text:
Talk:English in the Commonwealth of Nations

Canadian English
by no means is CanE included in AmE; many will argue that CanE is halfway between BrE and AmE; and that's not even the reason why there's no "Commonwealth" dialect

Would you expound, JackLumber?

My understanding is that whether by direct lineage or by comparing modern attributes, Canadian English is a variety of American English and not of British English (while English spoken in the remainder of the Commonwealth represents varieties of the latter). Even much of the “British” spelling and vocabulary of Canadian English date back to North America before Loyalists fled the thirteen colonies.

Do linguists consider Canadian and American English (“U.S. English?”) to be two branches of “North American English?” Even if that is so, although there is English in the Commonwealth, there isn't a single or collective variety of English representative of the Commonwealth. It should be made clear that this is a geographic survey article, and may examine some commonalities of English throughout Commonwealth countries, but that “Commonwealth English” isn't a recognized branch of the language. —Michael Z. 2008-10-14 01:25 z

 * In response to Michael: While the verbal pronunciation of English in most of Canada is closer to the most common English pronunciation in the United States than to, for example, the Received Pronunciation form of English in England, I can assure you, living in Canada and having attended the Canadian (British Columbia) education system, that the accepted written form of English in Canada is the Commonwealth form. American influence attenuates standard Commonwealth spellings to a degree, but if you spelled centre or metre as "center" or "meter", as an example, in a Canadian school, you would be marked wrong.  What's more, the "we're not Americans" pride in Canadian nationalism, combined with national media institutions like the CBC and the Canadian Press style book, reinforce the Commonwealth spelling conventions in Canadian society beyond school graduation.

 * For those unfamiliar with spoken English in North America, it is important to note that as one moves westward in both Canada and the United States a sort of default pronunciation dominates in each country, and those pronunciations are similar. In the eastern part of the continent, pronunciations of English are much more localised and idiosyncratic.  Since the English language has been established longest in the east, it has had a longer time to develop local accents and dialects.  Compare, for example, coastal southern, New York, Boston/New England, Canadian maritimes and Newfoundland pronunciations.

 * 96.50.0.245 (talk) 23:01, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Dialects
There are very few differences in English between countries of the Commonwealth. It is not true to say that they have "developed their own native varieties of the language". There are not different "varieties" of English. These are not even dialects, as properly defined. There are regional and national differences, but these are only slight. Much less pronounced than the differences between counties of England in previous centuries. The only national variation that could be considered a different dialect is Indian English. That has some obsolete and unique words and bizarre sentence forms that are peculiar to India. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 02:39, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that the claim made is strange, and is extraordinary enough that it would require extraordinary sourcing. It can probably be moderated to something more sensible, like "have developed in ways that make them somewhat distinct, mostly in the form of localized vocabulary variances", or something to this effect.  But the entire point of this article is that, in fact, the English of most Commonwealth countries and other former British colonies is remarkably consistent, in grammar and in written form, and in certain aspects of pronunciation, and in the majority of its vocabulary aside from things that are very regional, like cuisine terms.  Especially when compared to the variants which have sharply forked from British English (notably American English; and Canadian, which is mostly a mish-mash of British and American; perhaps, to a much more limited extent, Australian English, for which there are some separate dictionaries and style guides, but which do not differ much from British ones).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:49, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

This article should not even exist. The term commonwealth English is meaningless as the differences between them are too huge (eg Indian, British, Malaysian, Canadian, and Australian English are all as different as English varieties get). As an example, Canadian English resembles American English much more than it does British English, as does Australian English resemble New Zealand English far more than it does British English. As such grouping "commonwealth English" on one hand and "US english" on the other is totally meaningless as the varieties are, in the cases of Canada and Australia, as distinct from UK English as US English is, and in the cases of Indian or Singaporean or Malay English considerably more different again. It is misleading not to mention pointless to have this sort of an article. Saruman-the-white (talk) 11:32, 10 June 2012 (UTC) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:49, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * "Indian, British, Malaysian, Canadian, and Australian English are all as different as English varieties get" = patent nonsense. There's no evidence of such a thing, and a tremendous amount of evidence against the idea.  Most obvious is that almost all these places use British-published dictionaries and style guides, and do not have any native ones from reputable publishers, other than dictionaries of colloquialisms.  The two major exceptions are Canadian and Australian, and only Canadian (due to absorbing Americanisms) diverges much from British English.  Spoken vernacular (slang and informalisms), and writing based on it (amateur blogs, signs in shops) tends to vary more, but this is also true of English varieties spoken within a country. There's more difference between the vernacular, spoken British Englishes of Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, and Wales, and even between multiple parts of England, than there is between neighboring varieties of South Asian, Southeast Asian, African, or Caribbean English). This is because of a "linguistically genetic" bottleneck effect, analogous loosely to a genetic bottleneck in biology: Only certain subsets of the English-speaking population of the relevant era had lasting effects on the English established in a given colonial territory, and much more limited time in which to do so, plus comparative isolation, thus usage (with various influences from local indigenous languages and sometimes other colonial languages) eventually ossified to an extent in each of them.  By contrast, the literate class (which was one small in all of these places) were mostly reading the same material from the same (UK-based) publishers and, and following the same rules, resulting in remarkable uniformity in written, formal English. It's only different where socio-political pressures have produced an intentional fork in the codified language an in publishing norms, as happened with American English, sharply, by the 1830s and Canadian English, weakly, in the late 20th century.  In short, there's a reason that spoken Australian English shares features with Cockney, and Jamaican English shares features with Irish English, and these causes are well documented; but they've had virtually no effect on how professional-grade English is written in Jamaica or Australia. People who imagine otherwise are just F'ing hallucinating. Read a Jamaican newspaper; it not written in patois, nor will the average successful international Jamaican businessperson sound like he or she works on a banana boat; really distinctive local patterns of speech are sociolinguistic registers which people can switch between (and which often exist at the city level, not nationally); they are not dialects proper, and they become less and less close to being dialects the more the Internet and other mass media do what they do. People in New Zealand and Bermuda and Hong Kong and Zimbabwe listen to BBC and to British bands on the radio and watch Doctor Who and Coronation Street on TV and their mobile devices, not just locally-produced stuff in their own regional idiom (plus they pick up Americanisms from American media; lots of modern slang and jargon expressions, from bae to YOLO, are universal among English-speaking young people and are entering other languages, too). See below for why this article is really broken and is going to remain that way until re-scoped.

OR and UNDUE concerns
This is such a funny POV Americo-centric article! This article should be deleted - unless someone who, 1) knows about linguistics, or 2) can reference this complete Americo-centric rubbish, and can write something of worth. It's a nonsense to try to gloss over "English as she is spoke" by referring to "native speakers" and other such rot. "Small communities of native English speakers can be found in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia; the dialects spoken are similar to South African English". - I nearly fell off my chair! Francis Hannaway (talk) Francis Hannaway 22:10, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I notice that in some articles (for instance biscuit) there is a reference to Commonwealth English. Shouldn't this be Standard English? There is no such thing as Commonwealth English, as English in India - for instance - is now very far from standard?203.184.41.226 (talk) 01:14, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

 * We do have a "Standard English." 37.47.16.143 (talk) 18:48, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

This is a stupid article, but it strikes me as more a UK-centric fantasy than an American one. It's basically an "Every English but American English" article, aimed at people who are tired of the dominance of AmE and want to increase the relative importance of BrE by expanding it into a mythical "Commonwealth English" that has more relative weight. jej1997 (talk) 09:28, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:58, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't presently detect any WP:UNDUEWEIGHT problems, though the exact content of this article has undergone a lot of changes (not all of them for the better). This really needs a focused research session by someone with a big pile of relevant books (plus linguistics journal articles).  Quite a number of books have already been published about World Englishes and their nature, including the strong connections between the Commonwealth varieties (most especially because BBC News remains a dominant cultural force is many of these places, and very few of them have produced any dictionaries or style guides of their own, and use the British ones, which produces a strongly regularizing effect on published output in these countries, whatever idiosyncrasies are going on at the colloquial speech level). However, a lot of these books are expensive university text books, not cheap mass-market paperbacks, so it will take someone with funds and commitment (or already in possession of such books for professional or academic reasons, or someone who lives next door to a major university library, or a city/county library with staff who are helpful with inter-library loan).  Probably best done by someone at university (as a student or an academic), since the journal access will be free and broad at most university libraries, and via their online resources with a student or faculty ID. At any rate, the concept of Commonwealth English as a label for the entire dialect continuum dates to at least the 1960s.  It's not something made up by either jingoistic Brits or dismissive Yanks, despite the uninformed but directly contradictory opinions of some of the commenters above.  I  agree with the original poster that trying to arrange this article in terms of which groups are native (first-language) speakers versus second-language learners is going to have WP:OR problems. For one thing, it's generally going to vary widely even in the same area (i.e., some subset of the population will be first-language speakers, and others will be ESL leaners, but their usage isn't likely to diverge much between these artificial populations in the same place). It's just like English in New Mexico or any other place where English  one or more other languages are available as someone's first language, generally at a family or micro-community level (which neighborhood you grew up in, or which side of the river/traintracks).  The idea that three people in, say, Zimbabwe are going to speak an encyclopedically different form of English just because one uses it in the home and the second learned it in school and the third picked it up informally as a lingua franca is likely to be nonsense, since these pseudo-groups are all going to be using English with each other, not just exclusively among people who learned English the same way that individual did. If there are two or more different forms of English in the same fairly localized area, they're almost certainly going to be registers of usage between which speakers can code-switch as need be, or they will be regionally divided (opposite sides of a mountain range, or whatever) and will not have anything to do with "nativeness" of the speakers.  This article should cover to what extent the English-speaking population of a country is first-language versus ESL, but that's a simple statistical fact to research and report, not something from which to try to extrapolate (WP:SYNTHesize) a novel "meaningful" interpretation about the nature of the English spoken in South Africa versus Zaire or where-ever.  If one African (or South Asian or Caribbean) English has particular features that distinguish it from RP "Queen's English" and from its neighbors, reliable sources will tell us so and perhaps why; it will not be because 62% of speakers in place X are first-language and 39% in place Y are.
 * Without any significant citations, this entire article is WP:SYNTH or WP:OR. jej1997 (talk) 10:42, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Varieties?
Variants....
 * Pickaback (of piggybank)
 * Mum (of Mom)
 * Biscuit (of cookie)
 * Crisp (of chip)
 * Scone (of biscuit)
 * Pram (of crib)
 * Petroleum (of gasoline)
 * Trolley

124.106.143.76 (talk) 03:27, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

 * Are you asking a question or making a particular comment? Mind reading doesn't work over the internet. - BilCat (talk) 03:39, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
 * This is not "List of words that vary between English dialects" or anything of that sort, so this is off-topic anyway.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:00, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

The primary problem with this article
It's a faulty scope. The principal source of issues with this article is that someone moved it from Commonwealth English, a linguistic classification (a name, albeit not a perfectly accurate one, for the dialect continuum radiating out from British English to former colonies), to English in the Commonwealth of Nations (which is a bogus, artificial topic, like "English west of Ohio" or "English in countries established after 1872" or "English as spoken by tall people"). The article type that takes the form "English in X" only works as a topic when X is a discrete and well-defined thing pertinent to the topic and which does not change much. Countries can enter and leave the Commonwealth at any time, and there is no connection between linguistic matters and being a member of that international geopolitical organization. The term "Commonwealth English" is just a shorthand, like "British Isles" (not all of which are really British) or "Native Americans" (not all of whom live in the Americas, with some ranging into Siberia and Greenland). The Commonwealth of Nations does not determine anything about the English language, and English usage doesn't change when a country enters or exits or refuses to join. Don't mistake a proper name for a literal description (e.g. the Pacific Ocean is not always pacific).

This article is going to continue to have WP:OR and WP:UNDUE and similar problems because the scope is, frankly, completely fake. The scope of Commonwealth English, as a dialect continuum that coincides with the Commonwealth nations but really includes most former British colonial territory aside from the US and Canada, is a valid topic which can be sourced. But there really aren't any WP:RS about "English in the Commonwealth of Nations" because it's not a real subject and thus no one publishes material about that. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:59, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

 * So what's your proposed solution? - BilCat (talk) 22:33, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree that there is a lot wrong with this article, but throughout Wikipedia links to it are used where it is necessary to differentiate US spelling of certain English words compared to the rest of the 'English as a first language' world where US spelling is not normally used.

 * "Commonwealth English" was a much better term as the current title more implicitly excludes Ireland and other countries not in the Commonwealth where English is used as a first language, although these countries are referred to in the text.

 * It would be much easier if the US Americans could agree that the rest of the 'English as first language' world rarely uses their spelling, so Wiki articles would use international British English first, where the article is not specifically about USA topics.

 * Anyway, we are where we are. Personally I would call this topic something like International British English, as outside the USA British English spelling is almost exclusively used where English is used as a first language. The term 'British English' could imply English as used only in Britain. I would prefer that in Wikipedia the term US English is used and not American English as America includes Canada and many other countries.

 * However I am primarily talking about spelling and there is a lot more to this than spelling.

 * In countries where English is used as a second language, US English and British English spellings are used and taught, approximately equally, e.g. China.Lkingscott (talk) 10:24, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Canadian spelling
This page suggests that Canada follows American spelling:

Written English in the current and former Commonwealth generally favours British spelling as opposed to American, with some exceptions, particularly in Canada, where there are strong influences from neighbouring American English.

