West Germanic Tribes
The Germanic peoples (also called Teutonic or Gothic in older literature) are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic starting during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
The term "Germanic" originated in classical times, when groups of tribes were referred to using this term by Roman authors. For them, the term was not necessarily based upon language, but rather referred to tribal groups and alliances who were considered less civilized, and more physically hardened, than the Celtic Gauls living in the region of modern France. Tribes referred to as Germanic in that period lived generally to the north and east of the Gauls.
By extension, in modern times the term has also occasionally been used to refer to ethnic groups who claim ancestral and cultural connections to the ancient Germanic peoples, and speak a Germanic language.
Read more about West Germanic Tribes: Ethnonym, Classification, Genetics, Germanic Antiquity in Later Historiography, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words west and/or tribes:
“It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.”
—John Masefield (1878–1967)
“I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)