Portal:Ancient Germanic culture
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Ancient Germanic culture describes a cultural group that originated around the shores of the Baltic Sea and northern Europe during the late middle of the first millennium B.C., and which forms the foundation of all later Germanic cultures. This cultural group is called the Nordic Bronze Age and had spread from southern Scandinavia into northern Germany. Their language and ethnicity is considered to be Indo-European. The ancient Germanic tribesmen are believed to be a cultural and ethnic mix between a branch of the Indo-European people and a group of humans already present in Scandinavia before the Indo-European invasion. All Germanic cultures and languages are thought to have evolved from this common ancestor, commonly called the Proto-Germanic culture and language. All Germanic cultures have a closely related mythology, language and appearance.
The Franks were one of several west Germanic tribes who entered the late Roman Empire from Frisia as foederati and established a lasting realm in an area that covers most of modern-day France and the region of Franconia in Germany, forming the historic kernel of both these two modern countries. The conversion to Christianity of the pagan Frankish king Clovis I was a climactic event in the history of Europe.
The realm underwent many partitions and repartitions, since the Franks divided their property among surviving sons, and lacking a broad sense of a res publica, they conceived of the realm as a large extent of private property. This practice explains in part the difficulty of describing precisely the dates and physical boundaries of any of the Frankish kingdoms and who ruled the various sections. The decline of literacy while the Franks ruled compounds the problem: they produced few written records. In essence however, two dynasties of leaders succeeded each other, first the Merovingians and then the Carolingians.
- ... that Santa Claus is derived from St Nicholas?
- ... that while the word vandalism derives from the name of the East Germanic tribe of the Vandals, the Vandals never actually committed vandalism, but rather just raided and pillaged? Destruction with purpose! (vandalism is the futile destruction of things)
- ... that Tolkien's Middle Earth is firmly based on Germanic mythology, and that the Rohirrim culture as portrayed in the novel is clearly derived from the Anglo-Saxons?
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Culture: Ásatrú Theology, Norse mythology, The Pagan Beliefs Surrounding Christmas
History: World History (contains / will contain chapters about ancient Germanic cultures)
Germanic Languages: Danish, Dutch, English, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Gothic (extinct), Proto Germanic (extinct, coming soon)
- West Germanic languages
- East Germanic (extinct)
- Gothic: Ostrogothic and Visigothic
- Crimeagutisk (Crimean Gothic)
- Vandalic
- Burgundian
- Gothic: Ostrogothic and Visigothic
- North Germanic
