Where did the Germans come from - Scandinavia or Germany?

[Pangur Bán]

Where did the Germans come from?

Germanic languages are too closely related to argue that these languages evolved naturally in both Scandinavia and Germany.
So where did they come from? Did the language group originate in Germany/continental Europe, or in Scandinavia, or somewhere else for that matter?


EDIT: this thread was a quick improvisation because I had DPed the Celts thread

 

[Yoda Power]

I think they had their origins in Denmark/sourthen Sweden, or Poland, that just seems most realistic to me.

 

[Finmaster]

The people didn't necessarily come from the same place where their language did. My home country, Finland, is a great example of this: The people who originally spoke finno-ugrian languages come from Russia, from the river of Volga - and so does the Finnish language. However, most researches today believe that the Finns have more roots towards Sweden and Germany than towards Russia.

I believe that Germany has it's roots in the east. Meanwhile, Scandinavians (and their languages) are German heritage (notice that the viking religions in 1000 AD are pretty much the same religion as what the Germans had a thousand years earlier). It seems more understandable to me that the Germans would have travelled north to scandinavia rather than scandinavians would have travelled south to Germany.

So, my theory is: First, German-speaking people came from east to Germany. From there, some people continued their travelling towards Scandinavia and formed their own language there.

 

[luiz]

I think the germans originated somewhere beetwen Germany and Poland and travelled north to Scandinavia.

 

[Ultraworld]

Germans tribes lived in northern Germany (close tothe sea) and Southern sweden + Denmark. As time evolves they just spread out. Some go to attack the romas, some go to middle sweden, some go to england, some go to spain.

 

[Ultraworld]

. . . the interesting quesiton is: where did they came from before they settled in northern germany/southern scandinavia.

 

[Yoda Power]

Originally posted by Ultraworld
. . . the interesting quesiton is: where did they came from before they settled in northern germany/southern scandinavia.

actually that is the question

 

[Finmaster]

They came originally from the east from modernday Russia, as all people who speak Germanic languages (or that's what I've heard real history experts say), altough their languages were originally much similiar to Finno-ugrian languages. You can't, however, call the people "Germans" until they developed a language that is at least close to what German is nowdays... but anyway, east is propably where they originally came from.

 

[TheStinger]

Africa

 

[Vrylakas]

The modern Germans derive from a whole mix of tribes, mostly western Germanic tribes. The Germanic languages were once a part of a subunit of the Indo-European languages, out of which eventually came the Germanic, Slavic and Baltic language families. Current thought has it that this group originated somewhat southwest of modern Lithuania, in old eastern Poland (modern Belarus/Russia). The Germanic peoples eventually split into two larger groups, the eastern and western, both of which contributed immensely to the so-called Germanic invasions of the late Roman era. The eastern Germanic peoples have since disappeared, either by destruction (Moslem conquest of North Africa and Spain, Gepidic destruction of the Ostrogothic kingdom, etc.), or assimilation.

Modern Germany derives from many different Germanic tribes from Scandanavia, eastern Europe, and etc. As well, ancient Germania had many non-Germanic peoples - Celts, Slavs, and other peoples like the fabled Venedii about whom we know almost nothing. If we include old Prussia, then Balts and Finns (Cours, Livonians, Aestii) must also be included. In other words, like every every modern European society, Germany's ethnic origins are very ecclectic.

 

[Adebisi]

Originally posted by Calgasus
EDIT: this thread was a quick improvisation because I had DPed the Celts thread

Lol

Originally posted by Finmaster
They came originally from the east from modernday Russia, as all people who speak Germanic languages (or that's what I've heard real history experts say), altough their languages were originally much similiar to Finno-ugrian languages. You can't, however, call the people "Germans" until they developed a language that is at least close to what German is nowdays... but anyway, east is propably where they originally came from.

They can't have spoken a langauge similar to the Fenno-ugrian, but I assume that some Fenno-ugrian tribes were assimilated into the German gene pool. Fenno-ugrian languages are after all vastly different from the Indo-European ones, since they are Ural-Altaic.