Q how to survive a gothic speaking people?

Zen9

Banned
That's my thinking, it's a border region that needs defence from the plains. So Gothic forces would have been stationed there.
 
Last edited:

Zen9

Banned
So there's a Gothic Kingdom, subject to the Eastern Emperor.
In come the Avars and Croats, they push over the river but get held back in the hills and mountains.
The Goths push back and retake land upto the river. This might leave them with something a but larger than the Kingdom of Croatia.

So we have a Venice question first which is does Venice still take the coast?
I'm assuming they keep the Hungarians out as they did with the Avars.

Then we a holy war question which is, do the Orthodox or the Catholic powers wage war on this Arian Christian state?

Then we have the big Turkish/Ottoman question, which is can they hold back the Turks?

Finally the Hapsburg question, do they get sucked into family's holdings?

Plus we have an Italian states question, can they stay out of or use their influence in Italy?
 

Philip

Donor
Then we a holy war question which is, do the Orthodox or the Catholic powers wage war on this Arian Christian state?

Not necessarily. Holding them as a client state and restricting proselytizing should suffice.

Then we have the big Turkish/Ottoman question, which is can they hold back the Turks?

There is no guarantee that Turks make it that far west.

Finally the Hapsburg question, do they get sucked into family's holdings?

Oh, those poor, sweet butterflies.
 
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....
How about Goths surviving in Scandinavia ?
 
How about Goths surviving in Scandinavia ?

Then it get assimilated into Old Gutnish and then later Swedish, though if a creolized language develops which combines features of Old Gutnish and (Biblical) Gothic, then maybe. Then you'd get a similar situation to some of the border languages like Dalecarlian/Elfdalian or Jamtlandic/Trøndersk, for example, or even something like the early development of English on a much smaller scale.
 
Will the Vikings leave them alone? Maybe not.
They would be the Vikings, since they'd make up a significant part of the population there.

Then it get assimilated into Old Gutnish and then later Swedish, though if a creolized language develops which combines features of Old Gutnish and (Biblical) Gothic, then maybe. Then you'd get a similar situation to some of the border languages like Dalecarlian/Elfdalian or Jamtlandic/Trøndersk, for example, or even something like the early development of English on a much smaller scale.
Why would it necessarily get assimilated? There are theories that East Germanic and North Germanic have some common features, and at worst you might have an East Germanic language strongly influenced by North Germanic much as English has a strong North Germanic influence (I would not call this a creole, and Bible Gothic was a very specific form of Gothic--and not representative of Vandalic which was rather different).
 

Zen9

Banned
Well there is also the Geatish survival option.....even the possibility of the Geats beating the Svear to dominate and even give their name to the unified kingdom.

However the Goths not crossing the Baltic sea is quite a major POD.
 

Zen9

Banned
It's really not, given the Goths of the Pontic Steppes most likely formed in Poland and not in Scandinavia.
Yet they're legends suggest otherwise.

I grant you this might really be the divide between a people and a small group that take leadership.
 
So there's a Gothic Kingdom, subject to the Eastern Emperor.
In come the Avars and Croats, they push over the river but get held back in the hills and mountains.
The Goths push back and retake land upto the river. This might leave them with something a but larger than the Kingdom of Croatia.

So we have a Venice question first which is does Venice still take the coast?
I'm assuming they keep the Hungarians out as they did with the Avars.

Then we a holy war question which is, do the Orthodox or the Catholic powers wage war on this Arian Christian state?

Then we have the big Turkish/Ottoman question, which is can they hold back the Turks?

Finally the Hapsburg question, do they get sucked into family's holdings?

Plus we have an Italian states question, can they stay out of or use their influence in Italy?
Butterflies might result in no Ottomans, no Habsburgs, no Avar conquest of the Pannonian Basin, etc.
 
Well there is also the Geatish survival option.....even the possibility of the Geats beating the Svear to dominate and even give their name to the unified kingdom.

However the Goths not crossing the Baltic sea is quite a major POD.

This was my thought. Tho it does not preclude part of the Goths wandering SE to this...

It's really not, given the Goths of the Pontic Steppes most likely formed in Poland and not in Scandinavia.
 
Yet they're legends suggest otherwise.

I grant you this might really be the divide between a people and a small group that take leadership.
So Franks are Anatolians? That's what legends say!

Even the small elite theory makes no sense, it's more probable that names were just shared around the Germanic part of the Baltic, given we know Guthones existed in Pommerania-Prussia around the 1st century AD and it took quite some times before we hear of Goths in the Pontic Steppe.
 
Either have the Goths remain in Gothiscandza along the Baltic and grow to absorb modern Poland or have the Huns not move westward so that Oium can remain in the Ukraine

Chernyakhov.PNG
 
Instead of exploring scenarios where a political history pod leads to the Gothic language surviving.
Political history is the narrative and survey ofpolitical events, ideas, movements, organs of government, voters, parties and leaders. It is interrelated to other fields of history, especially diplomatic history, as well as constitutional historyand public history.
It might be more to productive to look into how cultural history might lead to the survival of the Gothic language.
Cultural history studies and interprets the record of human societies by denoting the various distinctive ways of living built up by a group of people under consideration. Cultural history involves the aggregate of past cultural activity, such as ceremony, class in practices, and the interaction with locales.
 
I disagree, Gothic survived IOTL centuries despite virtually no political power, there is a limit for how much you can push a language without political backing especially when lacking long term endogamous features.
 

Zen9

Banned
They had their culture, they had their laws and their own government.
They even had their version of the Bible and their version of Christian faith and worship.
What they needed was somewhere for this to operate and sustain itself.
Because they failed in Italy and were diluted in Spain. Ultimately to be conquered.

So a kingdom or a series of kingdoms are needed to sustain them.
Dalmatia is as good a location as any. Better than most really.

But it's possible that there could have been a string of states from the Vistula to the Adriatic and even the Black Sea.
Such a continuum of states, peoples, dialects, interpretations of faith and cultures could have provided for a vibrant and inspirational definition of what it is to be a Goth. Something that would continue to reinvent itself into our times.
 
Last edited:
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....
How about a Gothic Islamic polity in Iberia ? A Gothic Emirate which ist tolerantes by Moorish conquerers would be interesting.
 
Top