Various etymologies have been formulated. Latin Germani is first used by Julius Caesar, and is thought to be a loan from the Celtic name for the Germanic tribes: the word is an exonym. There is also a Latin adjective germanus (from germen, "seed" or "offshoot"), which has the sense of "related" or "kindred" and whence derives the Portuguese irmão and the Spanish hermano, "brother". If the proper name Germani derives from this word, it may refer to the Roman experience of the Germanic tribes as allies of the Celts. The name may also derive from one of the principal proto-tribes of Central Europe, the Hermunduri.
Another possible derivation is the one proffered by the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1966), which relates the name to Old Irish gair, "neighbor", which actually means "near". The Welsh is ger.
McBain's An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language relates the word to Irish gearr, "cut, short" (a short distance) and states the Proto-Celtic root to be *gerso-s, further related to ancient Greek chereion, "inferior" and English gash. Here the etymological trail becomes more obscured. English gash leads to the Greek word character, which is an engraving for an identity sign of some sort. There is no clear root for this word. It could be a Proto-Indo-European root, *khar-, *kher-, *ghar-, *gher-, "cut", from which also Hittite kar-, "cut". Or, it could be a pre-Indo-European root, related perhaps to Egyptian kha-, "cut", or the Indo-European root could derive from the pre-Indo-European root.
Apparently, the Germanic tribes did not have a self name that included all Germanic-speaking people but excluded all non-Germanic people, except for generic þiuda- "people", while non-Germanic peoples (primarily Celtic and Roman) were called *walha- (This word lives forth in names such as Wales, Welsh, Cornwall, Walloons, Vlachs etc.). The adjective *þiudiskaz, referring to the language, continued in German Deutsch, English Dutch Dietsch, Danish Tysk, was not introduced until the 9th century, originally designating the language of the people in contrast to the Latin language. From ca. 875, Latin writers refer to the German language as teutonicus.
In English, German is first attested in 1520, replacing earlier use of Almain or Dutch.
The concept of "Germanic" as a distinct ethnic identity was hinted at by the early Greek geographer Strabo [1], who distinguished a barbarian group in northern Europe similar to, but not part of, the Celts. Posidonius, to our knowledge, is the first to have used the name, around 80 BC, in his lost 30th book. Our knowledge of this is based on the 4th book of Athenaeus, who in ca. AD 190 quotes Posidonius as saying that "The Germani at noon serve roast meat with milk, and drink their wine undiluted".
By the 1st century A.D., the writings of Caesar, Tacitus and other Roman era writers indicate a division of Germanic-speaking peoples into tribal groupings centred on:
* the rivers Oder and Vistula (Poland) (East Germanic tribes),
* the lower Rhine river (Istvaeones),
* the river Elbe (Irminones),
* Jutland and the Danish islands (Ingvaeones).
The Sons of Mannus Istvaeones, Irminones, and Ingvaeones are collectively called West Germanic tribes. In addition to this those Germanic people who remained in Scandinavia are referred to as North Germanic. These groups all developed separate dialects, the basis for the differences among Germanic languages down to the present day.
The division of peoples into West Germanic, East Germanic, and North Germanic is a modern linguistic classification. Many Greek scholars only classified Celts and Scyths in the Northwest and Northeast of the Mediterranean and this classification was widely maintained in Greek literature until Late Antiquity. Latin-Greek ethnographers (Tacitus, Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy, and Strabo) mentioned in the first two centuries AD the names of peoples they classified as Germanic along the Elbe, the Rhine, and the Danube, the Vistula and on the Baltic Sea. Tacitus mentioned 40, Ptolemy 69 peoples. Classical ethnography applied the name Suebi to many tribes in the first century. It appeared that this native name had all but replaced the foreign name Germanic. After the Marcomannic wars the Gothic name steadily gained importance. Some of the ethnic names mentioned by the ethnographers of the first two centuries AD on the shores of the Oder and the Vistula (Gutones, Vandali) reappear from the 3rd century on in the area of the lower Danube and north of the Carpathian Mountains. For the end of the 5th century the Gothic name can be used - according to the historical sources - for such different peoples like the Goths in Gaul, Iberia and Italy, the Vandals in Africa, the Gepids along the Tisza and the Danube, the Rugians, Sciri and Burgundians, even the Iranian Alans. These peoples were classified as Scyths and often deducted from the ancient Getae (most important: Cassiodor/Jordanes, Getica approx. 550 AD).
IrminonesCentral Germans
* Suebi
* Hermunduri
* Chatti
* Cherusci
derived ....Alamanni, Marcomanni, Quadi , Cibidi, Lombards.
The name Irminones comes from Tacitus’s Germania (98 CE) who categorized them as one of the tribes of Mannus. all he says is that they lived in the Central region.
Pomponius Mela writes in his Description of the World (III.3.31) in reference to the Kattegat and the waters surrounding the Danish isles
On the bay are the Cimbri and the Teutoni; farther on, the farthest people of Germania, the Hermiones.
Pliny's Natural History (4.100) claims that the Irminones include the Suebi, Hermunduri, Chatti, and Cherusci.
