Cimbri - Language

Language

A major problem in determining whether the Cimbri were speaking a Celtic or a Germanic language is that at this time the Greeks and Romans tended to refer to all groups to the north of their sphere of influence as Gauls, Celts, or Germani rather indiscriminately. Caesar seems to be one of the first authors to distinguish the two groups, and he has a political motive for doing so (it is an argument in favour of the Rhine border). Yet, one cannot always trust Caesar and Tacitus when they ascribe individuals and tribes to one or the other category, although Caesar made clear distinctions between the two cultures. Most ancient sources categorize the Cimbri as a Germanic tribe, but some ancient authors include the Cimbri among the Celts.

There are few direct testimonies to the language of the Cimbri: Referring to the Northern Ocean (the Baltic or the North Sea), Pliny the Elder states: "Philemon says that it is called Morimarusa, i.e. the Dead Sea, by the Cimbri, until the promontory of Rubea, and after that Cronium." The contemporary Gaulish terms for “sea” and “dead” appear to have been mori and *maruo-; compare their well-attested modern Insular Celtic cognates muir and marbh (Irish), môr and marw (Welsh), and mor and marv (Breton). The same word for “sea” is also known from Germanic, but with an a (*mari-), whereas a cognate of marbh is unknown in all dialects of Germanic. Yet, given that Pliny had not heard the word directly from a Cimbric informant, it cannot be ruled out that the word is in fact Gaulish instead.

The known Cimbri chiefs have names that look Celtic, including Boiorix (which may mean "King of the Boii" or, more literally, "King of Strikers"), Gaesorix (which means "Spear King"), and Lugius (which may be named after the Celtic god Lugus), although this may not mean that they are Celtic as the elements could work in Germanic (compare the name of the Vandalic king Gaiseric, which is likely identical to Gaesorix). Also, although the kings of the Cimbri and Teutones carry what look like Celtic names, the origin of a name need not say anything about the ethnicity or language of the individual carrying the name. Other evidence to the language of the Cimbri is circumstantial: thus, we are told that the Romans enlisted Gaulish Celts to act as spies in the Cimbri camp prior to the final showdown with the Roman army in 101 BC. Some take this as evidence in support of "the Celtic rather than the German theory".

Jean Markale wrote that the Cimbri were associated with the Helvetii, and more especially with the indisputably Celtic Tigurini. These associations may link to a common ancestry, recalled from two hundred years previous, though they may not. Henri Hubert states "All these names are Celtic, and they cannot be anything else". Some authors take a different perspective.

Countering the argument of a Celtic origin is the literary evidence that the Cimbri originally came from northern Jutland, an area with no Celtic placenames, instead only Germanic ones. This does not rule out Cimbric Gallicization during the period when they lived in Gaul . Boiorix, who may have a Celtic name if not a Celticized Germanic name, was king of the Cimbri after they moved away for their ancestral home of northern Jutland; Boiorix and his tribe lived around Celtic peoples during his era as J. B. Rives points out in his introduction to Tacitus's Germania (book) and moreover that the name Boiorix can work in Proto-Germanic as well as Celtic.