>More seriously: I think there has been Low German / High German
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diglossia
>in northern Germany, like there is now, ever since the arrival of
>the Bastarnae upper class in the mid 1st century BCE, and that the
>co-presence of Early High German in Northern Germany is the reason
>why it belongs to a separate political entity than the Netherlands.
If Bastarnae upper class infiltrated Northern Germany low German
speaking tribes, then why the fuss about South Germany? Then the
colonization and Germanization of the South was made by various
tribes coming from the North and the newcomers were Bastarnae-
dominated. This is how your thesis has to be presented. Ariovist
and his contemporaries are a wholly different epoch.
>There was no Roman empire north of the Danube and the Limes.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limes
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Limes_and_borders.gif
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Limes_Germanicus_2nd_c.png
Who the heck said there was a Roman empire presence north of
the Limes? Why are talking about something nobody has stated?
I was referring to the German (deutsche) colonizations of
the East 800-1,000 years after Rome went bust.
>As for what happened south of it, the Germanization of that
>area has always been a mystery, AFAIK.
It started 5-6 centuries after Ariovist (along the Rhine a
somewhat earlier).
>Fortunately for my scenario, it is immune to that question,
>since it supposes a two-way Bastarnization, one going south
>with Ariovistus, one going west.
Yeah sure. I'd be curious to see which historian, which univ.
institute would agree with your theory.
>After the Suebi left, the area was again inhabited by Gauls.
>Later on, the region was to become part of the Roman Empire.'
>but I didn't delete the sentence of the return of the Gauls,
>which AFAIK is without foundation in archaeology.
"Southern Germany" doesn't consist only of some Switzerland
valleys and doesn't consist only of some parts of Alsatia.
(The entire area, with a massive compact Oberdeutsch-speaking
population - at least since the 8th century -, comprises
Switzerland minus the French-Italian part, Alsactia, Lothar-
ingia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria,
Austria + Hesse & Bohemia+Moravia. These two were almost
depleted of their German-speaking population only in 1945-46.)
>What's a pre-German proto-German?
The fictitious Germanic population living in "South Germany"
from Ariovist's time until the 6th-7th century, when written
attestations more and more report on the Germanization of
the area.
This fictitious Germanic population would have been important
because of these two main aspects:
1) Ariovist's story (you repeat post after post)
2) a postulated Germanic southern Germany centuries before
the real Germanization thereof started.
Now, both these aspects are no longer necessary to discuss,
since you postulate another Bastarnian path: the influencing
by them of the Germanic populations living in northern Germany,
a feat that, according to your theory, happened in centuries
before Germanic masses emigrated to the south (esp. eager to
enter the territories of the declining-decaying western Roman
empire).
>On archaeology; the new homogeneous upper class spread out over
>all the heterogeneous Germanic peoples in Przeworsk and Jastorf.
And then they moved to the north?
>Elegant way of avoiding saying 'stupidly' which would require
>you to argue for your point of view.
>And:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frankish_Empire_481_to_814-en.svg
>Frankish conquest of Swabia 502. Swabia was Celtic and Romance?
It had been Celtic and Romance. Was it completely germanic in
those few centuries (but centuries immerhin!) as a Roman province?
>Southern Thuringia 774. Thuringia was Celtic and Romance?
Thuringia was way beyond the Limes and never belonged to "Romania".
>Bavaria 788. Bavaria was Celtic and Romance?
Both and. Bregenz, Augsburg, Passau and whole lotta other places
keep the memory of the Celtic presence within their Germanized
forms. (As well as the myriads of Celtic "Hünengräber" necropoles
all over Bavaria and Southern Germany, that have signs on any
better map, incl. the "Shell-Atlas".)
>You don't see the parallel?
I see the parallel, I understand every bit, every period and
comma of what you're saying. The problem is you can't see that
your fictitious "Bastarnization" of various Germanic groups
might have a relevance only via those Suebians
as well as
only after the massive Germanic colonization of the entire
southern area with Germanic tribes coming from the north and
from the north-east.
In a region where many hundred years later developed a kind
of deutsche Sprache called Hochdeutsch or better Oberdeutsch,
and which differs from other deutsche dialects because of some
sound shifts.
You say that differentiation already occurred at least one
millennium earlier and even that those Bastarnians had imposed
it to Germanic populations living in northern Germany (then why
the heck do the "Nordlichter" still speak Plattdüütsch? :))
>I was talking of alternative scenarios. No one has them, at
>least for part of the stretch my scenario covers.
The scenario might be okay. But don't waste the time with Ariovist.
Concentrate your attention on Suebians, on their territory and
on how numerous and influent they might have been all along the
centuries until Franks & Co. joined them so that the entire
Germanization process of the pre-Alpine, Alpine and trans-
Alpine region could be able to later on speak Oberdeutsch
dialects.