In Nennius the name Mannus and his three sons appear in corrupted form, the ancestor of the Irminones appearing as Armenon. His sons here are Gothus, Valagothus/Balagothus, Cibidus, Burgundus, and Longobardus from whence come the Goths, Valagoths/Balagoths, Cibidi, Burgundians and Lombards.
They may have differentiated into the tribes Alamanni, Hermunduri, Marcomanni, Quadi, Suebi) circa 10 CE. At this time the Suebi, Marcomanni and Quadi had moved southwest into the area of modern day Bavaria and Swabia. In 8 BCE, the Marcomanni and Quadi drove the Boii out of Bohemia.
The term Suebi is usually applied to all the groups that moved into this area, though later in history (ca. 200 CE) the term Alamanni (meaning "all-men") became more commonly applied to the group. This became the basis for the French name for Germany and the Germans.
The Viking Age Norse form of the name Irmin (Jormun) can be found in a number of places in the Poetic Edda as a by name for Odin. This pans with both the historical circumstances of the Irminones in relationship to Rome, Widukinds confusion over whether Irmin was comparable to Mars or Hermes, and with Snorri Sturluson's allusions at the beginning of his Prose Edda; that Odin's cult appeared first in Germany and then spread up into the Ingaevonic North
Ingaevones North Sea Germans
* Frisians
* Saxons
* Jutes
* Angles
The Ingaevones or Ingvaeones (also referred to as "North Sea Germanics people") were a West Germanic cultural group or proto-tribe along the North Sea coast. Their name comes from Tacitus's Germania (circa 98 CE), in which he categorized them as one of the three tribes descended from the three sons of Mannus, son of Tuisto. They probably became distinct from the generality of North Germanic groups between around 1000 and 500 BCE, moving into the areas of Jutland, Holstein, Frisia and the Danish islands, where they had by about 50 BCE become further differentiated into the Frisians, Saxons, Jutes and Angles.
The northern varieties of Low Saxon and Low Franconian, together with English and Frisian, may all be classified as the North Sea Germanic or Ingvaeonic languages. Even in the distant past these languages seem to have been a collection of closely related dialects, sharing common innovations as the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law and continuously influencing each other, rather than diverging linearly from a common linguistic ancestor — a characteristic of West Germanic languages as a whole.
Other West Germanic proto-tribes were the Irminones and Istaevones.
Pliny c.80 AD in his Natural History (chapter IV, paragraph 99) lists the Ingaevones as one of the five German confederations. According to him they were made up of Cimbri, Teutons, and Chauci.
The legendary father of the Ingaevones/Ingvaeones is named *Ingwaz (Ing, Ingo, or Inguio), son of Mannus. Jacob Grimm, in his Teutonic Mythology, and many others consider this Ing to have been originally identical to the vague Scandinavian Yngvi, eponymous ancestor of the Swedish royal house of the Ynglings. An Ingui is also listed in the Anglo-Saxon royalhouse of Bernicia. This is also the name given to the Viking era deity Freyr.
In Nennius we find Mannus corrupted to Alanus and Ingio/Inguio, his son, to Neugio. Here the three sons of Neugio are named as Boganus, Vandalus, and Saxo — from whom came the peoples of the Bogari, the Vandals, and the Saxons and Tarincgi.
Istvaeones Rhine Germans or Weser-Rhine
* Cimbri
* Teutoni
* Hessians
* Franks
The Istvaeones (also called Istaevones, Istriaones, Istriones, Sthraones, Thracones, Rhine Germans or Weser-Rhine Germans (Istwäonen, Weser-Rhein-Germanen in German)) were a West Germanic cultural group or proto-tribe. Their name comes from Tacitus’ Germania (c. 98 CE) who categorized them as one of the tribes of Mannus and labelled them as those tribes who were not either Ingvaeones or Irminones. They dwelt around the Atlantic coast (modern day Netherlands, Belgium and northern France) as well as the Rhine and Weser river systems from perhaps 500 BCE, until the differentiation of localized Teutonic tribes (Chatti, Hessians, Franks) in that region circa 250 CE. There is also evidence some of them merged with the North Sea Germans (Ingvaeones).
Jakob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology urged that Iscaevones was the correct form, partly because it would connect the name to an ancestor figure in Norse mythology named Ask, partly because in Nennius where the name Mannus is corrupted as Alanus, the ancestor of the Istaevones appears as Escio or Hisicion. There the sons of this figure are, fantastically, from Frankish tradition, Francus, Romanus, Alamanus, and Bruttus, the supposed ancestors of the Franks, Latins, Germans and Britons. This seems to reflect Frankish desire to connect the Franks with the people they ruled.
East Germanic tribes
* Bastarnae
* Burgundians
* Goths
* Rugians
* Vandals
* Gepids
* Heruli
The Germanic tribes referred to as East Germanic constitute a wave of migrants who moved from Scandinavia into the area between the Oder and Vistula rivers between 600 - 300 BC. Later they went to the south.
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The Germanic tribes referred to as East Germanic constitute a wave of migrants who moved from Scandinavia into the area between the Oder and Vistula rivers between 600 - 300 BC. Later they went to the south.
Territories inhabited by East Germanic tribes between 100 BC and AD 300.
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