Talk:Germanic peoples

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Since when are Scots a Germanic people. They are a Celtic people. Some will say that they speak English and have Germanic influence. Of course. What about Jamaicans then? Pipo.

The references is to the Scots language (i.e. English, as it is spoken in the North). It's a Germanic language. Paul B (talk) 19:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Well if it is talking about the 3rd sentence it actually calls the "Scots language speakers" a "Germanic people". (Germanic peoples is also what this article is about.) This seems to be a complex point to be just throwing in a list like that. That list has been controversial for a long time, because people keep adding things to it which I think add nothing to the quality of the article. I think to most experienced Wikipedians who watch this article "Germanic Peoples" concerns ancient ethnography and not modern peoples.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
I think it would be fair to call Scots "a dialect of a Germanic language (English) spoken by a culturally Celtic people".Kortoso (talk) 16:36, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Why would we say that Scots speakers are more Celtic than English speakers in England, Wales and Ireland? What does "culturally Celtic" even mean? Is the term commonly used and clearly defined in reliable published sources?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:42, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Lowland Scotland, especially to the east and south of Edinburgh are of Anglo-Saxon origin, and are therefore Germanic. Obviously, there is a lot of Celtic mixing in throughout Scotland, but this is no different with Anglo-Saxon integration with the Welsh/Briton people south of the border in England. Furthermore, Scotland had a significant import of Normans as a result of English politics/developments, and Flemish traders. Additionally, many Scottish highlanders had intermixed at times -- culturally and maritally -- with Norse peoples; especially true in the northern and western islands, but also parts of the northern "mainland" of the country. So, based on that, all of Scotland has some degree of Germanic heritage -- although it is clear that this is a joint Celtic heritage overall. (talk) 18:12, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Objective sources lacking[edit]

Tacitus and Caesar are mentioned. Clearly they are the two main people who wrote about the Germans. However...For years now their accounts have been known as propaganda typical of Roman writings. The Romans often embellished or demonized peoples, with no relation to reality, depending on their political goal.

Tacitus & Caesar's accounts should be listed as a Roman account, nothing more.

Numerous objective research shows their accounts to be flawed. For instance, detailed analysis of DNA and other Germanic bodies in Germany, has definitely concluded that the diet of the Germans was not "exclusively milk, flesh, and cheese" as per Caesar, but an overwhelmingly vegetarian diet made of cereals!!! Probably the Romans ate more Cheese & flesh than the Germans!

It has also been proven through archeological research that Germania/Germany was highly agricultural and the German tribes were not nomadic but deeply sedentary, in a culture similar to the German culture of the middle ages. When the Germans moved...It was because of outside event.

The interesting bit is why the original tribes left Scandinavia to settle Germany. But once in Germany they stayed there and did not move until the Volkerwanderung. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:810D:E80:17E:BDB9:CF4:1217:E4C5 (talk) 17:54, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, when we report Roman descriptions we should (and I think we do) attribute these and where appropriate we can mention modern criticisms. Where you have a specific example, please give a source and ideally a proposal for an improved wording.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:40, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Germanic tribes in central Europe[edit]

The article indicates that during the iron age the Germanic people were spread east to the Vistula river. This is clearly contradicted by the current genetic evidence <Juras A, Dabert M, Kushniarevich A, Malmstro¨m H, Raghavan M, et al. (2014) Ancient DNA Reveals Matrilineal Continuity in Present-Day Poland over the Last Two Millennia. PLoS ONE 9(10): e110839. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0110839> and any archeological evidence needs to be very carefully checked to its source as it may be politically motivated. Whitecygent — Preceding unsigned comment added by Whitecygent (talkcontribs) 12:47, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia has found it difficult to use articles of that type because there are lots of them and they do not necessarily agree with each other. Anyway matrilineal continuity would be consistent with many scenarios. From what I have read looking at this subject in the past there is at least no doubt that at least one Germanic language (as opposed to Germanic "genes" whatever they would be) which reached to at least some areas east of the Vistula. Consider the Goths and Vandals for example. It is possible, even likely, that the populations ruled by these groups spoke several languages and had a mixed ancestry, especially as they moved (apparently) further inland/south.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:38, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Special role of England[edit]


