Talk:Germanic peoples/Archive 18

This is an archive of past discussions about Germanic peoples. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 15

Archive 16

Archive 17

Straw poll: Split article into two: (a) Ancient Germanic peoples (linguistic and ethnic group) and (b) Germani (Roman exonym)

Latest comment: 3 years ago65 comments9 people in discussion

Judging by the comments on this talk page, there seems to be broad consensus here that this article has serious problems, highlighted in particular by the several editors here who have a formal background in Germanic studies. To resolve these problems, I propose that we split this article into two:

Ancient Germanic peoples (linguistic and ethnic group), which covers the subject by way of academic handling of this topic in the modern era, with an emphasis on modern tools, like once-revolutionary tools from philology such as the comparative method, and the development of the modern science of archaeology, including discussion from scholars active in Indo-European studies. I recommend we have dedicated sections on each.
Germani (Roman exonym), handling the matter of how this term was used by the Romans, which differs considerably from how the term is used by scholars active in Germanic studies today.

So we can get an idea of consensus here, please respond with yes or no followed by your reasoning, if you'd like to include it.

The exact titles of these two articles can of course be calibrated as necessary but you get the idea. This I believe would solve most of the issues this article curently faces and allow for logical expansion as necessary. We've also had an issue on the talk page where some users seem tempted to produce expansive essays, so please keep your responses concise.

Pinging: @Alcaios:, @Berig:, @Carlstak:, @Ermenrich:, @Haukurth:, @Obenritter:, @Yngvadottir:. :bloodofox: (talk) 13:29, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@Srnec:, @Austronesier:--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:31, 8 July 2021 (UTC) @Dimadick:, @E-960:, @Calthinus:, @Florian Blaschke:, @Joshua Jonathan:--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:01, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@Krakkos:, @Thomas.W:, @Dynasteria: :bloodofox: (talk) 14:34, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Opposed to this exact split, but open to splitting. The current article is already about the Ancient Germanic peoples, and there is not much point separating out discussion of the Roman definition because it needs to be discussed in any discussion of modern debates. After a year of discussions and thought on this, and a lot of reading, I believe a more logical split is: (1) An article about the concept "Germanic" (ethnicity, identity etc) as debated in academia (e.g. Vienna school); and (2) A history-oriented article about the historical Roman-era peoples known in historiography as the Germanic (both then and now). (3) I see linguistic topics as separate to BOTH of these but of course related, so there are more articles needed for those. [I also wish to express my opposition to the unpleasant "qualified people" theme. For better or worse that's not how we work on WP, so stop it. Pulling rank when you are an anonymous person on the internet is not very practical. The best approach is to demonstrate that you've read the sources, and that you are trying to understand what other editors are saying.]--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:53, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Of course, anyone who has followed this talk page will find Lancaster's response and his constant and intense fixation on the theories of Walter Goffart as no surprise. In reality, scholars in Germanic studies don't sit around all day and discuss Goffart's polemics about what he calls "the g-word" any more than they sit around and discuss the theories of Theo Vennemann. Lancaster's repeated attempt to downplay historical linguistics, philology, Indo-European studies, and folklore studies in favor of injecting Goffart into every nook and cranny of this article points to ideological editing far outside of the reality of the field—it's time to move on. :bloodofox: (talk) 14:13, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

If you want to keep things concise, then do not write about other editors and other topics? (Goffart not relevant to this section at all.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:19, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

By the way, I think this topic is a history topic, not historical linguistics, philology, Indo-European studies, and folklore studies. There HAVE been Rfc's on that. Maybe that is something other editors should also comment upon. Is this not a history article?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:23, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

This is unquestionably a Germanic studies topic, which includes all these fields. Enough with the lawyering. :bloodofox: (talk) 14:28, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Looking at the way you've been writing over the last day or so, apparently you see yourself as someone executing a planned slander attack on me? Please back off and calm down. Life is too short for this BS. Can you please just direct me to the article about the history topic? That's where I thought I was. Apparently you plan to turn this into a sort of Wiktionary article, and that does not sound fun.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:55, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

SUPPORT. The present state is in violation of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, as I have tried to point out before. The introduction must present a modern and most widely used definition of Germanic, and not the views of a Roman who lived more than 2000 years ago. Moreover, the present state of this article gives too much room to the ideas, agenda and ideology of a single scholar, which is in violation of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and WP:DUE.--Berig (talk) 14:52, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

For better or worse the author who influenced my rewrite more than a year ago the most was Walter Pohl, and Walter Goffart and Wolf Liebeschuetz were treated as opponents from two sides in order to show controversies. Is Walter Pohl not a good representative of the mainstream on these topics in your honest opinion?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:29, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Opposed. The terms "Ancient Germans", "Ancient Germanic peoples" and "Germani" are inextricable. There are several reasons why the modern and the ancient definitions do not overlap perfectly, which should be discussed in this article. That includes errors from ill-informed ancient writers who only had 2nd or 3rd-hand accounts of the peoples and regions they were writing about (e.g. Tacitus never went to Germania), exonyms born out of political and military ambitions (e.g. Caesar), biased accounts of "barbaric" peoples by Romans and Greeks (e.g. Caesar again), complex clusters of tribes with influences from both the Celtic and Germanic spheres (e.g. Gallia Belgica), and so on. The "correct" definition of what an Ancient "German" is should be reached by carefully balancing philological, archeological, genetic and linguistic evidence, with the help of analytical and critical (rather than hyper-critical) methods. Alcaios (talk) 15:19, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I am not against having a discussion about that, but does it have to be in the intro?--Berig (talk) 15:26, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, the intro should not go further than summarizing how contemporary encyclopaedias and textbooks (Oxford Classical Dictionary, New Pauly, Reallexikon, etc.) define Ancient Germanic peoples. Alcaios (talk) 15:42, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Then we are in agreement.--Berig (talk) 15:43, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Seems an extreme and arbitrary demand. MS:LEDE says that "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." WP:TERTIARY sources, especially ones with short entries by "big names" (who are normally people involved in the controversies) are not suitable for that when depended upon in isolation. The idea that we must ignore good sources when writing a lead seems to make no sense to me, and not to match the policies of WP, to be honest.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:41, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

