north germans [ingvaeones]
appearance: c. -800
differentiation: c. -400
ascendancy: south germans[1]
it makes more sense to derive the north and west germans from a common trunk. this is not to say that west and north german are closer than north and east german are, because this is clearly false. this is to say that when the 'east germans' first moved to scandinavia, there was probably very little difference between the three major dialects primarily because they didn't exist yet. also, this is in place more to attack the religious grouping than the linguistic one. however, if we accept the fact that the ancient sagas and legends position the danes and the swedes further to the south and in a closer religious tradition with the west germans, we can perceive of the west germans splitting into two distinct sub-cultures: the danes and swedes in the north and the germans in the south. linguistically, this allows us to recover 'north german' as the language that developed in denmark with the danes and future swedes, which would have been halfway between the 'east german' that was spoken in sweden and the 'west german' spoken further south. then, 'east german' still developed directly from 'north german'.......but, so did 'west german'. get it? these are the germans that took the longest to leave the german homeland of denmark and hence didn't change a whole lot in their isolation, whereas the more southern germans changed much more drastically given their interaction with celts, slavs, romans, etc....
descendancy: cimbri [1]
descendancy: teutones--->jutes? [1]
descendancy: heruli [1]
descendancy: danes [1]
descendancy: swedes/heardings [3]
descendancy: chauki[1]
[1]: the role of migration in the history of the eurasian steppe, andrew bell-fialkoff, 2000
[2]: heimskringla, snorri sturlson, c. 1200
[3]: jason parent, 2004
[4]: the germanic invasions, lucien musset, 1965
[5]: german myths and legends, donald a. mackenzie, avenal
page last updated may 15, 2005