This is untrue. While Canadian and U.S. varieties of spoken English are close cousins, in the written language Canada has retained most British spellings (colour, licence, fibre). There are a few exceptions; for example, Canada uses -ize rather than -ise for Greek-based verbs (at one time, both forms coexisted in both the Britain and North America); and with a few words you will find both the British and U.S. spellings in use (jewellery/jewelry, tyre/tire); and there are a handful of anomalies (Canadians rarely if ever write gaol or kerb). But it is a far stretch to say that Canada favours American spelling. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:601:e00:97f0:2dac:6285:990e:da46 (talk) 16:16, 19 September 2022 (UTC)


text:
Charles McCarry

Charles McCarry (June 14, 1930 – February 26, 2019) was an American writer, primarily of spy fiction, and a former undercover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Biography
McCarry's family came from The Berkshires area of western Massachusetts. He was born in Pittsfield, and lived in Virginia. He graduated from Dalton High School.

McCarry began his writing career in the United States Army as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes. He served from 1948 to 1951 and achieved the rank of sergeant. He received initial training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was stationed in Germany for almost two years and at Camp Pickett, Virginia for about a year.

After his army service, he was a speechwriter in the early Administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1958, at the invitation of Cord Meyer, he accepted a post with the CIA, for whom he traveled the globe as a deep cover operative. He took a leave of absence to work for the 1960 Nixon campaign, writing for vice-presidential candidate Henry Cabot Lodge. He left the CIA for the last time in 1967, becoming a writer of spy novels.

McCarry was also an editor-at-large for National Geographic and contributed pieces to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Saturday Evening Post, and other national publications.

Approach to writing
McCarry believed that "the best novels are about ordinary things: love, betrayal, death, trust, loneliness, marriage, fatherhood." In 1988 McCarry described the themes of his novels to date as "ordinary things – love, death, betrayal and the American dream."

McCarry wrote that: "After I resigned [from the CIA], intending to spend the rest of my life writing fiction and knowing what tricks the mind can play when the gates are thrown wide open, as they are by the act of writing, between the imagination and that part of the brain in which information is stored, I took the precaution of writing a closely remembered narrative of my clandestine experiences. After correcting the manuscript, I burned it. What I kept for my own use was the atmosphere of secret life: How it worked on the five senses and what it did to the heart and mind. All the rest went up in flames, setting me free henceforth to make it all up. In all important matters, such as the creation of characters and the invention of plots, with rare and minor exceptions, that is what I have done. And, as might be expected, when I have been weak enough to use something that really happened as an episode in a novel, it is that piece of scrap, buried in a landfill of the imaginary, readers invariably refuse to believe."

McCarry was an admirer of the work of Eric Ambler and W. Somerset Maugham, especially the latter's Ashenden stories. He was also an admirer of Richard Condon, author of The Manchurian Candidate (1959).

Paul Christopher series
Ten of McCarry's novels involve the life story of a fictional character named Paul Christopher, who grew up in pre-Nazi Germany, and later served in the Marines and became an operative for a U.S. government entity known as "the Outfit", meant to represent the Central Intelligence Agency.

These books are, in order of publication:
 * 1) The Miernik Dossier (1973): Christopher investigates a possible Soviet spy in Geneva
 * 2) The Tears of Autumn (1974): Christopher investigates the Kennedy Assassination
 * 3) The Secret Lovers (1977): Christopher discovers a secret plot within the CIA
 * 4) The Better Angels (1979): Christopher's cousins steal a Presidential election
 * 5) The Last Supper (1983): introduction to Christopher's parents in pre-World War II Germany; Christopher is imprisoned in China
 * 6) The Bride of the Wilderness (1988): historical novel concerning 17th-century Christopher ancestors
 * 7) Second Sight (1991): released from a Chinese prison, Christopher meets a daughter he did not know he had
 * 8) Shelley's Heart (1995): sequel to The Better Angels: Christopher's cousins cause a Presidential impeachment
 * 9) Old Boys (2004): Christopher's old associates discover a plot involving terrorists and the fate of Christopher's mother
 * 10) Christopher's Ghosts (2007): the story of Christopher's first love in pre-World War II Germany

Alternately, in chronological order of events depicted:
 * 1) Bride of the Wilderness (Christopher's ancestors)
 * 2) Last Supper [in part] (Christopher's parents)
 * 3) Christopher's Ghosts
 * 4) The Miernik Dossier
 * 5) Secret Lovers
 * 6) The Tears of Autumn
 * 7) Last Supper [in part]
 * 8) The Better Angels
 * 9) Shelley's Heart
 * 10) Second Sight (Christopher is a peripheral character)
 * 11) Old Boys (Christopher is a peripheral character)

Reception
The Wall Street Journal described McCarry in 2013 as "the dean of American spy writers". The New Republic magazine called him "poet laureate of the CIA"; and Otto Penzler described him as "the greatest espionage writer that America has ever produced." Jonathan Yardley, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for the Washington Post, calls him a "'serious' novelist" whose work may include "the best novel ever written about life in high-stakes Washington, D.C." In 2004 P. J. O'Rourke called him "the best modern writer on the subject of intrigue."

Adaptations
The film Wrong is Right (1982), starring Sean Connery, was loosely based on McCarry's novel, The Better Angels (1979).

Non-Paul Christopher novels

 * Lucky Bastard (1999). A comic novel in which a likeable but amoral, devious, and oversexed politician (meant to evoke Bill Clinton ) is controlled by a female eastern-bloc subversive.
 * Ark (2011). Earth's wealthiest man attempts to save humanity from a coming apocalypse.
 * The Shanghai Factor (2013). A rookie spy in China is drawn into the lonely, compartmentalized world of counterintelligence, and misunderstands everything that he and those around him are doing.
 * The Mulberry Bush (2015). Explores the world of South America's elites and militant revolutionaries, and the role of lifelong personal passions and agendas in their work and that of intelligence operatives.

Non-fiction

 * Citizen Nader (1972)
 * Double Eagle: Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, Larry Newman (1979)
 * The Great Southwest (1980)
 * Isles of the Caribbean (National Geographic Society, Washington, DC, 1980, co-author)
 * For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington (1988, by Donald Regan with Charles McCarry)
 * Paths of Resistance: The Art and Craft of the Political Novel (1989, with Isabel Allende, Marge Piercy, Robert Stone and Gore Vidal)
 * Inner Circles: How America Changed the World: a Memoir (1992, by Alexander Haig with Charles McCarry)
 * Caveat: Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy (1984, by Alexander Haig with Charles McCarry). Stories include: In March 1981, shortly after taking office, Ronald Reagan was shot; Secretary of State Haig appeared in the White House press room and announced, "I am in charge here!"
 * From the Field: A Collection of Writings from National Geographic (1997, editor)

Collections including McCarry's work
Otto Penzler, editor:
 * Harlan Coben, ed. The Best American Mystery Stories: 2011 − includes "The End of the String."
 * Alan Furst, editor The Book of Spies − includes excerpt from The Tears of Autumn.
 * Agents of Treachery − includes "The End of the Sting."
 * The 50 Greatest Mysteries of All Time − includes "The Hand of Carlos"
 * The Big Book of Espionage − includes "The Hand of Carlos"

Short stories (fiction)

 * "The Saint Who Said No", Saturday Evening Post, December 9, 1961
 * "The Hand of Carlos", Armchair Detective (1992)
 * "The End of the String"

Magazine articles (non-fiction)

 * "A ... Week on the Road With Ralph Nader", Life magazine, January 21, 1972
 * "John Rennon’s Excrusive Gloupie: On the load to briss with the Yoko nobody Onos", Esquire magazine, December 1, 1970

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Charles McCarry


text:
Cimbri

The Cimbri (Κίμβροι, ; ) were an ancient tribe in Europe. Ancient authors described them variously as a Celtic people (or Gaulish), Germanic people, or even Cimmerian. Several ancient sources indicate that they lived in Jutland, which in some classical texts was called the Cimbrian peninsula. There is no direct evidence for the language they spoke, though some scholars argue that it was a Germanic language, while others argue that it was Celtic.