SUPPORT. For the reasons mentioned by Berig and the reductionist view of Germanic peoples used throughout the current version. This article spends far more effort telling the reader about the Germani exonym and informing them what the Germanic people were not than explaining the general concept of Germanic peoples from an encyclopedic perspective. Look at Germanic peoples/tribes in other encyclopedias as an example to follow, and you'll note that this article (much like the Goths page) reads like a scholarly journal article, which unjustifiably spends far too much effort representing a particular school of thought and de-ligetimizing the term Germanic altogether. While Alcaios's points are well made here, they still indicate the need for a Germani exonym page in my estimation than they do to a general article about Germanic peoples.--Obenritter (talk) 15:53, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not against a short article about the term Germani per se; however, based on the discussions held on this talk page over the last years, I'm quite sure that we're going to quickly face WP:POVFORK. Perhaps a dedicated article about the definitional debate (like Who is a Jew?) would be better suited. Alcaios (talk) 16:10, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes "Germani exonym" would be a doomed to be become a POVFORK. The explanations give already show this. The rationale seems to be that the Roman definition is a distinct topic that is only of interest as a "history of ideas topic" (whereas Grimm is not, tellingly). That is clearly a very controversial position coming not from good 21st sources, but from WP editors with an opinion that they know is controversial, as betrayed by their attacking posts. The idea that linguists can still correct the classical writers about ethnicity (as they did in the 19th and early 20th century) is maybe popular with Wikipedian enthusiasts, but to say the least it is not a scholarly consensus. The mainstream ideas about Germanic ethnicity now revolve around people like Walter Pohl. I gave some useful sources above in the Goffart sub-section.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:03, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Oppose I do not relish involving myself in these debates yet again. However, I must oppose this split for the simple reason that if you search for "Germanen" at Germanische Altertumskunde Online, you'll find this sentence: Der im 19. Jh. entwickelte moderne Germ.-Begriff beruht also auf dem ant. (caesarischen), der seinerseits Ausweitung eines als Selbstbenennung gebrauchten Einzelnamens zu einem ethnographischen Ordnungsbegriff durch Subsumtion vor allem sueb. Gruppen und Stämme (aus nicht völlig klaren Motiven und auf nicht ganz durchsichtigen Wegen) darstellt. In English, roughly, this means that the modern term derives from the ancient term, with all its problems. For this reason, I do not think splitting the articles would be beneficial.

Some further thoughts:

while the current article perhaps goes overboard, it is not true that Goffart represents a fringe position. While he may be somewhat extreme, many scholars now question the usefulness or appropriateness of the label "Germanic" in at least some instances, as you can see by getting an account at the Wikimedia library, going to the Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, and searching Germanen. The one area where everyone agrees it is appropriate is linguistics. In other areas, there is considerable disagreement.
at the same time many scholars, including those who find the term problematic in various ways, continue to use the term Germanic, and find it useful for various things.

Whether the article is split or not, we need to cover this disagreement in some way (including to some extent, in summary style, in the lead). The Reallexikon's article "Germanen, Germania, Germanisch" discusses this at some length, for instance - others have suggested we follow what other encyclopedia's we do, and the Reallexikon does this and cites Goffart in some instances (though he's not mentioned by name), although it defends the continued use of the term. The article "Nachbarvölker der Germanen" even begins Der Name „Germanen“ steht eher für eine Sprachgemeinschaft und ist weniger ethnisch oder kulturell zu verstehen. (The name "Germani" stands rather for a language community and is less to be understood ethnically or culturally).--Ermenrich (talk) 16:42, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: If you are concerned that there is an automatic conflation of terms between Germani and the various Germanic people, this can be dealt with in a new article but in abbreviated form (unlike presently), but I cannot help but see the ancient references, at least from a linguistic perspective, as being nothing more than a hereditary tool for describing people from North of the Rhine etc. We do not have to separate them entirely from one another, when the archaeological evidence suggests their material cultures were shared. That's why the Reallexicon defends the use of the term, as you know. (I know this brings to mind Tacitus's Most Dangerous Book and all, but we have to use some term for these people in a general sense.) Whatever fear bifurcation might generate, while understandable, can be dealt with in the text. The problem is that undue weight has been given to the Toronto school, to the degree that the page is now burdened down in academic disputation, making it nearly unusable for a general reader. Parsing it would make it easier for the target audience. --Obenritter (talk) 18:03, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Ermenrich. We have to try to find a good rationale and consensus, and try to understand each other and not caricuture either editors or sources. If an idea is forced through aggressively, then these discussions just go on forever and we'll end up with POV forking and 19th century ideas. Obenritter, many of the ideas being portrayed here in WP as "fringe" are consistent with current Vienna school thinking, which is constantly being described as the leading school of thought concerning Germanic ethnicity. See the sources I've mentioned in the Goffart sub-section above. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:26, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Gee, I wonder who is "constantly" doing this "describing". Could it be you? Otherwise the vast majority of scholars working in the field of Germanic studies, ancient or otherwise, generally use the term without reservation. No attempt to invoke Goffart over and over and over alters this reality. A simple search on JSTOR, for example, offers a glimpse of how things work in the real world. :bloodofox: (talk) 18:44, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Am I allowed to cite sources now? LOL.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:06, 8 July 2021 (UTC) See the Goffart section above for several citations. The Vienna school, whose current leading light is Walter Pohl, are described this way by Peter Heather, Walter Goffart, Michael Kulikowski, Liebeschuetz, and various 21st century articles and books about Germanic ethnicity - both by their critics and by those who agree with them. Incredible that I need to explain this to someone claiming (anonymously on the internet) to be an extremely knowledge expert on this topic. Where are you hoping to go with this approach?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:20, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Oppose splitting or renaming. I agree with Alcaios and Ermenrich: the various uses of the term "Germanic" need to be placed in context in a single article. The changes in how it has been used should be explained to the reader, but with emphasis on the modern use of the term, which is primarily tied to the linguistic. Not only is it ridiculous to base our encyclopedic use of the term "Germanic" primarily on "the real names from written history", by which Andrew Lancaster means (a reconstruction of) what Classical authors (should have) used (note the immediate hedging that Tacitus never set foot in Germania; nor did Caesar except to command a military force), the evidence of Caesar and Tacitus are part of the story, and so is what we now know of and the Romans didn't, such as the Scandinavians and the differences between Germanic and Celtic languages. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:25, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir: I once thought it might be like you say, but after looking around a lot, I honestly don't believe we can say there is a scholarly consensus that the primary modern use of the term "Germanic peoples" is linguistic. I know that some linguists think this way, but when many people, including many historians, talk about Germanic peoples they are talking about those "real peoples". You are right that scholars are now very careful about trusting Caesar and Tacitus on ethnic and linguistic information, but I do NOT think, as you seem to imply, that scholars doubt the existence of the Marcomanni, the Tungri, the Usipetes, and so on, or whether they were called Germanic (even if that was primarily a geographical or even geopolitical term). Some types of information are more speculative than others. In practice, linguists also anchor themselves to those solid facts too, because there is no reason to call a language family "Germanic" unless you think there were people who were called Germanic by someone. This is where the linguistic use of the term becomes, in effect, a claim to know what really happened. It is very confusing. People don't separate the two definitions in their mind. The two competing definitions of Germanic can sometimes be easily distinguished by using language such as "Germanic-speaking" or "inhabitants of Germania" instead of just "Germanic". Does that make sense to you? One of the challenges in practice then is that I believe people expect a historical section in this article, that deals with the Marcomanni, etc. But which definition is being used there? We don't know the languages of many of these peoples, like say the Batavians, whereas for other peoples like the Goths we have no reason to call them Germanic without linguistics. In some ways, I regret that we have to have the narrative history section. It is all handled in other articles. I hope that by explaining why problems I found and tried to resolve, others will find a better way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:11, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't believe I am implying that "the primary modern use of the term 'Germanic peoples' is linguistic". Rather, that historical linguistics has given us a much broader sense of who the Germanic peoples were and have been than Romans had. I disagree that "there is no reason to call a language family 'Germanic' unless you think there were people who were called Germanic by someone". There is no such primacy of the descriptions published by others. We know more now. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:20, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

