Talk:Geiseric
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This is good, if a little breathlessly enthusiastic about the Vandals. Why is it 'Gaiseric' all the way through if the entry is under 'Geiseric'? Create a new one and redirect. I removed much 'fall of the Western Empire' language - specialists have tossed out that idea. Specifically, the article makes two weird mistakes that I removed - first, it had Geiseric doing well, and then 'only to see' the collapse of the Vandal kingdom after his death. I rewrote that. Second, it had: "and lived to see the fall of the western empire that he had bedeviled for a half-century." Even if one accepted the 'decline and fall' model (which I do not, and I have a Ph.D. in the period), Geiseric died in 477. Romulus Augustus was only deposed in 476, and in 477 no one had any way of knowing that there wouldn't be another widely recognized person holding the title of Emperor in the West until 800. MichaelTinkler
Geiseric is one of three accepted spellings for his name. Gaiseric is the one I most often see, but you also see Genseric a lot, as well as Geiseric. And some people say it doesn't mean "Caesar-king", but "spear-king". There's also some dispute about the year he was born; it was either 389, 390, 400 or 406. I went with Caesar and Gaiseric in the original, and since there are contemporary accounts that he died in his 87th year, that means either 389 or 390 is most likely correct. But who knows? That would make him 65 when he sacked Rome and 78 when he defeated Basilicus, and that seems rather old. He must have had whatever secret to youth that Narses had. John
I believe Geiseric should be pronounced as if it was/is spelled Gaiseric by native English speakers. That is how you'd naturally tend to pronounce Geiseric in German, as well as in Danish, anyhow. So there might be an inherent method to the madness. -A Dane
As a German, I'm not sure what you mean. Geiseric in German is usually spelt "Geiserich" (I don't distinctly remember a different spelling) following the trend in German historiography to write all Germanic rulers that end on -ricus in Latin as -rich. Now the "Gei" syllable in German would intuitively be pronounced like the English word "guy", as would "Gai" - there is no real difference in pronounciation between the two in German. Does anyone happen to know how either "Gaiseric" or "Geiseric" would be pronounced in classical Latin? And talking about that, what do most late Roman sources call him?
Agreed. 'Gei' is pronounced almost exactly as the english word 'guy', in German and in Danish. But when you write 'Gei' a native English speaker would (I believe) be more likely to pronounce it as 'gay', whereas 'Gai' to a native English speaker would tend to suggest 'guy', which seems more correct to both the German and Danish intuitive reading. That's all I was saying. -Same Dane
I've taken out the "Caesar-king" definition, as this is surely a folk etymology based on superficial similarity. I don't think there's any doubt in modern linguistic circles that the name should be interpreted as a native Vandal formation whose first element means "spear". Gerhard Koebler -- whose first name, coincidentally, contains the West Germanic variant of the word -- cites a number of parallels in his Gotisches Woerterbuch (Gothic Dictionary): Gaiswalds, Gesalacus, Gesimund, Gesiulf, Radagaisus, Unigis, ON Gesualdo [ http://www.koeblergerhard.de/germanistischewoerterbuecher/gotischeswoerterbuch/GOT-G.pdf ]. Both elements occur together elsewhere in Germanic, e.g. Old Norse 'Geirrekr' (Reykdæla saga). Similarly, the final element -ric appears independently in the names of other Vandal kings, and is another standard Germanic naming element. I'm not aware of any other Vandal names in which a Latin 'c' has been replaced by 'g', or how this could be explained in terms of known sound changes, or of any parallels among the Vandal royal names that would support the Caesar hypothesis. -- Dependent Variable.
