Language and History in the Early Germanic World

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Aug 28, 2000 - Foreign Language Study - 438 pages
This book offers a distinctive and accessible approach to the earliest encounters of the barbarian societies of Northern Europe with classical antiquity and with early Christianity. It brings together linguistic evidence from across Europe and dating from before Caesar to about 900 AD, to shed light on important aspects of Germanic culture. It shows how historical phonology and semantics, often avoided by non-specialists, can provide important clues for historians and archaeologists of the period. Likewise, it demonstrates that philologists and linguists ignore historical evidence at their peril.
 

Contents

Religion
13
Law
30
Kinship
49
Warfare
67
People and army
84
Lordship
102
Kingship
121
CONTACT WITH THE NONGERMANIC WORLD
141
The vocabulary of writing
254
CONTACT WITH THE CHRISTIANITY
271
Introduction to Part III
273
Problems of Christianisation
275
The influence of provincial Roman Christianity
291
The influence of Gothic
308
The influence of the Merovingian Franks
325
The influence of the AngloSaxons
341

Introduction to Part II
143
Contact with the Celts
145
The migration of the Goths
164
Germanic loanwords in Latin
182
Latin loanwords in Germanic
201
Trade and warfare with the Romans
219
Names of days of the week
236
Contrasts in Christian vocabulary
357
The vocabulary of ethics and fate
374
Guide to further reading in English
392
Bibliography
398
Index of words
425
Copyright

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Page 419 - Die Urheimat der Goten und ihre Wanderungen ins Weichselland und nach Südrußland.
Page xii - MGH AA = Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi MGH SS = Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores (in folio) NA = Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für Ältere Deutsche Geschichtskunde PG = Patrologia Graeca, ed.