  1. ^ Young, 2008; pp 20

I do not see any reason to believe why England (not even thinking of the strong Romanic and Celtic influences) should stay more Germanic - whatever that is - than, say, Norways. The references certainly do not make up for the strength of the claim. -- Zz (talk) 14:06, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes that sentence seems over the top!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:32, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

"Varieties of German"[edit]

The usage and primary topic of Varieties of German is under discussion, see talk:German dialects -- (talk) 05:08, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Chicken or the Egg[edit]

Not sure if this has been discussed, but I recently discovered that very large portions of this article are found verbatim and/or near verbatim from the following webpage: Whether the authors of the The Order of The Teutonic Knights of St. Mary's Hospital in Jerusalem - 1190-2012 site copied its information from Wikipedia or vice-versa is likely a matter of debate, but I suspect that somebody extracted information thereby and failed to attribute it. Such an organization has a vested interest in Germanic history and tradition and is considered Christian in nomenclature. That does not mean the site's authors are above reproach but it at least needs investigated. If found to be true and some Wikipedian is guilty of overt plagiarism, much of this page will need to either be rewritten or cited accordingly. Anyone else encountered this site before and the suspicious mirroring on the Wiki-page? Maybe this has been discussed before? Anyway - one of you admins should take a look at this. --Obenritter (talk) 01:30, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
I doubt any admin will look just based on that. I guess thousands of Wikipedia articles have multiple "mirrors" all over the internet, without any explanation, so my normal assumption would be copying from Wikipedia? Is there a reason to think otherwise? Trying to think how we can check in a quick way: maybe looking at old versions of Wikipedia to see if the passage in question was inserted as one big block?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:08, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
Hi Andrew. In this case, the webpage is not a mirror but a site for a religious order. It's not impossible that they borrowed information from Wikipedia but my inclination is uncertainty. You're right about looking for large edits where information may have been extracted as this would be a clue, although not necessarily definitive. Honestly, I am not super concerned either way, but thought it worth mentioning. As an academic who deals with plagiarism from college students regularly nowadays, my view on this matter could just be jaded. However, using the method you suggested, I encountered a very large edit which confirmed my suspicions and here it is: Now the question is what to do? (talk) 16:04, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
Not had much experience in that, but see WP:PLAGIARISM. On the other hand, I notice that the immediately preceding edit was a mass deletion of the same material by the same IP editor? BTW by "mirror" I just meant a site copying large slabs of material which was probably not precise.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:57, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
If no admin has caught it after all these years, perhaps we just leave it be. It's not really my fight - by that I mean, I am not grading a paper when I am on Wikipedia. My time here editing is at my leisure and I have no intention of making it into a job by going overboard. :-) --Obenritter (talk) 20:51, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
Understandable, but if I will look to see if there is a noticeboard anywhere on WP with volunteers who track such things.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:31, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
Hope there is no objection to adjusting the comments. Thanks to both of you for at least bringing "suspicion" to light. I did not look at any content as there is a lot of information but the link provided, and every link I clicked on from that page, shows at the bottom: "Deutscher Orden - German Order - Teutonic Order - 1190 - 2015 The Chivalric Teutonic Order of St Mary's Hospital in JerusalemInternational Copyright Held © 2001-2015 - All Rights Reserved", so considering the comments above I tagged the article.
The copyright notification is a big red flag to me. I am no lawyer so this is a deciding factor as to when close paraphrasing crosses the line of plagiarism to become copyright violations which is serious. Legalities notwithstanding editors that make a habit of this can be blocked. Since it is not my expertise to try to determine the legality of a posted copyright I always assume it is legal since "Copyright is automatically assumed as soon as any content (text or other media) is created in a physical form". If this is a false alarm it is better to err on the safe side.
There are several avenues to take and this is the first step. If one of the contributing editors, or some other editor, does not look into this, and one of you do not wish to tackle it, Wikipedia:Copyright violations#Dealing with copyright violations gives options.
If you have interest in the article you might decide to attempt edits to rectify the issue. After this point the results can include content (whole sections) being blanked or some admin removing much content reducing the thing to a stub. On copyright violations it does not take an admin. If content is removed and the edit summary reflects something like "edits to remove copyvio content", another editor may think twice before attempting a revert.
I do not have the time to jump into such an endeavor at this time but will help in any way I can. The issue can be listed here and/or here. If this is a false alarm then there is no harm and someone can show cause for the tag removal. Otr500 (talk) 11:59, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Since I raised the issue, I can slowly peruse the article for remaining signs of this. Much of the original copied work has been edited over time. Whether this is a false alarm will be contingent I suppose on how much of this remains the same as the 2004 edit when the violation (by whoever the guilty Wiki-editor was) occurred. Let's all take the time to remove any verbatim content from the site that still abides within the article and find alternate sources (to the extent feasible) in places where the information is relevant. The way the TAG reads, you'd think the whole article was copied and pasted which is a major misnomer. There are upwards of 140 footnotes and dozens of bibliographic entries. My assumption is that the harshly worded TAG is an incentive to editors of the article? Since I've put lots of effort into this article lately, I'd appreciate assistance in gleaning this for any editorial remnants which might be construed as questionable from a copyright perspective. My intention was not to outright 'de-legitimize' the article in totality by raising the issue but to get some help fixing it.--Obenritter (talk) 16:52, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
        • UPDATE**** (still lots of plagiarized segments buried here and there in the text) By the way folks, I perused, corrected/edited from the beginning all the way through the segment "Linguistics" and stopped there. There is still a lot to do if we want to protect Wikipedia accordingly. If one or more of you would be so gracious as to contrast the info on the webpage: against the information in this article and make adjustments/add references, delete superfluous information, remove large plagiarized sections, quote the site and attribute it accordingly or reword some of it when citing it --- that would be great. IF you do choose to participate, please use a format similar to the one I used to reference the site so that we have continuity (here is an example: [1] where "The Pre-Roman Iron Age" represents the segment from which the information came.) Many hands makes light work as yours truly has had enough for today. --Obenritter (talk) 19:08, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