Together with the Teutones and the Ambrones, they fought the Roman Republic between 113 and 101 BC during the Cimbrian War. The Cimbri were initially successful, particularly at the Battle of Arausio, in which a large Roman army was routed. They then raided large areas in Gaul and Hispania. In 101 BC, during an attempted invasion of the Italian peninsula, the Cimbri were decisively defeated at the Battle of Vercellae by Gaius Marius, and their king, Boiorix, was killed. Some of the surviving captives are reported to have been among the rebellious gladiators in the Third Servile War.

Name
The origin of the name Cimbri is unknown. One etymology is PIE ' "inhabitant", from ' "home" (> English home), itself a derivation from  "live" (> Greek κτίζω, Latin sinō); then, the Germanic *himbra- finds an exact cognate in Slavic sębrъ "farmer" (> Croatian, Serbian sebar, Belorussian сябёр syabyor).

The name has also been related to the word kimme meaning "rim", i.e., "the people of the coast". Finally, since Antiquity, the name has been related to that of the Cimmerians.

The name of the Danish region Himmerland (Old Danish Himbersysel) has been proposed to be a derivative of their name. According to such proposals, the word Cimbri with a c would be an older form before Grimm's law (PIE k > Germanic h). Alternatively, Latin c- represents an attempt to render the unfamiliar Proto-Germanic h = (Latin h was  but was becoming silent in common speech at the time), perhaps due to Celtic-speaking interpreters (a Celtic intermediary could also explain why one proposed etymology for the Teutons, Germanic *Þeuðanōz, became Latin Teutones).

Because of the similarity of the names, the Cimbri have been at times associated with Cymry, the Welsh name for themselves. However, Cymry is derived from Brittonic *Kombrogi (cf. Allobroges), meaning "compatriots", and is linguistically unrelated to Cimbri.

Origins
Scholars generally see the Cimbri as originating in Jutland, but archaeologists have found no clear indications of any mass migration from Jutland in the early Iron Age. The Gundestrup Cauldron, which was deposited in a bog in Himmerland in the 2nd or 1st century BC, shows that there was some sort of contact with southeastern Europe, but it is uncertain if this contact can be associated with the Cimbrian militia expeditions against Rome of the 1st Century BC. It is known that the peoples of Northern Europe and the British Isles participated in annual partial population seasonal Winter migrations southward to what is now central Iberia and southern France where goods and resources were traded and cross-culture marriages were arranged.

Advocates for a northern homeland point to Greek and Roman sources that associate the Cimbri with the Jutland peninsula. According to the Res gestae (ch. 26) of Augustus, the Cimbri were still found in the area around the turn of the 1st century AD:

"My fleet sailed from the mouth of the Rhine eastward as far as the lands of the Cimbri, to which, up to that time, no Roman had ever penetrated either by land or by sea, and the Cimbri and Charydes and Semnones and other peoples of the Germans of that same region through their envoys sought my friendship and that of the Roman people."

The contemporary Greek geographer Strabo testified that the Cimbri still existed as a Germanic tribe, presumably in the "Cimbric peninsula" (since they are said to live by the North Sea and to have paid tribute to Augustus):

"As for the Cimbri, some things that are told about them are incorrect and others are extremely improbable. For instance, one could not accept such a reason for their having become a wandering and piratical folk as this that while they were dwelling on a Peninsula they were driven out of their habitations by a great flood-tide; for in fact they still hold the country which they held in earlier times; and they sent as a present to Augustus the most sacred kettle in their country, with a plea for his friendship and for an amnesty of their earlier offences, and when their petition was granted they set sail for home; and it is ridiculous to suppose that they departed from their homes because they were incensed on account of a phenomenon that is natural and eternal, occurring twice every day. And the assertion that an excessive flood-tide once occurred looks like a fabrication, for when the ocean is affected in this way it is subject to increases and diminutions, but these are regulated and periodical."

On the map of Ptolemy, the "Kimbroi" are placed on the northernmost part of the peninsula of Jutland, i.e., in the modern landscape of Himmerland south of Limfjorden (since Vendsyssel-Thy north of the fjord was at that time a group of islands).

Migration
Some time before 100 BC many of the Cimbri, as well as the Teutons and Ambrones, migrated south-east. After several unsuccessful battles with the Boii and other Celtic tribes, they appeared c. 113 BC in Noricum, where they invaded the lands of one of Rome's allies, the Taurisci.

On the request of the Roman consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, sent to defend the Taurisci, they retreated, only to find themselves deceived and attacked at the Battle of Noreia, where they defeated the Romans. Only a storm, which separated the combatants, saved the Roman forces from complete annihilation.

Invading Gaul
Now the road to Italy was open, but they turned west towards Gaul. They came into frequent conflict with the Romans, who usually came out the losers. In 109 BC, they defeated a Roman army under the consul Marcus Junius Silanus, who was the commander of Gallia Narbonensis. In 107 BC they defeated another Roman army under the consul Gaius Cassius Longinus, who was killed at the Battle of Burdigala (modern day Bordeaux) against the Tigurini, who were allies of the Cimbri.

Attacking the Roman Republic
It was not until 105 BC that they planned an attack on the Roman Republic itself. At the Rhône, the Cimbri clashed with the Roman armies. Discord between the Roman commanders, the proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio and the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, hindered Roman coordination and so the Cimbri succeeded in first defeating the legate Marcus Aurelius Scaurus and later inflicted a devastating defeat on Caepio and Maximus at the Battle of Arausio. The Romans lost as many as 80,000 men, according to Livy; Mommsen (in his History of Rome) thought that excluded auxiliary cavalry and non-combatants who brought the total loss closer to 112,000. Other estimates are much smaller, but by any account a large Roman army was routed.

Rome was in panic, and the terror cimbricus became proverbial. Everyone expected to soon see the new Gauls outside of the gates of Rome. Desperate measures were taken: contrary to the Roman constitution, Gaius Marius, who had defeated Jugurtha, was elected consul and supreme commander for five years in a row (104–100 BC).

