Re: [tied] Goths and Germans

When I was studying classics, I learned that the Roman Senate awarded them the name 'Germani' during the Republic which meant 'brothers.' Is there anything to this? If so, the title doesn't seem to have fit for very long.

Kraig

The very much amateur

----- Original Message -----

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 2:06 PM

Subject: [tied] Goths and Germans

A crazy guess:

Germa:n- may be a straightforward Latin translation of Germanic Gut-an- 'Goths'. For a linguistic analysis of the latter term, see

http://www.egroups.com/message/cybalist/2024

If the weak-declension stem that serves as name of the Goths is derived from the verb root represented by Gothic giutan 'flow', -gutnian 'pour', it may have meant something like 'springing forth (from the same source), offshoot', hence the Latin calque germa:nus 'of the same race, having the same parents' (cf. germen 'embryo, sprout, offshoot').

Opinions?

Piotr