Language and History in the Early Germanic World

This book presents linguistic evidence for many aspects of pre-Christian and early medieval European culture.

D. H. Green (Author)

9780521471343, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 August 1998

464 pages, 1 b/w illus. 1 map
22.9 x 15.2 x 3 cm, 0.85 kg

'At last, we have an accessible and up-to-date book showing what can be done with language history. The material within Dennis Green's book is authoritative and comprehensive, its style probing and stimulating. The book encompasses a body of information essential to anyone wishing to learn about the character of the period in which the foundations of modern Europe were laid out over and around the ruins of the Roman Empire. For students of any field, it is a fine example of how and why one should make use of a cross-disciplinary approach. There could not be a better basis for understanding how we try to organize and describe our view of this crucial historical period than contemplating how the people of that era grappled with the same challenges.' John Hines, Cardiff University

This book offers a distinctive and accessible approach to the earliest encounters of the Germanic tribes 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 semantics and loanword studies, 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.

Introduction
Part I. The Germanic World: 1. Religion
2. Law
3. Kinship
4. Warfare
5. People and army
6. Lordship
7. Kingship
Part II. Contact with the Non-Germanic World: 8. Contact with the Celts
9. The migration of the Goths
10. Germanic loanwords in Latin
11. Latin loanwords in Germanic
12. Trade and warfare with the Romans
13. Names of the days of the week
14. The vocabulary of writing
Part III. Contact with Christianity: 15. Problems of Christianisation
16. The influence of provincial Roman Christianity
17. The influence of Gothic
18. The influence of the Merovingian Franks
19. The influence of the Anglo-Saxons
20. Contrasts in Christian vocabulary
21. The vocabulary of ethics and fate
Bibliography
Index of words.

Subject Areas: Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF]