Re: [tied] Plinius and Tacitus

>It is hard to tell what language was spoken in Gotland and coastal
>Sweden at the time the Goths occupied the Vistula basin; the cognacy
>of tribal names seems suggestive in this case, but such links often
>prove deceptive; and remember that the names, though related, are
>not formally identical. Still, the traditional account of the origin
>of the Goths favours the idea of trans-Baltic migrations and
>contacts, and I understand that there is some archaeological support
>for them as well.
>
>Remember, however, that Old Guthnish did not derive from Gothic;
>it was unmistakably an East Scandinavian dialect, albeit a
>conservative-looking one (the effect of insularity) in comparison
>with its closest relatives, Swedish and Danish There's little to
>connect it with Gothic except for shared archaisms of no probative
>value. In terms of genetic relationship, it is more closely related
>to English, Dutch and German (all of them members of the Northwest
>Germanic taxon) than to Gothic. In other words, the expansion of
>North Germanic ("Dansk") did not leave an East Germanic enclave in
>Gotland but engulfed the island as well. Old Guthnish was _imposed_
>rather than "left" there!
>
>Piotr
>

Piotr,

I understand this is a difficult area.
What is your view about the late professor Elias Wesséns statements
that the language of the Gutnish people on Gotland and the Goths in
the Vistula area were almost identical at the beginning of CE.

Has there come new evidence that he is wrong? He wrote this in Fornvännen 1969.

There is a tendency to confuse Gotland with Sweden but their cultures
are completely different.

The arcaheological links between Gotland and the Gothic culture as we
know it in the Vistula area and on its way to the Black Sea are
overwhelming.

Tore
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