark term to develop into a blue BCT [basic color term]):https://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:436595/FULLTEXT01.pdf
I made no claim above that Kossinna used the term Germanics in English. That was an earlier example i gave of it being used recognized in English. Either way, we can clearly see that "Germanics" is established in the English language and is in accademic use.ᛒᛚᚮᚴᚴᚼᛆᛁ ᛭ 𝔅𝔩𝔬𝔠𝔨𝔥𝔞𝔧22:01, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, you clearly haven't. This is English we are talking about, in the 21st century internet (and not everyone is using AI yet to check their thesis). Nearly every possible misspelling or grammatical error will exist somewhere online if you google around.--Andrew Lancaster (talk)05:50, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A brief perusal of the books that show some instances of "Germanics" to mean "Germanic peoples/Germani" seem to all be in text written by non-Native speakers, and most are theses or dissertations of some kind, which will not have gone through a normal editorial process that would likely remove a non-native usage like "Germanics". More than one of them is discussing the Nazis, which hardly seems relevant to what we call the ancient Germani. As we've established many times here, there are no "modern Germanic peoples".
Meanwhile, a search on Google scholar reveals that the dominant usage of the term "Germanics" is as short hand for "Department of Germanic Languages"[2]. It's entirely possible that the Biggam quote is meant to mean "Germanic languages."--Ermenrich (talk)13:22, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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The redirectGermanic cuisine has been listed atredirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets theredirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect atWikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 September 27 § Germanic cuisine until a consensus is reached.Steel1943 (talk)15:23, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