I certainly agree with the first two sentences. Possibly we aren't quite getting each other's point after that, but I guess you will agree that to begin with the word "Germanic" was chosen by linguists because they thought they were talking about those real named people from narrative history (Ariovistus, Ambiorix, etc). The word is not a randomly-chosen scientifically-neutral term, but more like a subtle exclamation of "eureka". Perhaps we agree that many scholars now say that this was incautious and methodologically problematic, and the claim of certainty implied in the use of that historically important term (Germanic) has led to confusion? So you see some scholars now saying that Germanic has two meanings, which we should separate, while others point out that actually no, the claim is still implied in the way many scholars write, so we can't just separate the two topics. To define one, requires explaining the other at the same time. (I won't post sources here. But if you want more details let me know.) The confusion is avoided by individual scholars when writing carefully, but they all use different solutions (explanatory pre-ambles and footnotes, use of Latin "Germani" in certain contexts, use of "Germanic-speaking" etc), and set the boundaries differently (for example whether to call Goths, or medieval politics, Germanic). We've experienced that it is a challenge for us as a tertiary source working "as a committee" to imitate what the scholars do.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:22, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Oppose splitting or renaming. Neither will solve the actual issue (over-reliance on the views of a singular scholar; undue elaborations in the lede about the scope: every term borrowed from ancient sources has a certain degree of fuzziness—primary historical information is finite). The Germani of historical sources are an essential building block for the scholarly concept of Germanic peoples (in the sense of Germanen, Germains etc.), so this is an essential part of this article and ideally not split out. As for "Ancient...", I consider this an unnecessary addition, since the tenuous concept "Modern Germanic peoples" (who have little in common to the exclusion of other European peoples save their linguistic affiliation) is not reified here in WP (as an outcome of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Germanic peoples (modern) (2nd nomination)). –Austronesier (talk) 10:28, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier:, Maybe it is useful to remark that I find this rationale very reasonable, except that I might misunderstand the "single scholar". I assume it refers to Walter Pohl, who I leaned on to get us to where we are so far. If it is about Goffart then honestly I think you could delete every reference, and you would not really be changing the article much. Some of the references to Goffart, Heather and Liebeschuetz represent the start of an effort to NOT rely too much on one school or scholar. So why did I stop working in that direction? One issue going forward is how we rely less on one scholar or school without making this a very academic article that loses the narrative history part, which I think editors like Obenritter feel have been swamped by academic debate already. (I shortened it, restricted the narrative to Germanic themes, and moved it down.) I guess Obenritter has a point but I think most proposals will push us further in the direction I started, making this article more about a scholarly topic? I think this of whether this article is about narrative history, and if so how much, is one of the questions we don't have a clear vision about yet. The size of the article is relevant to this.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:57, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Rename article: Ancient Germanic peoples?

If I may ask a related though apparently more consensual question, would you agree to rename the article to Ancient Germanic peoples until the current debate is settled? Alcaios (talk) 17:59, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I see Alcaios wrote the above. Sorry for not fixing it, but I need to run. I have also been thinking in this direction. However "Ancient" is apparently intended to be fuzzy, and looks like it is going to lead to circular debates about whether linguists know more about this topic than historians. So indeed it does not look like a the long term solution. If this article will be allowed to continue to be the one about history, then maybe "Roman era" would be better?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:48, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Andrew, "Roman-era Germanic peoples" and "Ancient Germanic peoples" mean the same thing. The end of ancient history is traditionally dated to the fall of Rome (476 AD) in the Western world. Alcaios (talk) 18:03, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

True. Maybe my proposal is not the right one, but my concern is that this idea seems to be leading to a linguistic takeover whereby the Proto Germanic LANGUAGE topic takes over the HISTORY topics, involving the peoples who were REALLY known as Germani during the early imperial period. Approximately 50 BCE - 200 CE. Those are still the basis of the Germanic concept, for experts and others. All other fields are only trying to anchor their speculations to the real names from written history. Obviously I am opposed to the idea that this becomes a 19th century style article where linguistics magically explains why the Romans were wrong and the historians are wrong. in reality, linguistics, like archaeology, is slowly learning to be more careful about claiming to know who the people are that the are digging up. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:11, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

"Linguistic take over", lol. And I thought I had seen everything on Wikipedia. The barely contained resentment toward experts in the field appears to be boiling over. :bloodofox: (talk) 18:48, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

No Bloodofox in the context of this topic the concern I mentioned has specific historical precedent. I have no problem with linguistics, but scholars now realize that it was wrong to be seen as the discipline which could over-rule historical evidence of historical peoples. That led to well-known problems. But as a great scholar surely you know that?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:05, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Alcaios, that sounds like a good idea. I was actually about to suggest the same thing.--Berig (talk) 17:52, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Alcaios -- I can get aboard that name change for sure, at least for the time being. Let's see what others think. --Obenritter (talk) 18:05, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

One should note that this renaming would de facto exclude the Viking Age Norsemen as a medieval Germanic people. The Proto-Norse language and Scandinavian archeology would continue be discussed in this framework though. Alcaios (talk) 18:14, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Alcaios, the way I see it, the "Germanic period" in Scandinavian history ended with the Christianization of the Continental Germanics by the 8th c. and the huge linguistic changes that resulted in Old Norse. I believe the Norse art and other expressions of Scandinavian identity were a result of this linguistic and religious separation. So, I have no problem with that.--Berig (talk) 19:08, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

If the article is going to guided by linguistics then none of these titles are appropriate. Such an article would need to be entitled in such a way to make it clear it is about reconstructed languages. But obviously the current article is not structured in this way, because it is primarily anchored to an historical topic, involving a whole range of different peoples who were named in historical records that were not written in their own languages. I also believe WP deserves an article about that historical topic, using historians as sources. That's one I want to work one. (Of course linguistics, like archaeology makes many useful proposals about historical peoples, and historical information helps guide linguistics and archaeology.) I'd also be happy to work on an article about the scholarly debates about the Germanic concept and the idea of Germanic ethnicity (which would be a "history of ideas" article).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:38, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Lol, this guy ranting about linguists and going to lengths to try to insert Goffart into every nook and cranny of this article while excluding philologists, the latter producing the vast majority of scholarship in this field. What a bizarre thing to see. In the real world, anthropologists, archaeologists, linguists, folklorists, and other interdisciplinary scholars operate side-by-side in Germanic studies. :bloodofox: (talk) 18:41, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Bloodofox, I call bullshit. Stop making things up about me. This is disruptive. And why do you never mention historians?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:01, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Support rename to Ancient Germanic peoples. :bloodofox: (talk) 18:42, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Concern. From responses so far it is clear that support for the idea is mostly connected to an assumption that this proposal will involve aggressively converting this article from being a history article into a linguists article, which will not only avoid historians as sources, but even scholars who currently define the mainstream regarding the concept of Germanic ethnicity, such as Walter Pohl. That gives me the impression that this name change is going to go in a way I can't agree with, and which many editors will find completely unacceptable. I think any reasonable solution HAS TO take these basic things into account: (1) linguistics articles are fine but they should have titles and text which reflect the fact that they are about linguistics (2) there is an important history topic in this article that deserves to remain in WP as a history topic, and there is a history of ideas topic covered here which also deserves to remain in WP; neither of these are primarily linguistics topics. If the real aim of editors here is to change this article to a linguistics article then you should be asking if other editors agree with THAT aim. I for one do not. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:22, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Andrew, nobody here wants to "avoid historians as sources". Archaeology, history, linguistics, genetics, and philology work together. Alcaios (talk) 20:41, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

