Re: Schöffe I (a few details on OHG)

From: Torsten
Message: 67442
Date: 2011-05-01

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "t0lgsoo1" <guestuser.0x9357@...> wrote:
>
> >Except for Bucharest and Ploeşti?
>
> "Late" in a time span betw. 550-2011. (Bucharest a few years
> earlier than 1400; Ploiesti perhaps around 1400, real documents
> starting around 1500.)

Very slow fad. With your permission I'll think of the -eşti suffix as possibly subtrate.


> >I know you want me to clean up your mess after you
>
> Look who's talkin'! Put your own stuff in order (as Brian told
> you), and only after that let your legions march on the boulevard.

Brian has recently commended me for using normal quoting practices. I am very proud.


> >I said circular.
>
> Yeah sure.

Concrete objection?


> >George, puhleeze, stay on the subject.
>
> Torsten, pls. click this: http://learn.to/quote

Pls. stay on the subject.


> >George, stay on the subject.
>
> I do, but you should expand your (bio-)RAM to be able to see it. :)

I don't know what kind of brain surgery I should have performed on me in order to see the logical thread in your postings, but I respectfully decline.


> At the time of the Suebi tribal confederation led by Ariovistus
> arrival in Gaul
>
> For the last time:
>
> can you show some evidence that those Germanic contingents
> had a significant Germanic CONTINUATION from Alsatia to Noricum,
> namely to such a significative extent (and during the entire
> period of Roman state domination in those provinces) until that
> territory was Germanized for good in the 5th-6th-7th centuries?

Some facts point in that direction, eg the later presence of Swabians across the Rhine from where Ariovistus' Suebi were defeated by Caesar. However, archaeologically, the Eastern Germanic traces of Ariovistus' invasion in Central German and in the Wetterau valley (very important access route for Germanic attacks!) disappear after a short time.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/55551
Hachmann's dithering on the origin of those traces might have to do with avoiding having your results be used by British Israelism loonies or the like, which is not career-furthering.


> If you can't do that, then Ariovist's Germanic subjects are
> of no higher relevance than any other Germanic populations
> in the following 5-6 centuries after Ariovits's era. The
> territory where High German is spoken wasn't Germanized in
> the 1st c. BCE in spite of the presence of some Germanic
> groups in the upper Rhine valley.

Ariovistus' brother-in-law was king Voccio of Noricum, who according to Caesar had sent his sister to Caesar for marriage, although A. was already married with a home girl. That speaks for some type of strategic partnership. At the same time Caesar was first given the proconsulship of Gallia Cisalpina, not Transalpina, with capital in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquileia
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Shepherd_Map_of_Ancient_Italy%2C_Northern_Part.jpg
Furthermore, Caesar tells that he had as consul in 59 BCE seen to it that Ariovistus was given the status as 'friend of the Roman people' although neither he nor any other chronicler tells us for what reason. Something fishy is going on, and I think Ariovistus was ravaging Southern Germany at that time, or the above facts would make no sense.


> Whether those Germanic groups managed - during that long time
> span - to get the upper hand within next Germanic power configura-
> tions in Germany and Gaul, that's another question, which would
> be your 2nd task to substantiate: how were they able to become
> the "upper class" in the Frankish, Langobard, Alamanian etc.
> tribes/populations.

The fact that they were, is shown by the matching non-Germanic words in p- in Low German and pf- in High German. In other words, Southern Germany was invaded by Northern Germans speaking upper layer High German, lower Low German.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/67402

As to why: why did die Scheisspreissen become the leading layer in Germany in 1871? Because the had the ambition to. They were a militarized frontier state and they lived by war.


> >a rapid decrease of settlement density can be observed in the
> >areas of the upper and middle Oder River basin. In fact the
> >Gubin group of the Jastorf culture disappeared then entirely,
> >which may indicate this group's identity with one of the
> >Suebi tribes.
>
> The only sign

No, they are talking about archaeology. Whole groups disappeared then.

> is the fact that medieval Suebians (and Alamanians)
> have the same name, and that Langobards were also some Germanic
> group of the Suebian-Alamanian type. So, indirectly, one might
> say that their ancestors might have spoken a Germanic dialect
> that in time became "Hoch"deutsch (or Oberdeutsch). Corroborated
> with the knowledge of the, anyway, unfurled big movement from
> what's now East-Germany and Poland to what's now Alsacia, South-
> Germany, Switzerland and Austria (and Northern Italy).
>
> You tend to repeat the same Przeworsk-Ariovist story, not caring
> about the significance of the next 5-6 centuries and about the
> tremendous influence exerted by Franks (who really had might and
> clout, and really influenced the Christianization and the fixing
> of some kind of old German (Deutsch) language in written forms,
> esp. in "Althochdeutsch"). That's why, if your assumption had
> something, then that "social class" with Bastarnian roots must
> have been somewhere around Clovis & Co.

They did. Here is what happened to Arminius' Cherusci
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherusci#Aftermath
cf.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminius#Inter-tribal_conflicts_and_death
'Thereafter, war broke out between Arminius and Marbod, king of the Marcomanni (see above). The war ended with Marbod's retreat, but Arminius did not succeed in breaking into the "natural fortification" that Bohemia is. Consequently, the war ended in stalemate. Arminius also faced serious difficulties at home from the family of his wife and other pro-Roman leaders.'
The
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcomanni
were part of Ariovistus' army, thus 'proper' Bastarnian-mixed Germani.

According to Kuhn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segestes
is an old-style NWBlock name,
Segimundus and Segimarus (Siegmund and Siegmar) are proper-Germanic two-element names, which at that time became established.


> >As a result of the consequent Roman efforts to subjugate all
> >of Germania, the member tribes of the Suebi alliance became
> >displaced, moved east, conquered the Celtic tribes that stood in
> >their way and settled, the Quadi in Moravia, and the Marcomanni
> >in Bohemia.
>
> With some probability that they later on were called Bogoarii
> or Baiuvari, who started Germanization of Southern Germany in
> the 6th-7th c. (And there are theories that they were mixed
> with some populations from the Caucasus region, perhaps some
> Alanic populations.)

Or much earlier. This has also to do with the destruction of the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppidum_of_Manching
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppidum_of_Manching#The_end_of_the_oppidum
Ščukin speculates that it might have been destroyed by Ariovistus.


> >A Roman defeat known as the Teutoburg Forest Battle (9 AD)
> >stabilized the situation at the peripheries of the Empire
> >to some degree.
>
> This sentence contains a contradiction: Arminius's victory
> actually meant a weakening of the Roman position, so that
> the attempts at conquering further Germanic territories stopped
> there. The second problem of your sentence (in connection
> with the previous ones dealing with situations in Bohemia)
> is that the Teutoburg clashes had to do with an area of
> interest at the lower Rhine (in the vicinity of today's
> Xanten, near Netherland's border).

You are confused. That is not my sentence, it is from my quote of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland_in_Antiquity#Early_Roman_wars_and_movement_of_tribes
That kind of confusion is what you risk when you follow the practice you recommend of deleting the context of previous answers before answering a posting.

> Many hundreds of km distance
> to Prague, Budweis (Budejovice) and Brünn (Brno). AFAIK
> (correct me if I'm wrong), in those years and 1-2 c. after
> that, at the limes that crossed Bavaria there weren't
> significant problems with the Germanic ones living NE of
> it (Franconia [i.e. Bavaria's Franken], Bohemia, Thuringia etc.).

Yes the nearest Germanic peoples in that area were

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcomanni and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadi

but the area between the Alps and the Danube was conquered under
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus
so Suebians might have hidden here.


> >You mean before the real Germans came in? Here:
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetii
>
> There it says Helvetii were Celts and that seemingly only one
> subgroup might have been Germmanic, perhaps "Teutonic".

Yes. They were the people who lived in Southern Germany before Ariovistus arrived.

> Not too numerous and significant for later hochdeutsche times.

And irrelevant, since they were Celts.

> (At the time of alemannische-schwäbische-bairische Germanization
> of southern Germany, the generations of the "Teutonic" rests
> in Switzerland might have been Romanized for centuries, thus
> being, in the eyes of the newcomers, "Walchen"/"Blochen" or,
> in a more recent kind of Deutsch, "Welsche", and might have
> induced Romance toponymic relics such as Waals, Wallis,
> Walchensee. As was the case of those Rhaetians who also got
> Romanized (i.e. becaame "walhisc") and left some tiny
> minorities who today speak Ladin and Rumansh.)

True. Some claim there are Slavic toponyms in Graubünden.


