Q how to survive a gothic speaking people?

Zen9

Banned
It's in the title.
Multiple PODs but not quite sure which is the strongest case....

Remain in Poland?
Hold out against the Huns in Crimea?
Somewhere in the Balkans?
And then we get to Italy and Hispania....
 
If you want any East Germanic language, have a combination of early development, migration, and plagues result in the language family assimilating at least the North German Plain in the migration period and marginalise West Germanic languages. This could result in a Germany centered around the coast (Old Saxony) which might get into colonialism and could result in hundreds of millions of people speaking an East Germanic language by TTL's 21st century.

For the Goths themselves, the easiest and most likely is to flee into the Carpathian Mountains and end up like the Szeklers. This would leave a small yet defensible homeland of Goths whose leaders would be important noblemen in later states of the area.
 
Crimean Gothic, which may have survived into the eighteenth century, appears to have been genuinely Gothic/East Germanic, or at least had elements of it:
  • fyder for "four," with the Proto-Germanic /d/ surviving, a marker of East Germanic (cf. Gothic fidwor "four" but Old English fēower, Old Norse fjórir)
  • ies for "he," with the Proto-Germanic /z/ surviving (cf. Gothic his "he" but Old English , Old Norse hit)
  • ada for "egg," showing East Germanic sharpening of Proto-Germanic /jj/ (cf. Old English ǣġ, Old Norse egg)
 
Either in OTL Switzerland, particularly in both sides of the Röstigraben (except the southeast, FYI)* or even OTL northern France (as in north of the Loire), as suggested by @Gloss in this ancient AHC, although he talked about East Germanic peoples in general.

Either way, well, they need a relatively (albeit not necessarily in near-ASB level) early PoD to achieve such goals, particularly in the former.
 
One of them could survive in the Balkans or Italy if backed as a liturgical language. Otherwise it's likely to be assimilated into Slavic/Romance like Frankish in Gaul, Lombardic in Italy, etc etc.
 

Zen9

Banned
According to my vaguely remembered reading there were several survival locations into much later history.
The longest and most famous being Crimea.
But also elsewhere in the Balkans seem to recall....

So it's not impossible and merely needs various changes to continue.
Arianism is both a problem and yet a potential source of cohesion....

The irony here is that Arianism resurfaced in Poland centuries later.....

So one option is for multiple survivals in pockets from Poland to the Northern Spain.
But for a language and potential statehood requires something different. .....
 
It's in the title.
Multiple PODs but not quite sure which is the strongest case....
There are many possibilities.
Remain in Poland?
Some did and were Slavicised later.
Hold out against the Huns in Crimea?
Some did, but over time were assimilated into a Greek speaking then Turkish/Tatar speaking population.
Somewhere in the Balkans?
Walafrid Strabo claimed around 840 that there was Gothic speakers in Dobruja. Allthough some writers in this period referred to all speakers of Germanic in eastern Europe as Goths. Some even referred to non-Germanic speakers such as Slavic speakers as Goths. Therefore it is not certain that Walafrid refers to people who speak a East Germanic tongue.
And then we get to Italy and Hispania....
Perhaps if Odacer's kingdom did not collapse or get conquered by a polity that would have too much influence in the "Gothic" parts of the Balkans, there could be a Gothicised part of the Balkans similar to the slavicisation of OTL?




For those who are interested.
http://shron1.chtyvo.org.ua/William...atars_An_Historical_Reinterpretation_anhl.pdf
The Ethnogenesis of the Crimean Tatars. An Historical Reinterpretation Author(s): Brian Glyn Williams
The Crimean mountain chain's role in Crimean history can thus be compared to that of the Caucasus range which has been described as a "preserve of nations". Myriad ancient tribes and ethnic groups have sought refuge in the Caucasus chain's inaccessible valleys and highland fastness and, in some areas of the Caucasus, every valley is inhabited by a different ethno-linguistic group.

For much of its history, this situation predominated in the Crimea as well. The thirteenth-century traveller to the Crimea, Friar William of Rubruck wrote of this area "There are lofty promontories along the sea coast from Kherson (Western Crimea) as far as the mouth of the Tanais (Sea of Azov), and between Kerson and Soldaia (Sudak) lie the Forty Settlements, of which nearly every one has its own dialect: the population includes many Goths, whose language is Germanic".4 While this source may have been referring to the mountain fortress known in Tatar as Kirk Yer (Forty Places), his description of the linguistic diversity of this region was certainly intentional. Much of this diversity came from the fact that nomadic tribes of the steppe were forced to flee into the south Crimean mountains by stronger nomadic groups in search of better pastures. Those who fled into the mountains, such as the Iranian Scythians, often blended with the region's older inhabitants.

Like many steppe alliances to come, the Scythians were defeated by a more powerful nomadic group pushing westward in search of grazing lands, the Sarmatians. The Iranian Sarmatians were in turn scattered by the Germanic Goths who were themselves routed by the seemingly invincible Huns. As was so often the case in the sanguinary struggles for the plains on the edge of Europe, the Huns propelled the defeated Gothic tribes westward where they poured over the weakened defences of the Roman empire and destroyed Roman power in the West.

