Getai Questions

**A Terribly Harmful Name** · 07-30-2009, 04:12

I am interested in knowing if there has been any academic insight or effort inside the EB team to make a correspondent effort to the pre-Proto-Germanic in the game. Can Getic be reliably reconstructed in any similar form, say, in a highly theoretical situation?

Also, I am interested in knowing about the progress of the Getai in EBII, for we heard comparatively little - Will EB increase their technological capabilities? There is indeed evidence that they built aqueducts, at least in their later years, so that might allow them some sort of low level health building (like "public baths") and which is presently absent - Unless, of course, their technological state of art in the 3rd Century was somehow less advanced than after widespread contacts with the Romans, but EB already allows Valetudinaria to be built far before the time...

And... Of course, will there be a Getai preview? Is it in the works?

Thanks,

ATHN

**MeinPanzer** · 07-30-2009, 04:23

Originally Posted by A Terribly Harmful Name

I am interested in knowing if there has been any academic insight or effort inside the EB team to make a correspondent effort to the pre-Proto-Germanic in the game. Can Getic be reliably reconstructed in any similar form, say, in a highly theoretical situation?

I'm not an expert by any means on this subject, but what I've read makes it clear that nothing like Proto-Germanic can be recreated for the Getic/Dacian/Thracian language(s) because the descendants of those languages died out long ago, well before they could be recorded in writing (at least in any substantial way; I know that we have Thracian inscriptions of some length, but I don't think that they have been deciphered with any degree of success yet). Pretty much all we have are a handful of words from various literary sources and toponyms, which is certainly not enough to write even a primitive grammar. It is enough, however, to recreate some unit names, which is what you got in EB.

**A Terribly Harmful Name** · 07-30-2009, 04:37

A couple of toponyms and short tomb inscriptions, that's what Etruscan has. And they somehow "deciphered" it, at least in part - If they can do with Etruscan, then why not a (highly theoretical) Getic reconstruction ? Getic, alas, is far closer to what we speak than Etruscan

.

**paullus** · 07-30-2009, 04:47

there is far more etruscan than there is getic.

**A Terribly Harmful Name** · 07-30-2009, 04:50

Well yep, there's the Liber Linteus and the like, but there's also more Etruscan than pre-proto-Germanic

...

Has a more-than-tenuous link been traced towards Indo-Iranian? That might shed a light on things. Otherwise it would be nice to see an effort in this direction!

**Mediolanicus** · 07-30-2009, 08:40

Take a look at the previous pages here on the forum.

There was a thread about languages and Elmiaticos has written some very informative posts about Getic/Thracian and Lusotanian and the troubles in reconstructing them.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...light=Thracian

on Getic: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=107

**strategos roma** · 07-31-2009, 02:28

Dacian has already died out and it has no descendants. However, I think that perhaps some Dacian influence seeped into Romanian, which is very much alive.