That has been the more-or-less agreed approach, and there has been a good logic to it. But I don't think everyone agrees with you in practice, and I'm sure you can read the posts above just as well as I can. I accept the article is a compromise that makes no one happy, and that's why we keep hovering around these ideas of splitting the article. It seems to remain intrinsically difficult to blend the ideas of the different fields on this article, unless we get clear principles like the above more clearly confirmed. So: Is this primarily a history topic or not a history topic at all? Are the Vienna school seen as defining the mainstream concerning Germanic ethnicity in recent decades or are they no-ones? It is especially difficult to see how this can go anywhere good when attempts to discuss real sources are being attacked by editors who simply keep pointing to each other's own unverifiable and undefined scholarly knowledge as their source of authority. I am sure you have good intentions, but how does this really work? The answer is that it can't. We need a better show of good will and collegiality. If there are better sources than Pohl and the like, for example, who? And what do they say? We can't use Wikipedia editors as sources.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:32, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. See above. This article should set in context the articles we have on individual ancient Germanic peoples, but should not be just about the "ancient world". Historical linguistics, archaeology, the study of literary and religious motifs, and the evaluation of ethnological and historical reports all contribute to the study of the past of the Germanic peoples, and there are also varying schools of thought among scholars; thank you, Andrew ~~Davidson~~ Lancaster, for substantiating one of my good faith suppositions, that it's such a division that molded your rewriting of the article. But the ethnographic and linguistic studies among modern peoples since the 19th century are also a context for this article; origins are not the entire story, and some of the German- and English-language criticisms of Germanic and especially Indo-European studies grow out of engagement with the Nazi-era conceptualization of "Germanic" and redefinition of "Nordic"; the reader needs that background explaining, too. It's not all "This term is no longer being used as Caesar used it!!1" or even "Tacitus probably invented all this because he was a polemicist". The ancient peoples did not all die out, they continued to act, to think, and to leave their own physical and written records, and even the positions regarding Tacitus, and regarding Caesar's statements about Celtic and Germanic religion, and how far Celtic and Germanic were distinct back then, have a context in things we have since discovered (archaeological, comparative linguistic) and become aware of (literary, historical from other sources than Classical historians), as well as in the history of the scholarly theories. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:25, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir: I presume I am the Andrew you mention? Anyway I think your reasoning makes a lot of sense. I absolutely agree that ethnographic and linguistic (and indeed many other types) of evidence are relevant to this article. Despite being quite large, the article is incomplete in some ways. One of the frustrating things going on here is that I am being portrayed as opposed to any type of information I did not place in the reorganized article. I had two main aims: shortening the article so that it mainly handled topics not better handled in separate articles, and giving it a new section at the top which explained why there are different visions of Germanic . The old version was expanding incredibly quickly in late 2019 and early 2020, and the expansions were literally like separate articles, because people were writing in parallel based on different understandings of the topic's basic definition. This is why the top of the article now explains why there are several understandings. But to use clear language it is obvious that this makes some editors literally angry. They hate it. They can't have a friendly discussion about it, because they are absolutely sure their own vision is the correct one. My idea of trying to unify this article by making the controversy about the concept a central organizing principle just doesn't seem to have worked. That's why my splitting idea is quite different to the one proposed above: I was thinking we have to find a way to remove the main discussion of the uncertainties and controversies about the basic concept to a distinct article. But if we do that, then how do we avoid returning to the old problem of having different parts of the article describing a totally different definition of Germanic to other parts, with no explanation about why? I honestly don't have a good answer. But I suspect it will involve splitting into more than two articles. Your comments are helpful. Any more ideas based on what I've just explained?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:52, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: Sorry about misnaming you, I am terrible at names and have now edited my comment above. I'm afraid I think that focusing the article on the conflict between two definitions was a bad idea; it's confusing and loses the big picture. I haven't looked at the history, but if that was your intentional organizing principle, then it may be easiest to rewrite it from either where you started, or from prior to the expansion that you found to be confusing. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:20, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir: "organizing principle" might be the wrong term, but it did (and does) seem to be something we can't avoid handling up front and reminding the readers of where necessary. Or: I think there is a scholarly topic and a narrative topic here, but it is hard to untwine them, partly because different schools of thought connect them so differently. But for better or worse, switching to 19th-century assumptions, where language evolution is more or less totally equated to peoples/ethnicities, just won't work IMHO. I really tried to see how that would work. Too much of the recent literature is totally opposed to the fundamental assumptions of that old approach. Even though yes, language studies give insight, and it is still the basic background assumption of some academics working in specific areas, it is the scholars who are most cited as experts on the concept of Germanic ethnicity who have especially rejected it as a guiding principle. And as a WP writer trying to construct a narrative, there is actually almost no overlap. Our large language section in this article can't be connected to Arminius or Marobod. It is clearly a completely different topic to the rest of the article. That makes sense because just as the historical Germanic peoples disappear from the written record, new configurations and names of peoples appear (new ethnicities, as many scholars now describe it) and we start to get the first detailed linguistic evidence which gives more than a few insights. None of that linguistic evidence can however tell us much about Arminius or Marobod or their followers. We can only make guesses about their languages. The big theme among the scholars of this is "ethnogenesis". In other words they emphasize how these things are not simply continuous, and cultures can't therefore be assumed to evolve in family trees anymore. (Indeed, even though the assumption that languages work this way is increasingly questioned, and even in biology the assumption that speciation works in family trees is now questioned, though this model still seems to be the implicit assumption for many.) Peoples are constantly re-mixed, re-booted, and ethnicities, and more generally the ways people identify with groups, can change in all kinds of non-linear ways. This includes deliberate manipulation. One famous debating point which the Vienna school agrees with is for example that the big "new" ethnicities on the Roman frontier (Goths, Franks etc) can be understood as Roman creations. (I just give it as an example.) No one is saying that Germanic languages don't have some connection with each other somehow back at the proto-language stage, but the assumption that studying the languages equals defining ethnicities is problematic.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:04, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

From unapproachable low-rent Walter Goffart Festschrift essay to ?

Everyone seems to agree that the current state of the article is horrendous yet I'm seeing no agreement on what should be done about it. We need some more suggestions.

A few things to consider: First of all, this article is huge—too huge—and it is certainly unapproachable for new readers. Second, Germanic studies is quite an interdisciplinary field, with the vast bulk of material relevant to the topic produced by philologists (which has always been the case), and while this should certainly be reflected in the article, we need some kind of history of research section that addresses archeaology and comparative studies more broadly. Third, rather than scholastic reception injected throughout the article that makes it read like soemeone's personal essay half the time, I think we need to make sure we're taking an objective approach that reflects how the topic is treated throughout Germanic studies today.

Whatever the case, let's try to figure out what to do with all this in the space below. I'd like to see some proposals. If we can't come to agreement, then someone needs to just go ahead and start getting very WP:BOLD, if only for readers. We can't keep seeing the same defense of the status quo here. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:37, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

No that is another misunderstanding or distortion. No one is defending the status quo. What is happening, as in the past, is that people are understandably worried about the proposals of others. I shortened the article, and eventually stopped going any further because I could see we needed more time to process. People are not convincing each other, and perhaps more to the point none of us have a really detailed vision to propose. Anyway,

I personally agree the article is too big. That seems to imply the article needs splitting, but I accept the difficulties many people see in that.
I also think it has always been the idea that there should be more about archaeology but no-one seems interested to do it, and with the article already being big... So this is not an area of actual disagreement either. Just work to do.
The "second" and "third" points you make are unclear to me.
Concerning bold editing, to some extent I agree but I hope we all edit in a way which is thoughtful of the range of positions both on this talk page and also among scholars.
Perhaps it is also worth mentioning an old idea I keep repeating which is that I believe it might help this article if people worked first on satellite articles, instead of working here in this over-sized article first. For example: languages, and archaeology, and anything which could obviously be better handled in a distinct main article. And what is going to happen to that Early Germanic culture article?
From the discussion above, I noticed this question for other editors: what do we think about the historical narrative sections? Is it an essential element of this article? My understanding is that some editors feel that it is.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:55, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I suspect this editor's constant fondness for lawyering and apparent inability to make a concise point is why this article is such a mess in the first place. Looking forward to suggestions from other editors. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:07, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

