The Huns

[Orthodox Warior]

Iirc, some people have argued that the Vandals were Polish (!) on the early Poles were called "Wends", which is think is actually a third group altogether.

Some byzantine chroniclers used the word "Wends" for Serbs. Or maybe that word symbolized the Slavs?

 

[klazlo]

Vrylakas, that other thread you linked to from here is absolutely amazing. I don't know if I've ever seen so much information in this forum condensed in this number of posts.

Yep, that was a good time. Most of the credit should go to Vrylakas who put together some amazing stuff about the topic.

 

[Vrylakas]

Iirc, some people have argued that the Vandals were Polish (!) on the early Poles were called "Wends", which is think is actually a third group altogether.

Woohoo! Now we're Vandals!

The term “Wends” derives from a mysterious people who lived in what is today western Poland right about the time the Slavs showed up in the late 6th century A.D., and after living among the Slavs for some period, they moved northwards into Scandinavia. They were called the Venedi, and seem to have played an important role in passing on lots of technical skills and technology to the early Lechitic (Slavic) tribes. There are a lot of place names throughout that region that are approximately associated with the area the Venedi lived, and which are very likely Indo-European in origin but not necessarily Slavic. We’re not sure what their ethnicity may have been in connection to any of the surrounding peoples — Slavs, Balts, Germanics — but the loan words they left in modern Polish seem to strongly suggest Indo-European origins.

The Germans, therefore, came to associate all Slavs with this Venedi people, and for centuries referred to all Slavs as Die Wenden. In the later 19th century and onwards, this title (Wenden or “Wends&#8221 became specifically applied to the old Polabian Slav-remnant peoples (leftovers from the 9th century Charlemagne wars on the Elbe) living in modern Lusatia in eastern Germany, who actually call themselves Serbs—long story there—but are called by others variously “Wends”, “Sorbs”, “Lusatian Slavs” or simply “Lusatians”. They are, sadly, a dying people (culturally), as most younger Lusatian Slavs are more interested in blending into the larger German popular and business/career culture than in preserving their parents’ language and ways, so that their language is only spoken nowadays by the older Lusatians and will likely be extinct within a generation or so.