If this is becoming a major job, and requiring "harsh" tagging, then I still wonder how clear the evidence is that WP copied from the website rather than the other way around. I have no look closely by the way, but am very thankful that you have made this effort!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:33, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

UPDATE - Thus far I've cleaned up the "verbatim" text in this article from the page ( through the Bronze Age and have cited accordingly. There's lots of otherwise substantive editing that I'd much rather be doing to this page, but we need to clean up the "suspected" plagiarism first. Having stated as much, it'd be nice if somebody besides me would also pick up this mantle and run with it.
LATEST UPDATE (24 Sept 2015). I've edited all the way to the segment Roman Empire Period where I have stopped. Regrettably, I've seen no efforts from anyone else to assist in this process. It's going to take a long time at this rate. --Obenritter (talk) 19:34, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
HOLD THE PRESSES - Update - After looking at the Wiki-page and the site for some time now in the edit process, I am not so certain that some of the Wikipage content wasn't lifted by the owners of that site since the Wikipage content contains citations and the Imperial Teutonic Order page does not. This is making me think they've borrowed segments but did not attribute their site back to Wiki, giving due credit. Until we know one way or the other, I am finished trying to remove all signs of plagiarism and/or reference the site, when the guilt for copied content could be with them. Hopefully somebody around here has the ability to research and ascertain which is true. In one particular case, I came across content that I personally added to the Germanic peoples page that shows up on the Imperial Teutonic Order page, which means they've lifted the content but they did not attribute it as I did on the original Wikipage. It is quite possible that both pages have borrowed from one another over time without attribution but I am starting to feel like the Wikipage on Germanic peoples is the one that was most likely copied. In the meantime, I respectfully request the removal of the harsh tag heading this article by a Wiki admin. --Obenritter (talk) 21:39, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Obenritter, I believe you're within your rights to remove the tag yourself without admin intervention. WP:DETAG. Allow me to express my admiration at your conscientious and diligent efforts to address a potential copyright violation on a huge article. HavelockWilltravel (talk) 22:55, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks HavelockWilltravel...I agree. Based on the available evidence, I am now convinced that the site extracted the largest majority of its information directly from Wikipedia. Since no admins have taken this to task, I am removing it myself - particularly since I am the person who voiced concerns in the first place. Obenritter (talk) 20:43, 28 September 2015 (UTC)