> >You have either completely misunderstood what I have proposed,
> >or garbled your sentences, or you're deliberately trying to
> >derail the discussion.
>
> I get it very well (cento per cento), but it is you who doesn't
> understand that you cannot stop in the 1st c. CE. You neglect
> or you don't care for the next centuries: in order for a Germanic
> population to be able to influence linguistically other Germanic
> groups it must fulfill some preconditions. One of it you've
> already stated repeatedly: the assumption that a part of that
> supposed population was very important socially, so that it
> must have become some kind of upper class or nobility in other
> Germanic environments. OK with that. But then you have to show
> some scenario as to how that group/class managed to get the
> upper hand in other significant Germanic populations, and *where*
> -- namely *which* of those populations who later on really
> colonized southern Germany. Some of them? Or all of them?

All of them. I propose that simultaneously with Ariovistus' expedition south (perhaps lured by a offer from Caesar), Bastarnian infiltrated and took over the whole Germanic-speaking area, including Western Germania and Scandinavia.


> For, AFAIK, the Germanic presence PRIOR to the major "inroads"
> performed by Germanic tribes into the Roman territory, as SPQR
> got weaker and weaker (in the 3rd-4th-5th c., when the Roman
> army and military administration got more and more... Germanized),
> had little or no impact.

Probably.

> It is this what I deem the weakest part of your theory.

As you have (mis)understood it.

> Not the sentences regarding Ariovist's and
> Germanic people's movements back and forth in the 1st century
> BCE. Especially since your theory is aimed at a precisely
> uttered thesis: Bastarnae's own vernacular was the inception of
> the Oberdeutsch German dialect group (i.e., ich/ech + er sayers
> versus the ik + he sayers :)).

Yes.

> >Those are two wild goose chases you hope to set me on.
>
> I only can hope you'll be dealing with this part of your
> theory in the next decade. :)

I already did.

> >I suspect the 'massive Germanic colonization of the territory
> >in question' they told you about in school is an artifact of
> >linguistics
>
> Ach sooo!... Well, then... we're acceleratedly approach the saying
> "Hopfen & Malz". :)

Don't forget that the description of the 'Südsiedlung' includes fights with native peoples.

> >set so late in time because one tends to place undocumented,
> >reconstructed events of undocumented times as recent as possible,
> >to avoid the feeling of uncertainty.
>
> Aha? Do schaug her! :)
>
> >they are relevant to my scenario, so I might mention them again.
>
> By now, everybody has gotten it: Bastarnians might have played
> some "pivotal" role in your theory. OK. Now then: give some
> details regarding the "procedere" - how their inheritors became
> ... marshalls, seneshals, dukes, kings within later significant
> Germanic political configurations, that set up polities during
> the decline of western SPQR and after its fall. AFAIK, regarding
> the future "deutsches Volk" there, only Franks, Alamanians,
> Suebians and Bavarians had an impact. Goths, Vandals, Langobards
> et al. almost no impact (they were focusing in on other geogr.
> realms).

Okay. First you give me a short (say, 20-21 lines) description of all the details of how Prussians took over Germany in the years following 1871.


> >At last you get it?
>
> At last you're as courageous as to mumble it. :)

You need glasses. ;-)


> >That's written evidence, not archaeological evidence. All you
> >your little pointless spiels detract from the substance of
> >your postings.
>
> I'm not doing anything like that: it's only your own impression
> because your... limits show up. In fact, your theory, in your
> mind, isn't a theory=hypothesis any longer, but a dogma. You
> are already sure. Your argument already has been - as one puts
> it in "Bastarnian" - 'vorgefasst'. So, what you are doing is a
> monologue, you in fact don't need any input from cybalist
> netizens other than "yessir, that's right!" :)

I need critical input. Of course I wouldn't be happy with incontrovertible evidence that my scenario was impossible, but that's life. And besides, no one else has anything to offer for the period in question. All they offer is attempts at censorship and calls to order, ie to adherence to the present stance of 'we don't know'.

> (A way better place for your presentation would be a personal
> blog.)

I wouldn't get so much qualified criticism in a blog.


> >Then we'd still have to explain why Frankish is High German.
>
> Frankish isn't Oberdeutsch, it is Mitteldeutsch, and, in the
> Luxemburg, Cologne, Aachen areas and along a line in the NE
> direction (through Berlin), it is a mixture of MD and low
> German Mundarten.
>
> If I were you, I'd ask myself why have so many features of pre-
> Oberdeutsch sound shifts reached so southern areas, namely
> especially along the Rhine and way into the Alamanian linguistic
> group (esp. Alsacia and Switzerland), where, e.g., the lung u
> has stayed so or barely changed to an &u diphtong, in contrast
> with the eastern Oberdeutsch neighbors (Schwaben & Baiern) whose
> long u has turned to an [aj] as broad as they come. Whether
> this has something to do with the major inroads performed by
> considerable immigrations of Franks, other Rhine-Weser as well
> as (perhaps) North-Sea groups.