Defeat
In 104–103 BC, the Cimbri had turned to the Iberian Peninsula where they pillaged far and wide, until they were confronted by a coalition of Celtiberians. Defeated, the Cimbri returned to Gaul, where they joined their allies, the Teutons. During this time, C. Marius had the time to prepare and, in 102 BC, he was ready to meet the Teutons and the Ambrones at the Rhône. These two tribes intended to pass into Italy through the western passes, while the Cimbri and the Tigurines were to take the northern route across the Rhine and later across the Central Eastern Alps.

At the estuary of the Isère, the Teutons and the Ambrones met Marius, whose well-defended camp they did not manage to overrun. Instead, they pursued their route, and Marius followed them. At Aquae Sextiae, the Romans won two battles and took the Teuton king Teutobod prisoner.

The Cimbri had penetrated through the Alps into northern Italy. The consul Quintus Lutatius Catulus had not dared to fortify the passes, but instead he had retreated behind the river Po, and so the land was open to the invaders. The Cimbri did not hurry, and the victors of Aquae Sextiae had the time to arrive with reinforcements. At the Battle of Vercellae, at the confluence of the river Sesia with the Po, in 101 BC, the long voyage of the Cimbri also came to an end.

It was a devastating defeat. Two chieftains, Lugius and Boiorix, died on the field, while the other chieftains Caesorix and Claodicus were captured. The women killed both themselves and their children in order to avoid slavery. The Cimbri were annihilated, although some may have survived to return to the homeland where a population with this name was residing in northern Jutland in the 1st century AD, according to the sources quoted above. Some of the surviving captives are reported to have been among the rebelling gladiators in the Third Servile War.

Justin's epitome of Trogus has Mithridates the Great send emissaries to the Cimbri to request military aid during the Social War (91-88 BCE). Justin also states that the Cimbri were again in Italy at this time, i.e. over ten years later.

Supposed descendants
According to Julius Caesar, the Belgian tribe of the Atuatuci "was descended from the Cimbri and Teutoni, who, upon their march into our province and Italy, set down such of their stock and stuff as they could not drive or carry with them on the near (i.e. west) side of the Rhine, and left six thousand men of their company there as guard and garrison" (Gall. 2.29, trans. Edwards). They founded the city of Atuatuca in the land of the Belgic Eburones, whom they dominated. Thus Ambiorix king of the Eburones paid tribute and gave his son and nephew as hostages to the Atuatuci (Gall. 6.27). In the first century AD, the Eburones were replaced or absorbed by the Germanic Tungri, and the city was known as Atuatuca Tungrorum, i.e. the modern city of Tongeren.

The population of modern-day Himmerland claims to be the heirs of the ancient Cimbri. The adventures of the Cimbri are described by the Danish Nobel Prize–winning author Johannes V. Jensen, himself born in Himmerland, in the novel Cimbrernes Tog (1922), included in the epic cycle Den lange Rejse (English The Long Journey, 1923). The so-called Cimbrian bull ("Cimbrertyren"), a sculpture by Anders Bundgaard, was erected on 14 April 1937 in a central town square in Aalborg, the capital of the region of North Jutland.

A German ethnic minority speaking the Cimbrian language, having settled in the mountains between Vicenza, Verona, and Trento in Italy (also known as Seven Communities), is also called the Cimbri. For hundreds of years this isolated population and its present 4,400 inhabitants have claimed to be the direct descendants of the Cimbri retreating to this area after the Roman victory over their tribe. However, it is more likely that Bavarians settled here in the Middle Ages. Most linguists remain committed to the hypothesis of a medieval (11th to 12th century AD) immigration to explain the presence of small German-speaking communities in the north of Italy. Some genetic studies seem to prove a Celtic, not Germanic, descent for most inhabitants in the region that is reinforced by Gaulish toponyms such as those ending with the suffix -ago < Celtic -*ako(n) (e.g. Asiago is clearly the same place name as the numerous variants – Azay, Aisy, Azé, Ezy – in France, all of which derive from *Asiacum < Gaulish *Asiāko(n)). On the other hand, the original place names in the region, from the specifically localized language known as 'Cimbro' are still in use alongside the more modern names today. These indicate a different origin (e.g., Asiago is known also by its original Cimbro name of Sleghe). The Cimbrian origin myth was popularized by humanists in the 14th century.

Despite these connections to southern Germany, belief in a Himmerland origin persisted well into modern times. On one occasion in 1709, for instance, Frederick IV of Denmark paid the region's inhabitants a visit and was greeted as their king. The population, which kept its independence during the time of the Venice Republic, was later severely devastated by World War I. As a result, many Cimbri have left this mountainous region of Italy, effectively forming a worldwide diaspora.

Religion

The Cimbri are depicted as ferocious warriors who did not fear death. The host was followed by women and children on carts. Aged women, priestesses, dressed in white sacrificed the prisoners of war and sprinkled their blood, the nature of which allowed them to see what was to come.

Strabo gives this vivid description of the Cimbric folklore:

If the Cimbri did in fact come from Jutland, evidence that they practiced ritualistic sacrifice may be found in the Haraldskær Woman discovered in Jutland in the year 1835. Noosemarks and skin piercing were evident and she had been thrown into a bog rather than buried or cremated. Furthermore, the Gundestrup cauldron, found in Himmerland, may be a sacrificial vessel like the one described in Strabo's text. In style, the work looks like Thracian silver work, while many of the engravings are Celtic objects.

Language
A major problem in determining whether the Cimbri were speaking a Celtic language or a Germanic language is that, at that 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, and not based upon languages. Caesar seems to be one of the first authors to distinguish the Celtae and Germani, and he had a political motive for doing so, because it was an argument in favour of his push to set the Rhine as a new Roman 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. Some 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 speaker, it cannot be ruled out that the word he heard had been translated into Gaulish.

The known Cimbri chiefs have Celtic names, 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). 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 before the final showdown with the Roman army in 101 BC.

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, but that is not certain. 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 had a Celtic if not a Celticized Germanic name, was king of the Cimbri after they moved away from 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' Germania; furthermore, the name "Boiorix" can be seen as having either Proto-Germanic or Celtic roots.

In fiction
The science fiction story "Delenda Est" by Poul Anderson depicts an alternate history in which Hannibal won the Second Punic War and destroyed Rome, but Carthage proved unable to rule Italy – which fell into utter chaos. Thus, there was no one to stop the Cimbri two hundred years later. They filled the vacuum, conquered Italy, assimilated the local population to their own culture and by the equivalent of the 20th century had made of Italy a flourishing, technologically advanced kingdom speaking a Germanic language. He also wrote an unrelated historical novel "The Golden Slave", about a Cimbrian chieftain who is enslaved by the Romans after the Battle of Vercellae.