This talk page is not the place for posting suspicions about other editors. Please work on this talk page according to WP's policies and guidelines.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:40, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Anyway, if you want to bring us beyond our past failings you should note that the third point is unclear, and concerning the second point, it continues a vague theme since your first posts, implying that there is a body of work out there where Walter Pohl and the Vienna school are nobodies. How can this be serious unless you name at least ONE authority on Germanic ethnicity from this field you want to rebuild the article around? We can't use Wikipedia editors as sources. So far you mentioned Jakob Grimm, and the philological tradition that has "always" dominated. Anyone more recent? (Based on your remarks so far, your sources are mainly relatively old ones, and/or perhaps you rely on asides in works which are not primarily about the question of Germanic ethnicity.) I think people commenting on your ideas should be given an honest explanation of what you really mean.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:01, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Simple: back to structure of the "Obenritter"-version. Wolfram and Pohl represent the mainstream, or better: the necessary "healthy" middle ground of scholarship about the Germanic peoples. This includes the Traditionskern, and therefore also a critical review of things subsumed under "Germanic culture" etc. Very important information has been lost since early 2020, which is a shame. –Austronesier (talk) 10:40, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier:, Can you point to a date when you think the article had this structure? (Or perhaps point to the good bits within a version.) By the time I intervened, the article (and lead) had rapidly doubled and had lost its coherence. Anyway, even if it is not easy to find such a reference point I think I see what you mean. To me it makes sense to build more around the so-called Vienna direction. They are criticized from several directions, but they are a reference point for other authors, and they have engaged with their critics. That is where I think I was headed when I stopped. OTOH Bloodofox claimed above that I am the only person who thinks they are a reference point, so I'm not sure what other people think of this.[1] (Maybe it was a misunderstanding?) It also still raises Obenritter's other concern about whether this article should be so much about scholarly debates. My memory of events is that Obenritter was mainly expanding the narrative history sections, and was annoyed at my shortening of them. (Personally I think one way or another we are going to an article primarily about those scholarly debates concerning "Germanic". Then we can link other articles to that?) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:13, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

This is my rough pick for a reference point (before things became "crufty"). NB, structurally. There are many redundancies with other articles in that version, but as far as I can see, much information is completely gone without being merged into specialized pages. And splitting out content means that the subtopic should at least leave a significant trace (summary section + hatnote) in the main article. For many subtopics, I don't see this. This is clearly a result of the "Torontoan" approach. A corollary of this is that many subpages (being deattached from the main page) become more Heather-ish in turn. –Austronesier (talk) 14:06, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

While I do think we need to discuss the definitional problem, and in enough detail that our readers understand that the idea that many things are "Germanic"/can be derived from an earlier pan-Germanic culture (the ordeal, "Germanic" kingship, etc.) has come into question in the latter half of the twentieth century (which seems to be missing in the old version), I think Austronesier's suggestion is a good one to start off.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:12, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Putting my comment here for convenience. I concur that rolling back the article and rebuilding it with the challenges of the late 20th century as a subtopic in its own section is the way to go. There it can be related to the argument that Indo-European studies is tainted by German nationalism. And the varying usage of "Teuton" in English, where it long served as a noun for the adjective "Germanic" but has been deprecated, should also be explained and related to these criticisms.

I mentioned above that Andrew Lancaster was saying (my paraphrase) that Germanic peoples should only be regarded as real if they had been described by Roman authors, or as Germanic if classical authors had used that term for them. For me this is a key point of difference, and strikes me as an unwarranted extension of Wikipedia's reliable sources policy back to the time of the Roman Empire. It's presumably the root of his apparent deprecation of usage of "Germanic" by "linguists". It amounts to rolling back everything scholars have learned since, and from my point of view it denies the existence of any group that (preserved) classical writings did not happen to mention. There were many things beyond the ken of Roman and even Greek historians/ethnographers/generals. In particular, it obviously excludes the Scandinavians. A further point related to this is the contrast he draws between language and ethnicity. Ethnicity is a whole scholarly kettle of fish, and rightly so. Of course we should not equate speaking a Germanic language with being of "pure Germanic blood", at any period. The amalgamation of tribes, including in at least one case including a Celtic group, has been established as something that happened (and this is why I personally prefer to continue to use "tribes" for such political/military/cooperative groupings, to distinguish from the primarily ethnic meaning of "peoples", since "nations" has anachronistic implications, not the least of them being size). But while Andrew Lancaster has averred that he is not seeking to deny the reality of peoples/tribes, by representing as problematic identification of groups as Germanic peoples on the basis of information other than statements by Classical writers, and equating such identification with a statement of ethnicity, he is in fact denying their generally accepted Germanic identity, as well as displacing the locus of disagreement among scholars (and is of course excuding the entire realm of medieval and later Germanic culture). I hope this clarifies my position. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:02, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

I promised to shut up, but as I am addressed (sort of), a very short answer only: the question in the end is whether there is a modern consensus or not, on each of these issues. Enjoying the discussion, so I'll post on your talk page? BTW I don't think a full rollback is proposed, only the use of that article structure.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:18, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Comment I concur with Bloodofox that this article has serious issues when it comes to neutrality, reliability and readability. Fixing those issues will require quite a lot of work. I agree with Austronesier, User:Yngvadottir and Srnec that restoring Obenritter's version would put the article on a more solid footing for future improvement. Germanic peoples is the common name for the topic of this article and should in my opinion be kept as the title. I think Bloodofox's proposal to create an article for the name Germani is a good proposal, since that topic is distinct and notable. As usual, discussions at this talk page have become long, repetitive and convoluted. I think the time has come for capable editors to cut through the case and get down to business with making the necessary article changes. Krakkos (talk) 09:52, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in, Krakkos. Perhaps I am wrong to fear that a separate Germani article would become a POV fork, and it would instead be useful as an introduction to the usages of that term by classical Latin authors, but we need this article to provide the big picture, which is not only terminological debate and not only about the earliest periods. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:29, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Question and reminder. If we go back to the July 2019 structure what happens to Early Germanic culture? That is one of the articles split out of this one in the months after the preferred version of Austronesier. The other was a Germani article. This was very controversial, and it was merged back in, eventually more-or-less ending a dispute which had gone some years. According to everything discussed then, the main topic of this article is the Germani. (I became heavily involved only after the second split when their needed to be a new merge to bring us back to a holding position that was not totally structured on the rejected proposals. Someone had to do it.) NOTE: The current emphasis on defining the article's scope very clearly, and the lack of emphasis on claims of shared culture, stems from that history. It is difficult for me to judge how big that Early Germanic culture article should really be, because it currently remains rather unfinished work. But likely eventually size is presumably one thing to consider if the idea is to merge it back into here. As a practical proposal, it could maybe be an option to work on it in that article first?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:15, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

