I wouldn't say it's a substantial enterprise, it's actually pretty easy with a POD between 200-350, I don't see the extreme difficulties in achieving something clear cut as this, if anything it's easier than random pockets because like I said before we already have the Gothic surving in pockets IOTL so trying that again is probably not going to work.So we're getting to a spectrum of outcomes to choose from.
At the lowest end we have one or more Gothic communities surviving in various pocket locations, not much impact beyond being curious remnants.
While at the higher end we have a East Germanic Balkans warping history completely into something very different from OTL.
I can see the attractions of the latter. But it's a rather substantial enterprise.
Which is why I'll stick with something more modest.
How significant should the political backing be?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.
Having some proper sizeable Gothic Foedus around the Danube or Dinaric alps would work, I think the problem with Crimea is the chain of migrations and nomadic attacks it would experience, if you could curb that post-Hunnic invasions you could have them survive in Crimea I guess, but the problem of size still remains IMO, so I'd rather go with the Balkans or Carpathian area.How significant should the political backing be?
The Goths originated in the Baltic region. Maybe the language dominates in south Scandinavia, or more particularly south Sweden? Alternately the Visgoths somehow are a bit more viable as a ruling class and the language survives in the Iberian region?
Do "Goths" have to be the dominant element in a state or society inorder for the language to be likely to survive.Having some proper sizeable Gothic Foedus around the Danube or Dinaric alps would work, I think the problem with Crimea is the chain of migrations and nomadic attacks it would experience, if you could curb that post-Hunnic invasions you could have them survive in Crimea I guess, but the problem of size still remains IMO, so I'd rather go with the Balkans or Carpathian area.
I heard the theory that East Germanic was particularly close to North Germanic is not really true, though I can't find right now where I read that, in any case as far as most of East Germanic is concerned it did not originate recently from Scandinavian, not even in early 1st century AD.If they stay in Sweden they won’t be East Germanic, because most of the Goths stayed in Sweden and their language simply evolve into Norse. East Germanic first developed away from the Scandinavian languages on the other side of Baltic. It would be like saying that American English could have developed in England, if the early Americans hadn’t migrated to America.
Not really, what we find is something so full of contemporary West Germanic features that really doesn't look like Gothic. Also it was not kicking in by any definition, it would be like saying Cornish is kicking in right now.Alls raihts, frijōnds, this question gets asked every couple of months, and for the most part, the Goths were well on their way to surviving, at least in Crimea.
We really don't, the very few attestation we have of the 17th and 18th century concern more the presence of Germanic loanwords and of some people with weird customs which some travellers assumed were Goths, this is not even evidence honestly. The last real attestation is from the mid-late 16th century and even there an argument could be made that the language transcribed is way too West Germanic to be simply a continuation of Gothic.We have attestations to say that they kept kicking there till at least the 1700s, which if you ask me, is damned impressive.
That did not work for Cornish and a plethora of other regional languages with far better demographics, Gothic was virtually moribund if not dead by the time of the early modern era. Gothic was basically only spoken in the southern coast of Crimea and the hilly areas since the early middle ages, one single person isn't going to change anything. There needs to be political changes in the high to late middle ages to avoid the terminal decline.All you need is for that presence to be more concentrated, which is easy enough to do, just hand wave some more settlement into the region, and have a literary tradition develop among the populace. A lot hardly needs to change, it could even be just a great man POD, just someone needs to take the time and effort within the Gothic community to save the language via standardization and literary works. A Gothic Chaucer, if you would. Hell, the world at large hardly needs to change, and a map might not end up looking that different in the long run.
If they are demographically a minority language or are confined in a small region it would be better if it was not put on the disadvantaged side of a diglossic situation.Do "Goths" have to be the dominant element in a state or society inorder for the language to be likely to survive.
I think that Crimea is a real possibility as a territory where continued use of the Gothic language. If the mountainous southern part of Crimea had been more Gothicised, that would increase the chance of Gothic persisting. Having a Gothic language dominant state there also improves the chance of Gothic. Of course this Crimean polity might become a vassal or tributary of a steppe based empire or a ERE polity.
Do you mean to say that Germanic languages separated from the Proto-Germanic(spoken around Scandinavia) late?If they stay in Sweden they won’t be East Germanic, because most of the Goths stayed in Sweden and their language simply evolve into Norse. East Germanic first developed away from the Scandinavian languages on the other side of Baltic. It would be like saying that American English could have developed in England, if the early Americans hadn’t migrated to America.
If they are demographically a minority language or are confined in a small region it would be better if it was not put on the disadvantaged side of a diglossic situation.
Visigoths weren't the Majority, I think. There was probably a huge population of Gallic and Iberian Celtic peoples who were Romanized, plus the Basques in the North.Look at the Visigoths
Visigoths weren't the Majority, I think. There was probably a huge population of Gallic and Iberian Celtic peoples who were Romanized, plus the Basques in the North.
I don't know if Iberians existed by then.
Personally I'm tending to two kingdoms. One in what we'd call Greater Croatia , the other in Szeklerland/Transylvania. Both being Ostrogoth and other east germanic peoples.
Originally they'd be connected by Gepids in Dacia, Thervingi and Sarmatians on the plains.
Come the Huns, Avars, Slavs and Magyars, this connection would be swept away.
To be re-established by Charlemagne and the HREG.
[...]
The Heretic Kingdoms.
What is the effect I wonder on Martin Luther and the Protestants later on?
Would they stay out of the HREG? Assuming they do , do they then became bases for families to contest power Prussian/Austrian style inside the HREG?
Equally in Poland. Could they not provide contestants for the Polish crown?
True but not all migrations are the same, some are stronger than others, some affect areas that would be more advantegous to mass assimilation, some affect certain social classes more etc.Visigoths were not the majority, but neither were the Romans in Spain or Gaul, or the Turks in Turkey, or the Arabs in Egypt. Where the Romans had placed greater weight in adopting Roman culture and speaking Latin, the Visigoths spoke (apparently) Latin, because it was already a useful and prestigious language, and retained snippets of Gothic culture and language for specific reasons.