Cimbri is referenced in Italo Calvino's novel If on a Winter's Night a Traveller as a fictional country that warred with a similarly fictionalised version of Cimmeria, thus imposing its own written language onto the Cimmerians.

Jeff Hein’s historical fiction series The Cimbrian War tells the story of the Cimbri and their migration across Iron-Age Europe.

title: Cimbri


text:
Talk:Cimbri

[Untitled]
These Prussian entries seem to be more a bilingual dictionary of proper names that assumes that any etymological connection is meaningful than actual encyclopedia entries. --MichaelTinkler

- The Cimbri lived on the Jutland peninsula some 2000 years ago.

The Rome said:

The Cimbri lived by the a bay near Heligoland and near Elbe.

The Cimbri disappeared after a flood some 2000 years ago.

A crazy Dane about 1500 said: Cimbri lived on Jutland becorse Jutland have at place name Himmersyssel, which have two letters in common.

who are most credible?

13:23, 2004 Sep 25 (UTC)

 * User:Haabet, you are a serious problem to Wikipedia, since I have to verify everything you write. I am beginning to understand why you are the most banned user ever on Danish Wikipedia. I have checked with other encyclopedias and there is nothing but Jutland.--Wiglaf 17:23, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Grimm's law
If Himmerland is from that tribe's name, but they were defeated as Cimbri in 100 BC, Grimm's law would have been active in Denmark after 100 BC. That seems rather difficult to believe; cf. Negau helmet: If this is the case, Grimm's law has to be dated to precisely the 2nd to 1st centuries BC (a soundlaw may remain active over 200 years, I suppose, but hardly over 500 years). This is not impossible, of course, but it would mean that the Germanic tribes in the 2nd century BC still lived in close enough contact to be affected by it without exception. (the Cimri would then be the last pre-Proto-Germanic tribe...). dab (ᛏ) 18:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
 * their leaders being called Lugius and Boiorix, clearly Gaulish names -- I think it is dubitable that they were a "Proto-Germanic tribe" as asserted. They may have been composed of Germans and Gauls under Gaulish leadership, but it seems too confident to say they were Proto-Germans from Jutland. dab (ᛏ) 16:15, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Celts were in Galicia, Asia minor, Germany, etc. No reason Cimbri need be German because of area.

The Cimbri are very unlikely to be Celtic, however Wikipedia has become a Celtophile farce. The most logical conclusion is that teh Cimbri, like the Belgic Germanic tribes, had Celtic influence and the leaders used Celtic names as a status symbol or were part Celtic. It would be very hard to find any evidence that Celtic tribes lived in Denmark, but I wish these Celtophile dreamers the best of luck! - Anon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.0.195 (talk) 16:15, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

"Any evidence" - well, maybe Celtic tribes didn't live in Denmark, but artefacts from the relevant period show a high degree of Celtic influence in their design, and some of them, like some of the many waggons found, was even made by other Celts from other areas and imported. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.93.206.42 (talk) 12:35, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to butt-in Mr. 83.93.206.42 but then what is your point? If you agree that "Celtic" tribes probably didn't live in Jutland then why say "but artefacts from the relevant period show a high degree of "Celtic" influence in their design, and some of them, like some of the many waggons found, was even made by other Celts from other areas and imported." as if to prove they did. Especially since no one is saying that there is no "Celtic" influence in Jutland (though you'll need a good source if you are going to make the claim of "high degree" of "Celtic" influence that many other Germanic peoples of the area do not have...bearing in mind the cultural dominance of the Celts in what is now Germany and Western Europe for many years). You admit that the "artefacts" (in this case wagons) found are imported. You can import objects from another culture without being one or you could say Assyrians are actually Iranians\Persians because they were influenced and imported goods from Persia, or you could say that the Romans are Greeks because of the influence on Roman culture (such as the Greco-Roman religion amongst other things), or indeed that Europeans are Canaanite peoples because of the influence of Jewish religion (via its Christian off-shoot) on certain aspects of European culture (at least in the past). So it must be said we don't have any real evidence that Celtic tribes lived in Jutland at any point. Sigurd Dragon Slayer (talk) 02:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

merge
I removed the merge tag for merging with Cimbrian War (present since January 2006); both articles are long & well-developed at this point and should probably stay separate. The corresponding tag had already been removed from Cimbrian War some time ago. Please discuss here if there are alternate view -- phoebe 06:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Cymry means the same as Cumbria and Cvm, not Compatriot
The meaning given for the name of Wales is a folk etymology and has nothing to do with reality. The Combes, Coombes or Coombs, are hollows of Britain, especially on the western coast. Perhaps this error is repeated elsewhere, but I will not fix it for you lot. Rhode Islander 07:44, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm...can someone find any real proof (citations..etc..) that the Cimbri are a Germanic/Celtic tribe rather than just Germanic (other than fanciful notions connecting the name to Wales). I have to admit that my knowledge of the Cimbri is limited but I have never really seen a realiable source that said they were anything other than Germanic. - A. Person
 * Both Germanic and Celtic is fiction without contents. If you accept Germania as a territory. The inhabitant had nothing together except your name of there territory. A tribe from Germania is not a Germanic tribe, because the originally Germanic tribe was a tribe in Gaul. In the same way as the originally Gaul tribe was a tribe in north Italy.Håbet 12:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

 * The language of Wales is in family by some languages of Persia and in family by languages in most of Europe. If two tribes had the same name, it was often a coincidence. A new tribe, mixed of people from many tribes had need of a new name different from all the originally tribes, and a language have a limited number of word suitable for to a tribe name.Håbet 12:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

No a 'Germanic' Tribe is one that spoke a Germanic Language (Or Teutonic if you prefer) not as you say someone from Germania (though many did live in what is now Germany)...hence some came from Scandza (Scandinavia). Infact the Germanic language and culture originated in Scandinavia (or so goes the most popular theory)...not Gaul as you claim.
 * The Nazi sad the Germanic originated in Scandinavia, of that cause all other people was weeds who ought to gas. If you say "the Germanic language and culture originated in Scandinavia" your are a Nazi.Håbet 08:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The Gauls were from Gaul however as the Gaulish language is a part of the Celtic brach you could say they (as a culture and liguistic group) originated in either Germany (where the first Celtic speakers may have originated) or the Caspian Steppes where the Proto-Celtic Langauge is thought to originates. So sorry you are in this case slightly mistaken.
 * The language of Cimbri is unknown. The Scandinavia Languages is mixing language of two original Languages. Nearly all fact about Celtic and Germanic and Gaulish Language is fiction, because they had no written language. The legend tell as three boats from Scandza and founded the Ostrogothic kingdom, but was all the Germanic Language in that three boats as the legend is fact?Håbet 08:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The idea about the Celtic branch of the language tree had the root in the Bible. The earth is 3000 year old and the language was created of God by the Tower of Babel.Håbet 08:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you dense or what, Håbet? The Nazis had no problem with Celts, some Slavs, Brython (who some consider Celtic), Latins, Greeks etc... none of these would be face the gas. The Nazis did know of Indo-European studies and ardently (and cruelly) followed it.

