The East Germanic languages are a group of extinct Indo-European languages in the Germanic family. The only East Germanic language of which texts are known is Gothic and Crimean Gothic; other languages that are assumed to be East Germanic include Vandalic and Burgundian. Crimean Gothic is believed to have survived until the 18th century.
Based on accounts by Jordanes, Procopius, Paul the Deacon and others, linguistic evidence (see Gothic language), placename evidence, and on archaeological evidence, it is believed that the East Germanic tribes, the speakers of the East Germanic languages, migrated from Scandinavia to the area between the Oder and the Vistula rivers, ca 600 BCE – ca 300 BCE. In fact, the Scandinavian influence on Pomerania and northern Poland from period III and onwards was so considerable that this region is sometimes included in the Nordic Bronze Age culture (Dabrowski 1989:73).
There is also archaeological and toponymic evidence that Burgundians resided in the island of Bornholm in Denmark (Old Norse: Borgundarholm).
The East Germanic tribes (Vandals, Burgundians, Goths, Rugians and others), related to the North Germanic tribes, had migrated from Scandinavia into the area lying east of the Elbe.
Famous quotes containing the words east and/or languages:
“The East is the hearthside of America. Like any home, therefore, it has the defects of its virtues. Because it is a long-lived-in house, it bursts its seams, is inconvenient, needs constant refurbishing. And some of the family resources have been spent. To attain the privacy that grown-up people find so desirable, Easterners live a harder life than people elsewhere. Today it is we and not the frontiersman who must be rugged to survive.”
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)
“It is time for dead languages to be quiet.”
—Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972)