*Å« -> au is a rule that has applied in both some High German and some English dialects. The dialects which retain *Å« have nothing in common besides being conservative; this is a general principle which applies also to those IE dialects which retain k^, the kentum languages, being unaffected by the *k^ which applies in the satem languages.

> (Only Bavaria's Franks' dialect is quite Oberdeutsch, i.e.
> around Nenberch and upwards towards Bamberg, Würzburg. But
> Ripuarians on both sides of the Rhine are speakers of dialects
> that are semi-low German, e.g. in Kölle-alaaf.)
>
> >NWBlock. He hints at that being Venetic.
>
> In your opinion, what kind of population were those Veneti?
> Illyrian? Slavic? Or?

Possibly Italic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetic
Further, both Slavic and Germanic show early loans from an Italic language. In my experience those tend to be from the Latin 'mots populaires' with root /a/.


> >>I know. But this could be a scenario.
> >
> >You're free to develop one.
>
> On topic is your own theory, esp. the part of it dealing with
> the history of the penetration by the "Bastarnian noble ones"
> of other Germanic "Pfalz" dwellers.

OK.

> >the Franks stand out from the other Germanic groups is that
> >they, or at least the bulk the bulk of the population were
> >bodenständig, ie they were not about plunder in a far and
> >foreign region, but were trying to extend their own country
> >in a sustainable way.
>
> And they seem to have been in the first place of the top
> of those who imposed the so-called "feudal" society.

Check Georgian dances on Youtube. Some of the costumes look very Medieval European nobility.

> >As I said, I think they were distributed evenly over all Germanic
> >peoples.
>
> Yes-yes, but... *why*. Only because of the later spreading of
> that type of deutsche Sprache one calls "Hochdeutsch"? If only
> because of this, then it is very thin: the spreading might have
> had various different (and later) causes (esp. the way *how*
> and *where* Church centers & monasteries developed better and
> in higher numbers).

No, because of archaeology: the new upper class in the finds in those years is spread evenly and homogeneously over all of heterogeneous Germany (Przeworsk and Jastorf).

> >That means that all the later wars between Germanic people were
> >originally family feuds;
>
> As usual. (To a certain extent, the 1st WW as well.)

Good point.


> >You keep wanting to identify the new layer with an existing German
> >tribe. Archaeology doesn't want to grant you that.
>
> No: I'm strictly referring to epochs much later (centuries later)
> and am asking in which of the relevant future deutsche Stämme
> might have played an upper class role those groups that you would
> deem as the inheritors of the old Bastarnae et al. similar groups,
> who *once* left that Przeworsk area moving in a south-west
> direction. Thus, methinks that archeology finds concerning the
> 1st c. BCE are OF COURSE different from those finds concerning,
> say, the 5th-6th-7th centuries CE (so, in this respect, archeology
> would be of no help for comparingly scrutinizing the era of the
> (1) German colonization of the plains north of the Alps, and
> of the (2) Christian missions in the same area (esp. the Irish
> and Anglo-Saxon ones, under the surveillance of Frankish royal
> and imperial overlords).

I think that, if push came to shove, class ties would prevail over ethnic ties: a, say, Frankish or Langobardian peasant would never, ever be counted as more valuable than, say, a Thuringian or Burgundian noble, even efter the kingdoms of the latter had perished. They might be killed, but be part of the peasantry, never. It's just not the German way.


> >The Sueui were Ariovistus' people. In a sense, the Sueui was, or
> >supplied, the new upper layer in Germania. I think they were the
> >Bastarnae.
>
> If Sueui > Suebians.

Yes.

> >So I don't think they were Bastarnae.
>
> So let's retain that your theory says Vangiones, Triboci and
> Nemetes weren't important within the link Bastarnae -> Hochdeutsch.

Yes.

> >Ostsiedlung north of the Limes? No way.
>
> Read! "later medieval Ostsiedlung"! That means way after
> 1000-1200! And not in Roman times! (Ein bißerl Konzentration,
> pls.!)
>

Immediately north of the Limes. No way.


> >>IMHO, the best candidate would have been the Frankish
> >>nation. I for one would examine the plausibility of
> >>such a hypothesis.
> >
> >Go ahead.
>
> It is your theory (or dogma). So, it is you the one who'll
> show which of the Germanic mighty forces might have had
> the most significant "Bastarnian" input. I only think of
> Franks because in the time periods significant for the
> discussion only they accomplished something (and the
> Burgundians to a lesser extent, without influences
> towards Germany, in a limited small area). Other Germanic
> mighty groups of some "magnitude" vanished after a while
> (Vandals, Goths, Gepids & al.). The Langobards after a
> somewhat longer while.

You have a thing with the Franks I don't share. And I am not going to develop your theories for you.

> >I don't know where the idea of a German colonization of Southern
> >Germany in the 4th-6th centuries comes from.
>
> Written documents & archeology! With few exceptions, the
> immense majority of the old settlements are attested starting
> with the 6th, yet especially the 7th century. Especially in
> Bavaria (where I've got the chance on more frequent occasions
> to read about such stuff, even upon entering premises of
> some churches, than in the case of Württemberg and Baden).


> >If I were you, I'd take a look at what that supposed event
> >is based on.
>
> You yourself should do that, coz, otherwise, the entire
> community of historians will laugh at you (provided that
> they's pay attention to your theory -oops- dogma). It stands
> as the "amen" in the church (as the "Bastarnian" sayin goes)
> that the massive Germanic colonization was several centuries
> earlier in the area of major former Roman settlements (above
> all Colonia Agrippinensis = Cologne) and the massive
> colonization of the southern former Celtic and former
> Romanized territories in the 5th-6th-7th centuries.

No one doubts the Germanic invasions south of the former Roman border. It's the supposed invasion north of it I doubt.


> This is
> not my invention, this is common standard stuff taught as
> such for centuries now here, where the vernacular neo-"Bastarnian"
> is spoken (and where the last "Bastarnian" empire started,
> that of "Dolfi" 78 years ago :)).

It sounds a bit fuzzy to me.


> >The Roman empire never controlloed the land north of the
> >Danube. That leaves a lot of Germany to Germani.
>
> And what role played esp. south of the Limes - prior to the
> 6th-7th c. German colonization - the presence of some booze
> and dope addict dirty chaotic Germanic fellas?

I think you are taking liberty with the evidence here.


> Much the more
> so, since the real mighty organization was at the hands and
> minds of other groups, esp. those known as Franks, whose
> positions were in other, western-north-western regions.
>
> Your theory rises and falls with the answering the question:
> was there a significant Germanic presence in the south of
> the future "Roman Empire of German Nation" (Eastern Francia)
> between Ariovist and the incipient German settlements under
> the Merowingian and Carolingian Bosse der Bosse? If there
> was no significant one, then your theory, in order to succeed
> and get you the prize, has to seek a different path. (Which
> would imply that those Germanic ones whom you call Bastarnae,
> after they played for a while in ancient times in Baden and
> Alsacia, must have left the region and joined some other
> configurations, where they rapidly must have climbed the
> hierarchy ladder, and this in order to satisfy your thesis:
> they were sort of a "nobility" within the configurations of
> the then Europe's "Germania".)

No, as I said, the Ariovistus campaign and the Bastarnization of Northern Germania were two parallel, but separate events. The Bastarnization of the Franks possibly a third one.


> >>Are you able to make a synthesis between the wanna-be
> >>continuators of Ariovist's Germanic tribes and the massive
> >>immigration of Germanic populations (the future Germans
> >>speaking lingua teodisca) 400-500 years later?
> >
> >If you tell me what that the evidence for that supposed
> >event is.
>
> Hehe, that's your task! I don't know of any "Bastarnian"
> "noble or royal" "caste" to have infiltrated other Germanic
> groups, so that those Germanic groups' chances were enhanced
> when dealing with the moribund Rome. And I'm afraid the odds
> that such a social class really existed and it really was
> the direct inheritor of Bastarnae (genetically, linguistically
> and culturally) are worse than those of the 18th c. Illuminati
> to have considerably (or decisively?) influenced those who made
> the revolution succeed in France starting in 1789. :)

Whatever.
I already refered you to an article on the possible link between the Black Sea and the Franks (the 'fly' fibulas).

> >I did. Glad it got through eventually.
>
> Now you're in to carry on, and to supply the decisive details.
> (You seem reluctant to do that, esp. by inviting me to do
> this: "go ahead", you said. :))

???