"Attempt" to define

Latest comment: 3 years ago22 comments7 people in discussion

The opening paragraph sets the tone for the article. Here the second sentence calls into doubt the entire premise of an article titled "Germanic peoples." I invite you to consider the implications of this:

They are also associated with Germanic languages, which originated and dispersed among them, and are one of several criteria used to attempt to define the historical Germanic peoples.

So unlike any other group, the Germanic peoples defy definition. What difference would it make to remove the phrase "attempt to"? Well, for one it would give the article a positive tone and, further, it might require some intellectual rigour and honesty throughout the rest of the article.

Another point is the word "they" which in any other context would likely be regarded as a distancing tactic. It reminds me of Ronald Reagan's use of "they" to refer to African Americans. He was rightly condemned for that. How about as an unbiased purveyor of information we clean up this little ethnic slight? Dynasteria (talk) 20:38, 11 July 2021 (UTC) And given the general discourse displayed on this page over quite a long period of time, I feel compelled to state that if no one objects to removing the phrase "attempt to" (within several days) I will feel free to do it myself without fear of being reverted. If it is reverted, the burden to justify will then be on that person, not me. Thank you. Dynasteria (talk) 21:54, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

I object, and the sourcing for the problems defining Germanic has been explained many times. See the posts of Ermenrich above for example. The sourcing against this is only Wikipedians. The debate is described in print by people on all sides of it. No serious scholar denies that there is such a debate.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:07, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Are you or are you not going to take a break from attempting to micromanage every attempt any individual makes to improve this mess of an article? Enough with the constant obstruction and constant bludgeoning with wall after wall of long-winded text. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:23, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster: I accept that your personal opinion is against my suggestion. However you have not given a logical argument why the "debate" should be in the lede. The article is not titled "Debate on the concept of a Germanic people." Whether or not multiple academics are engaged in debate is completely irrelevant to anything here. Your position really becomes a straw man argument the more you present it. Dynasteria (talk) 07:51, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

What did you think of Ermenrich's explanations? Also see my citation of MOS:LEDE above [2]. I'm keeping an open mind about how much of this article should be about the debate you mention, but that seems a different question. You are talking about tweaking wording to remove all implication of debate and uncertainty. Wouldn't it be a deliberate distortion of the academics to imply certainty and consensus? Why is it important to imply certainty and no debate? Maybe I am missing something in your explanations.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:55, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Commenting first on the initially raised question in this section. "They" is the third person plural pronoun (per default—it has acquired an extended range of meaning in the last 20 yrs). It references an aforementioned plural noun, and is preferably used to avoid verbatim repetition of the same phrase in consecutive clauses. Such repetition is generally considered bad style, unless for disambiguation purposes. "Ethnic slight"? I don't see it. Ambiguity? I don't think readers will likely interpret it as referencing to "Graeco-Roman authors".

"...several criteria used to attempt to define..." is awfully clumsy. And yes, it might even bear the connotation of the "attempt" being unsuccessful. What about "...several approaches to define..."?

The debate is important, and should be covered in the article. It also has its place in the lede, which summarizes the article. But the lede-mention should stay in proportion with other aspects of the page topic "Germanic peoples", a terminological concept which—in spite of a significant minority(?) opinion—has not become obsolete.

Finally, it is odd to read the accusation of "bludgeoning" right below a post of 417 bytes. Per WP policies, ad hominem attacks are a no-go; text-walling is bad, but not per se a breach of policies if the editor has a genuine message to convey. –Austronesier (talk) 09:07, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Once again Andrew Lancaster, this article is not about academicians or their debates. It is about a people who once existed and whose descendants regard them as ancestors. I simply don't want to get into the weeds of the debate. I am capable of it; I refuse to do so. The "debate" dominates the article injudiciously, as numerous contributors have pointed out. It should be a secondary consideration in the lede and elsewhere. Dynasteria (talk) 12:35, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Austronesier: I can go along with your suggestion. Dynasteria (talk) 12:38, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Austronesier, after investigating it a bit, my own conclusion is that at this point it is a majority of scholars who questions the (usefulness of the) concept of Germanic peoples, at least for Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The best way to solve this problem, however, would be to assemble recent statements on the academic consensus/the positions of the Vienna and Toronto schools, etc. and see what they say. I've already seen several at De Gruyter online, including in the Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde itself, that indicate that the idea of Germanic peoples with a shared Germanic culture beyond language is no longer the majority view of scholars working in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

If we come back to the question raised by Dynasteria why this is only the case for Germanic peoples, it obviously has a political dimension, but it also just reflects the much greater amount of scholarship that's been invested into this question than, say, Slavic peoples or Turkic peoples. These have had similarly negative nationalist connotations but are not as large of fields in Western academia.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:52, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

"It obviously has a political dimension." Let's all agree on this. Dynasteria (talk) 13:01, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Everything has a political dimension, including the original idea that there are Germanic peoples in the first place.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:13, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

If and when the call to action comes, may each of us find his or her own right path.Dynasteria (talk) 13:34, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: Or maybe someone simply assumes that a language has a "speech community" and calls that "speech community" a "people".