A detached remnant of the Ostrogoths (Eastern Goths), however, migrated southward into the mountains of the Crimea where they intermingled with the remnants of earlier Scythian and Sarmatian tribes (most notably the Sarmatian tribe known as the Alans) who had settled in this region after being forced off the steppe.5 From their mountain strongholds, such as Mangup in the south-western Crimea, the Crimean Goths dominated the southern Crimea (a land known in contemporary western sources as Gothia Maritime) for a millennium. While the masters of the Crimean plains changed at a bewildering rate (the Huns were followed by Turkic confederations such as the Kok Turks, Khazars, Black Bulgars, and finally the Kipchaks), the Gothic presence in the Crimean mountains remained constant
 
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Zen9

Banned
So is it possible for instance that the Goths could hold what is now Slovenia and Croatia?
 
So is it possible for instance that the Goths could hold what is now Slovenia and Croatia?

All these places were invaded and raided by the Goths. But you can't have surviving populations here as they would assimilate into the Greek/Latin speaking majority as they did in Italy and Spain.

The best bet other than Crimea would be in heavily Mountainous regions.
 

Zen9

Banned
All these places were invaded and raided by the Goths. But you can't have surviving populations here as they would assimilate into the Greek/Latin speaking majority as they did in Italy and Spain.

The best bet other than Crimea would be in heavily Mountainous regions.
Yet the these areas were made Slavic speaking by tribes with Sarmatian origin names......

Seems to be an assumption that the Goths and Vandals are doomed without ASB intervention.

So why can't we have surviving populations here?

After all this area has mountains.
 
Yet the these areas were made Slavic speaking by tribes with Sarmatian origin names......

Seems to be an assumption that the Goths and Vandals are doomed without ASB intervention.

So why can't we have surviving populations here?

Goths weren't actually structured and organized in the initial days. They mostly established their rule on existing populations.

You don't need ASB intervention. You need a large enough and united migrations into a fertile plain land somewhere in Europe and have them settle there in a number that would assimilate the locals than the other way round. One way to get this is to have them strictly adhere to Arianism or Germanic Paganism and hence, unwilling to mix with the Roman Catholic or Byzantine Orthodox locals. Eventually, you will get a Gothic nation. Yes, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria and some surrounding regions would be best suited for strong Gothic nations, provided they are more structured and united in the beginning. That would be interesting as you now would have East Germanic Arian or Pagan Balkans contending against the Byzantine Empire in the South. Same with Vandals.

Yeah, an earlier settlement by Goths and Vandals and transformation of these lands could lead the Sarmatians and Slavs being defeated, hence retaining the East Germanic character in the Balkans. Which are those Slavic tribes with Sarmatian names?
 

Zen9

Banned
Serbs and Croats....Serboi and Croates I think...
Years...no decades ago I stumbled across this reading about Attila's Empire. Up in East Germany there were other tribes of similar names recorded. The names seemed to have a origin from an Iranian language.
So the theory was they were Sarmatian.
 
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Zen9

Banned
So having a swift leaf through Gothic history, it is possible to have something in Dalmatia...later Dalmatia and Pannonia that could in theory survive.
And the longer it survives the more Goths, Vandals and other Arian Christians would find seek refuge there......which could act as a sort of reinforcement of the Gothic and Arian population.
 
Serbs and Croats....Serboi and Croates I think...
Years...no decades ago I stumbled across this reading about Attila's Empire. Up in East Germany there were other tribes of similar names recorded. The names seemed to have a origin from an Iranian language.
So the theory was they were Sarmatian.
While possibly true for Croat - there's the possibility of a Germanic root - it's less so for Serb which seems to share a Slavic root with Sorb.
 
You can have either Arian or Gothic Pagan states in the Balkans and Pannonian plains.

That would increase the chances of surviving as a distinct community.

As I said, if you have a more structured East Germanic people initially, you can get this easily, in Eastern Europe. Balkans was always unstable, from what it seems. Greece and Asia Minor are Byzantine Greek strongholds and hence cannot probably be conquered.

This also could send butterflies on the ERE. Gothic states would be strong and civilized. They would not attack Byzantines in Greece and Asia Minor and also maintain a Buffer against Western and Slavic invasions.

This could lead to a stronger Byzantine Empire and also make it hard for the Crusades to happen(If the Gothic states are Pagan or Arian).
 

Zen9

Banned
There would be a curious tension between Orthodox and Catholic views of Arianism and the utility of such a state against first pagan Huns, Avars, Slavs and later the wars with Islam and the Turks.

Makes for interesting times.....
 
There would be a curious tension between Orthodox and Catholic views of Arianism and the utility of such a state against first pagan Huns, Avars, Slavs and later the wars with Islam and the Turks.

Makes for interesting times.....

Such an Empire would be almost irrelevant to Islam as Islamic empire arose in the Southern borders of the Byzantine Empire while this forms the Northern Border.

Avars and Huns would be subdued in such a case. Slavs would probably be deflected, probably towards the East, into Russia/Ukraine.

How it would be relevant to Islam would be that, Byzantine Empire could have a stable border on the North and concentrate on the South(Arabs) and East(Sassanids). Plus who knows what the relations between the Gothic states and Byzantines be? They might ally, as well.

The religious aspects are a bit interesting.
 

Zen9

Banned
Well I'm not sure an Empire is the relevant term for a gothic state or states in Dalmatia and Pannonia.

Your right that the South Slav's might go elsewhere. .....Greece or Bulgaria perhaps?

Where it can become relevant to Islam is in recruits for Byzantine wars. Especially if they are also present in Dobruja and Crimea.

This should also have consequences for the East Mark.

But I'm not sure I'd work on the premise of a long survival of Byzantium. That would make such a scenario a much more complex effort for a start and the butterflies are too great in number.
 
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