> >Yes, but Ariovistus was Germanic, Burebista Dacian and Burebista
> >attacked the Germani. If they were the same, he would have
> >attacked himself.
>
> BTW, in the 19th c. there were some scholars who deemed Dacians
> as a Germanic population. They even established... German
> lineages for the names of illustrious Dacian kings; I still
> remember ... Dietwald, as the German equivalent for Decebalus. :)
> (And some learned people in the 15th c. or so from among the
> Transylvania's German population also thought of Dacians as
> their direct ancestors, although they knew of their actual
> Flemish, west-Frankish and Vallon roots.)

Interesting, but hardly a case for a Burebista/Ariovistus attacking himself.


> >>And even if in some years Dacians would have managed to
> >>supply x thousand Germanic slaves it looks like a bit weird
> >>to me that out of that Germanic slaves contingent those
> >>three Germanic tribes pop up in Alsace and Baden-Württemberg
> >>and the same tribes multiplied in so far as to build a
> >>compact Germanic population near the Alps in order to
> >>pass on Hochdeutsch to the bulk of Germanic "late-comers"
> >>of the 5th-6th-7th centuries.
> >
> >So? Millions of Germans perished in WWII in Eastern Europe and
> >millions fled. Where's the dilemma?
>
> The dilemma only consists of the lack of "news" on the
> Germanic multiplication in the relevant territory (under Roman
> administration) in those centuries before the real massive
> German(ic) colonization of the South set in. (But now the three
> tribes during Ariovst's period have to be "deleted", since you
> yourself say in this post they weren't important in the end.)

Archaeologically it is clear that Ariovistus or whoever did a thorough job of removing the Helvetii from the area.


> Gimme information on the existing of such a massive Germanic
> presence under SPQR auspices south of the Limes, and the
> dilemma will evaporate. (I'm looking forward to your presenting
> me an explanation why written attestations tell us of inceptions
> and not of... continuations in the 5th-6th centuries; and why
> did the territory need the missions unfurled by Anglo-Saxon
> and Irish monks and bishops, since, with a massive Germanic
> population who spent centuries under Rome, that had become
> Christian, the Church would have other possibilities, much
> earlier. On top of that, Goths, who in the 5th-6th century
> became Italy's bosses, would also have taken care of the
> mission, even if they rather belonged to the Arianist
> Christianity.)

Good point. As I said, some evidence points to continued presence of Germani in the area, other evidence says the area was only populated again after immigration from the north. In both cases, however, the resulting population would have had a composition of Bastarnae at the top, laeti or *skalkoz at the bottom.


> >That supposed Germanic invasion of Southern Germany in the
> >4th - 8th century CE keeps recurring in your arguments.
> >I'd like to see the evidence for it.
>
> Have you never read/heard of it? If you are in so good
> command of German it is curious that this is new to you.
> In the German-speaking countries this is belongs to
> almost everyone's Allgemeinbildung. Even the main myths
> and legends are based on the major events that occurred
> in the middle of the 1st millenium CE (Hildebrandslied,
> Dietrich von Bern (Theoderich), Nibelungen & Etzel and
> the like; historians and linguists have established that
> Nibelungenlied's Siegfried has various features inspired
> from a real Rhineland Frankish king who was buried in
> Cologne or so).
>
> From a Germanic pre-era in Southern Germany there is
> nothing (neither in legends and myths). Or there is a lot,
> and I haven't heard/read about it, but then I'm wondering
> why German, Austrian and Swiss mass-media and schools keep
> mum on that hypothetic proto-Germanic... colonization,
> why weren't, for instance, Swapinga (the initial name of
> a settlement that today is a Munich borrough and called
> Schwabing), mentioned earlier than the 6th century, especially
> since you suggest that a significant Germanic tribe was
> big and mighty in the South centuries earlier and that
> the more recent Suebi were and are their "nephews". Why
> on Augusta Vindelicorum no earlier attestations as a
> Germanized city - that has, in the 2nd millennium CE,
> belonged up to day to the Oberdeutsch dialect called
> Schwäbisch, i.e. Suebian, and its German name is now
> Augsburg. (Augusta V'corum already had existed under Octavian
> Augustus, at least since 15 BCE.)

I have a theory that the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_hunt
is an old memory of slaver raids in the south, with Ariovistus as Wotan (Croatian voda "army detachment", thus *wodin- would be a titel similar to *vožd- "(military) leader".


Torsten