Berig, Oh sure, but the idea that a Swede and a German or a Dutch person and an English person have something in common because they speak Germanic languages (the original implication of the idea "Germanic peoples"), more so than because they are Europeans or (formerly) mostly Christians, is a political idea, and was intended as such. In the same way that the original idea allowed Grimm and others to appropriate the actions of the Ostrogoths and Vandals for the "Germans". We shouldn't forget that the Grimms and many other pioneers of the field actually used the word "Deutsch" to refer to the Germanic peoples, not "germanisch". That came later.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:21, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@Ermenrich:, @Austronesier:, Srnec made a point which might be important above: there are different debates and uncertainties for different periods and regions, e.g. late antiquity. (But it is only in late antiquity that we can start mapping the Germanic language family onto real named peoples in any meaningful way, and using the linguistic definition of Germanic.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:37, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: My impression is similar, but yet differs in one point. After skimming through Interrogating the ‘Germanic’, I agree that the majority of scholars who are actively engaged in the theoretical debate do indeed question the usefulness of the concept of Germanic peoples. But does this also hold e.g. for the field archeologists who need to present their research results in a recognizable framework? In their introductory chapter, Harland & Friedrich point out (and implicitly deplore) the very fact that "the general tendency in humanities scholarship is, arguably, still simply to assume that the ‘Germanic’ is a self-explanatory label". Paradoxically as it may seem, and probably not in the full intent of Harland & Friedrich, but this is a secondary-source statement about 21th century research, which we cannot ignore if we want built encyclopedic content that simply reflects both field research and theoretical debates.

Just a practical example: I have taken a look at some articles in the RGA which still adhere to the traditional framework. E.g. "Elbgermanen" by Mildenberger & Beck (in the 1989 edition, the entry probably was last updated around 1980). They categorize manifest differences in burial practices along demarcations that were set up by linguists. Their maps illustrate this vividly. My question is: how do archeologist of the 2010s and 2020s contextualize their finds from the same area? Has the majority of them completely discarded the label Germanic? I simply lack the insight into the topic to answer, but I think details like these are crucial for our discussion here. –Austronesier (talk) 14:31, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Keeping track: I've received one "No" vote and one "Yes" vote so as it stands it's 2 to 1 in favor of removing "attempt to." I'll wait a couple of days for further votes. Dynasteria (talk) 16:40, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

The text has already been rewritten by Austronesier, so I would say the original proposal is moot? In any case, I support his wording, not any further rewording for the moment.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:52, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't notice. I would remove the second comma (after "them"). Otherwise, the following verb "are" refers to the subject of the sentence "they" rather than to "languages":

They are also associated with Germanic languages, which originated and dispersed among them and are one of several approaches to defining the historical Germanic peoples. Dynasteria (talk) 18:51, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how that comma changes the subject. "Them" can not be the subject? Anyway, technically the sentence is also wrong because languages can not be approaches. (Languages are a type of evidence used as the basis of "approaches". But there has to be a neater way to say it.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:32, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

I've boldly changed the wording to "They are also associated with Germanic languages, which originated and dispersed among them and which inform one of the several approaches to defining the historical Germanic peoples." Still a little unwieldy, but better, I think. Carlstak (talk) 11:41, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Two things occur to me. One is that rewriting the introduction right now is a good idea, because mobile readers only see the introduction, and it's overly long and convoluted, but that it can only be a stop-gap, because the introduction should be a summary of the major points in the article, so it needs to be rewritten pretty much last, after the article is recast and refocused. The second came to me after thinking about an exchange I've had with Andrew Lancaster at my talk, and that is that one reason there is so much disagreement on this talk page is that we're using the term "Germanic peoples" differently. In the anglosphere, it maps pretty well to "Germanic studies", encompassing a group of cultures studied right through the Middle Ages and in some spheres (such as folklore and those that use folklore evidence such as rural practices and traditional songs) the 19th and even the early 20th centuries. It's used to distinguish some areas of medieval studies from others (including Germanic from Celtic), and while it depends in part on location where modern Scandinavian studies are classed, "Germanic" is the commonly used term for the over-arching field and the human groups within it. However, many editors in this conversation are using it for what are still often termed "Germanic tribes" in English: the peoples of "antiquity". Hence the focus on what classical writers wrote about people. I looked at the history of this article, half expecting it to have been moved from Germanic tribes or even the antiquated Ancient Germans (and found instead an early article creation, October 2001, that is indeed all about relations with the Romans except that it jumps ahead to conversion to Christianity). This article, since it is in the English-language Wikipedia, needs to be about more than the classical reports and what scholars have said about them; it needs to include later periods as well as people who speak Germanic languages who didn't get reported on by classical authors, and it should not imply either that the Germanic peoples faded away long ago, or that the only interesting things about them are their origins and the Urzeit in general. Articles about many aspects of Germanic studies link here; readers reading about, for example, Dumézil's theory and the Nazi "Nordic" concept, need an exposition here (as well as the readers who learn here for the first time that "Germanic" doesn't mean the same as "German", which is why writers used to use "Teutonic"). Yngvadottir (talk) 09:19, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Your perspective is very helpful. People use these terms differently, and that is very important to what people the community decides to do with this article. Complications: (a) This problem is also in academia, so I am not sure there is an easily identifiable single "correct" academic usage? (b) The way the term "Germanic peoples" is used traditionally within Germanic studies represents strong knowledge claims about the historical topic you refer to as the "Germanic tribes", and not only about medieval Germanic-speakers. Today, not all scholars agree with those strong knowledge claims which were once built within the old terminology choices of Germanic studies (even scholars from that background). So IMHO that all seems to make what you call the "Germanic tribes" the topic which the others have to be structured around.

To put it another way: I think what you call the "Germanic tribes" is the one topic which has to be in this article? It is the only topic I can't imagine being farmed out to another article or given a different name to this one? (This is based not only on the above reasoning but also a few years watching what people think this article is about.) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:16, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Getting more eyes

Latest comment: 3 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Under the theory that more editors with less investment in this topic may finally lead to some progress, I'm going to advertise this article's difficulties at the Classical Greece and Rome and the Middle Ages wikiprojects.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:41, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

See here and here.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:49, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

A good initiative.--Berig (talk) 14:14, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Great idea, full support! This morning I was tempted to throw in another two *panninganz of mine, but then I thought: "nah". –Austronesier (talk) 20:00, 15 July 2021 (UTC)