Actually, many non-Nazi scholars believe that the Germanic language developed fully in Scandza. Anyway, believing that a language developed somewhere isn't akin to Nazism, so don't play the tiresome "You are a Nazi" card, it won't help your argument. The Cimbri are most likely Germanic with Celtic elements, just live with it. _ Anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.0.195 (talk) 16:20, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

The Proto-Germanic language is likely to be from southern Scandinavia due to that area being the only part of Europe without non-Germanic placenames. Sigurd Dragon Slayer (talk) 09:32, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The generally accepted etymology for Welsh Cymry is that it comes from Brittonic *Combroges "Fellow countrymen". It cannot be related to the ethnic name Cimbri.Cagwinn (talk) 00:30, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

The text of this section as it stands is nonsense. It may be characterised in this way: "The name may come from A or from B but under no circumstances will we entertain a connection to C." And this notwithstanding that A and B are mutually exclusive and not withstanding that A includes the concept "inhabitant" and C the concept "countryman". This is a parade of prejudice and wilful myopia. If you cannot choose between A and B it stands to reason that you have not got much of a clue and on that basis you cannot exclude C. Yet this does not stop eg Cagwinn pronouncing ex cathedra that it "cannot be related.....".

The underlying problems with the thrust of the argument are (a) that it presumes that the Cimbri were aboriginally Germanic - ie they did not "come from" anywhere - which is assertion based on precisely nothing and (b) that it takes no account of the migration/evolution of meaning.

I do not (as yet) have a firm view in this matter, but I am predisposed to take seriously the idea that the origin of the name Cymry (for "British") does indeed lie in/with the Cimbri - on the basis that the Cimbri may well have been PCeltic speakers even if they were living amongst Germanic speakers. Freuchie (talk) 18:16, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Belgae DNA Modal & Nordic-Celtic Project
Belgae DNA Modal & Nordic-Celtic Project

I have come up we this - Belgae DNA Modal through my Nordic-Celtic DNA project (1008 members).

http://www.ysearch.org/lastname_view.asp?uid=&letter=&lastname=Belgae&viewuid=AX6GA&p=0

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Nordic-Celtic

Investigating the contribution that archaeology has made to accounts of human evolution

Accounts of human evolution usually revolve around well-publicised discoveries of the bony remains of our ancestors. These do allow us to piece together our family tree and to paint - at least in broad outline - a picture of the ancestors who appear on that tree. But it is the archaeological record that preserves actual traces of our ancestors' activities and intuition suggests that these ought to be fundamental to our accounts of human evolution. However, this is far from being the case and this project is designed to explore why this is so.

Masters Thesis

I would like to enroll into the Masters Thesis Research Degree

This is a link to my Research:

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Nordic-Celtic

I could also research to what degree of social assimilation occurred between native European groups of people throughout the history of Australia - through dna?

The focus of the project is to gather a representation of evidence and interest in Native Scandinavians and Native Celtic-Iberians found in ‘all’ parts of Australia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.27.247.252 (talk) 13:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC).

Cimbri-Cymry?
This is not a popular view at all and is unlikely. The name looks similar to Cymry but that doesn't mean a connecting. Celts and Germanic people are both Indo-European. If the words are related they could be to do with the Indo-European language.

Also, old sources mention nothing about them being Celtic and historians and most etmologists don't either. So we shouldn't start off saying "they are a Germanic-cross Celtic' tribe! This is filled with weazel words trying to steer the article towards the conclusion that they were a Celtic tribe...which is unlikely. DR. Martin Hesselius 14:48, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

It's been familiar to me in print for years, since you are a fictional creation Martin, your opinion probably won't matter. Btw it is etymologist

" Appian of Alexandria who wrote his “History of Rome: The Gallic Wars” about 130 AD. Here he discusses “Gauls”, “Celts” and “Germans”. Of the Cimbri he said they were a most numerous and warlike hoarde of Celtic tribes (Epit.2), whereas Ceasar overcame the Germans under Ariovistus (Epit.3)."

....

Er, couldn't etmologist just be a typing error of etymologist? Wow, talk about intellect! I guess you have never heard of a typing error...

So Martin is a fictional creation is he? What the hell are you then? I know we are all aliases (and thus fictional) which makes ALL of our opinions pointless. Lets close down the internet.

Anyway, what Martin was saying has nothing to do with opinions but facts. There is no great work of academic research that claims the Cimbri as Brythonic (etymology goes against thsi view) only ridiculous websites that mainly get their information from this very article! _ Anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.0.195 (talk) 16:28, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Editing
Please insert a proper identification instead of (Coxcomb 2007) interpolated into a sentence: it's foolishly pretentious without a bibliography directly attached. I worked out most of these little undergraduate puzzlers, but not all. I've commented out some questions where the text just couldn't be unknotted. Wetman (talk) 20:51, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Germanic/Celtic
I think its intellectually irresponsible to indiscriminately write "The Cimbri were a Germanic tribe" in the beginning of the article. We have lots of sources and information saying the Cimbri are Celtic, and a few "unreferenced" claims that they are Germanic. What is the reasoning behind labeling them Germanic as a standard, when the evidence possibly says otherwise? SenseOnes (talk) 17:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Cornelius Tacitus tell in Germania as Cimbri were a Germanic tribe. He assume as the word "Germanic" been well-known in that age then Cimbri invade. He also tell as Cimbri live in a bay, named Codan, and not on a peninsula.Haabet 23:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

 * The names of the Cimbri's chiefs (Boiorix, Gaesorix, Lugius, etc.) are undoubtedly Celtic. The most famous archaeological item found on the territory of the Cimbri, the Gundestrup Cauldron, is distinctive of the Celtic art. The tribes names "Teutones" and "Ambrones" are Celtic too. The fact that the Cimbri spoke a Celtic Language is attested by Pliny the Elder, who quotes several words of the Cimbrian Language. Thus, assuming that the Cimbri are only Germanic or Germanic with a Celtic influence is uncorrect (see also David K. Faux "The Cimbri of Denmark" who mentions many other sources and "Les Gaulois" by Jean Grenier who discusses the question of the Cimbrian Chief Names eg.). As far as I know, there is no argument pointing toward the fact that the Cimbri were Germanic. For the Romans, "Germanic" did not refer to an ethno-linguistic entity, thus the fact that Cicero considered a given tribe as "germanic" isn't relevant.Kentel (talk) 18:08, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It's surely not an established "fact" that a tribe-name like "Teutones" has to be Celtic. Fulcher (talk) 04:42, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * "The names of the Cimbri's chiefs (Boiorix, Gaesorix, Lugius, etc.) are undoubtedly Celtic."
 * GAESORIX = Gaisaric, CLAODICUS = Kludwig. 46.252.225.59 (talk) 09:44, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Descendants
Stevo343 arbitrarily removed all reference to my work at http://www.davidkfaux.org/Cimbri-Chronology.pdf. He did this due to a long standing feud dating back over a year. This has nothing at all to do with content. As to his claim that I am a "hobbyist" that is true. However I also have a PhD in Medical Sciences and am co-founder of a DNA testing company. Please check Stevo343's credentials for editing work relating to genetics.