(A variant of this part of your theory might be: only western
parts of "southern Germany" were Germanized earlier, much
earlier, and "Bastarnized" at that because the carriers were
the Suebians themselves - whereas the eastern parts of "southern
Germany" had to wait for Germanic newcomers from the Rhine,
Weser, Elbe and Vltava areas, and for Irish and Anglo-Saxon
monks.)
And the other think is for you to supply an adequate scenario
for the "Bastarnization" of the relevant Germanic tribes that
later on moved to the south and occupied much of the former
Roman-dominated territory.
>I would love to hear qualified criticism.
Buy some antenna & sensors for that. :)
>Because it is not crucial to my scenario, which accommodate both
>those sub-scenarios, the one with Bastarnianized Swebians staying
>in place in Swabia and the one in which they are 'supplemented'
>with Bastarnianized North German peoples.
See? You repeat it yourself, in your words. Exactly! It is this
where you should develop your theory: (1) how numerous and how
important were Suebians living in South-Western Germany, and
how their Bastarnization happened (whether they were Bastarnae
from the very beginning); and (2) how was the Bastarnization of
other Germanic tribes (incl. those living in northern provinces),
namely of those Germanic tribes that later performed the
Germanization of Southern Germany under the domination of the
Franks and then under the domination of the kings and emperors
of "Eastern Francia" = "the Holy Roman Empire", that included
for a while Italy & the Langobard realm. The (3) and the most
important topic would be to show the plausibility of your
hypothesis: Bastarnae already spoke a proto-Oberdeutsche kind
of Germanic dialect.
(Up to now, only one thing is plausible or proved: in the
Germanization of the southern provinces of the "Holy Roman
empire" indeed took part Suebians and some populations that
moved from the Elbe & Vistula area thither. That those
populations had spoken some kind of "Oberdeutsch" Germanic
many centuries before Oberdeutsch gradually came into
existence is a fiction, I'm afraid.)
>No one knows anything of the Sedusii. The Marcomanni reappear in
>Bohemia.
Virtually all Germanic presence North-East of southern Germany
is okay and... necessary, since those tribes really contributed
later on to the fall of the Roman empire and to the gradual
Germanization of the territory.
Note that the Triboci, Vangiones and Nemetes are in the middle and Ariovistus' own peoples, the Suebi and the Harudes are on the wings, where you would expect auxilliaries and allies to be. What that fact means, I don't know.
>To win your approval. I think I see the contour of your idea of
>Southern Germany: it was Roman and German-free up until the
>very dark ages where the nasty Germans attacked and conquered
>you. That doesn't match the facts, I'm afraid.
Then, in your opinion what was the composition of the population
in the South Germany's provinces (incl. Rhaetia and Noricum)
when these provinces were definitely provinces of the Roman
empire? Do you emply that those (let's call them) Suebi were
so numerous and covering such a wide area that they were the
autochtonous population between Strasbourg and Vienna and from
Mannheim and Meran in all those centuries until Franks came
along and imposed a different discipline?
>No you weren't, as can be seen from the previous exchange which
>I have reinserted. You were talking of 'the massive colonization
>of the southern former Celtic and former Romanized territories
>in the 5th-6th-7th centuries'. Seriously, George, get a grip.
>I think you should delete what you deem excess material *after*
>you write your answer, not before.
If I wrote Celtic, then read *Germanic*: I repeatedly wrote in
the other posts of the Germanic Besiedelung in those times
especially as far as historic Bavaria (i.e. between Württemberg
and Pannonia) was concerned. The German history of these vast
parts of Southern Germany starts then; the Suebian presence
started earlier, but AFAIK was limited geographically and
numerically until various other tribes joined those remnants
(exp. the Alamanians joined in in those areas and Burgundians
west of them).
>Yes, I think there was diglossia ther from the arrival of the
>Bastarnian refugees and ever after.
Awright. Then do elaborate on this. Don't wast your and our time
with Ariovist any longer. :)
>Yes, frankly, reconstructing the contexts you delete is tedious
>work. Could you repeat the question?
No, I won't. Learn to use this medium.
>No idea.
When the Germanization of the territory started and was
never reversed: after the 5th-6th-7th centuries. So focus
on those Suebians and gather info on how big or small
could have been their impact in the area of the upper Rhine
under Romans before Franks, Alamanians etc. joined them in
their "Berlitz school" to teach pupils a "better" German.
And focus in on the question "did Schöffe migrate from the
upper to the lower Rhine or did it migrate vice versa?"
and "was there an overlapping shofet-suffet and tchooban-
zhoopan?" (In order to fit the Subject line: "Schöffe" &
"OHG".)
George