Danvik —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danvik (talk • contribs) 08:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Danvik's genetics speculations, FOR WHICH HE CITES ONLY HIMSELF AS THE AUTHORITY, have no place in an historical article and are in clear violation of Wikipedia's policy against publishing original work. There are no scientific studies to support his claims relative to the Cimbri and R1b1c10. Danvik is not a geneticist or an historian. His speculations are fine on his own web sites and in dna discussion forums, but they have no place in what should be a factual article. He has himself been y-dna tested and found to be R1b1c10. His R1b1c10 component of the Cimbri article is simply a transparent attempt to glorify his subclade, to somehow get it from Central Europe to Denmark and from thence to England so that Danvik can claim viking ancestry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevo343 (talk • contribs) 23:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

 * I agree. Irrespective of the merits of the section (which I removed), the section about R1b1c10 by Danvik violates a number of Wiki guidelines and policies, including Verifiability and No Original Research.  Vineviz (talk) 02:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

 * I went through Faux's work carefully and it leaks like a sieve. Particularly damning is: Børglum, Anders D., Cristiano Vernesi, Peter K.A. Jensen, Bo Madsen, Annette Haagerup, and Guido Barbujani. "No Signature of Y Chromosomal Resemblance Between Possible Descendants of the Cimbri in Denmark and Northern Italy". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 132 (2007). pp. 278-284.

 * David K. Faux. The Cimbri Tribe of Jutland, Denmark: Their Origins and Descendants as Indicated by the Archaeological, Historical and Genetic Data

 * Gods, where to start. First, I recommend a look at the author's website, where we find that Faux does have a PhD -- in psychology, not history or genetics. Next, I started trying to track down Faux's sources.

 * p. 1 Markale (1976): Markdale here is undoubtedly Jean Markale's The Celts: Uncovering the Mythic and Historic Origins of Western Culture (Inner Traditions, 1993; originally published in French, 1976). Markdale isn't a historian but rather a New Age poet and philosopher. This book is a slapped-together mishmash and not in any way authoritative. [The scholarly critique of Markdale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Markale] is, frankly, scathing.

 * p. 1 Hubert 1934: This would be Henri Hubert, The Greatness and Decline of the Celts. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltf. 1934. Hubert explains the Cimbri invasion and attacks against Rome, leaving us around 100 BC and saying that the Cimri were diverted off into Spain.

 * p. 2 Wells 1995: Peter S. Wells. "The La Tène Period in Germany". Different Iron Ages: Studies on the Iron Age in Temperate Europe. eds. J. D. Hill and Christopher G. Cumberpatch. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports(International Series 602). 1995. Wells provides a thorough, well-informed review of the La Tene culture, centered in Switzerland. At this point in the paper, Faux has completely lost his mind, both asserting that the Cimbri were Celts and were not Celts.

 * p. 2 Ritson 1827: Joseph Ritson. Memoirs of the Celts or Gauls. London: Payne and Foss. 1827. Ritson provides a thorough review of what the ancient authors had to say about the Cimbri.

 * p. 4 Herm 1976: Gerhard Herm. The Celts: The People Who Came Out of the Darkness. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1975. Another review of what the ancient authors had to say, especially Strabo.

 * p. 4 Peter Berresford Ellis, in "The Celtic Empire" (1990) Peter Berresford Ellis. The Celtic Empire: The First Millennium of Celtic History, 1000BC - AD51. Robinson Publishing. 1990. Does not cover any history later than about 100AD.

 * p. 6 Suddenly we jump to the Danelaw in England ca. 880AD, with no evidence whatsoever that the Cimbri are related to the settlers of the Danelaw.

 * p. 7 And we jump back to 2350BC. Readers beware of timeline whiplash.

 * p. 16 Wildly leaps from Cimbri to Cimmerians. Associates Cimmerians with the Biblical Gomer or Gomerians, notes the Cimmerians are first mentioned in 850 BC by Homer and Herodotus c. 450 BC.

 * p. 17 Attempts to link Cimmerians, Welsh Cymry, Cumbrians etc. None of this holds up under modern linguistic scholarship.

 * p. 18 Links La Tene culture, Danish Vikings, and Merovingians in the same breath with the builders of Stonehenge. All we need now are UFOs and crop circles.

 * p. 19 Kristiansen 1998: Kristian Kristiansen. Europe before History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998. Associates the Gundestrop Cauldron, the Cimbri, and Himmerland in Northern Jutland.

 * p. 19 More discussion of Thracian-Cimmerians.

 * p. 27 Without a scrap of evidence, Faux now proposes that the Cimbri arrived in Jutland at 500 BC, which is when a marked change in the local Bronze Age culture is shown in the archaeology of the period.

 * p. 31 Nakedly asserts that Tollund Man is a Cimbrian

 * p. 47 Admits that genetic testing shows no relationship between modern Danes and the Cimbi remnant population in northern Italy.

 * p. 69 Roman legion monuments mention "Mercurio Cimbriano" in the 200s AD.

 * p. 43 Map showing proposed route for Cimbri who eventually attack Rome and are defeated in 101BC.

 * --Gunnora (talk) 08:30, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Common Era
"Common" to whom or what?

If you say the year of the dog, we know you mean the Chinese calendar and can get our bearings there. If you say 1400 years since the birth of Muhammed, we know you are referring to the Muslim Calendar. If you say some time during the reign of Cyrus the Great, we know you are referring to the Persian calendar. If you say some time until the end of the world, you may be referring to the Mayan calendar. But please understand that the Gregorian calendar is not the Authority on what is the Common Era. It is purely chauvinistic to assume that YOUR calendar is the Common One. Get over it because not everyone is on the same page and agrees with your idea of what's common. Just cite your calendar and let me take it from there, OK? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.136.31.2 (talk) 02:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Humber
Here serious point for Cimbri in Britain.Quit possibly destroying Wales is not Cymry theory .The estuary Humber according to Grimm Law means Cimbri. It is big thing for Northumbria was named by Anglo Saxons as North of Humber.

¨¨¨¨ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edelward (talk • contribs) 13:03, 20 March 2010 (UTC) --Edelward (talk) 13:05, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, except for the fact there is no evidence whatsoever that "Humber" and "Cimbri" and/or "Cymry"/"Cymry" are related. If "Humber" was from "Cymry" then it would be "Cumber" in English as the shift from "C" to "H" was complete in Germanic languages well before the Old English era. And in fact "Cymry" was borrowed into English as "Cumber-" (hence Cumberland and a few other place-names with "Cumber-" in them. So I am sorry but you don't get the biscuit today.

P.S. who claimed "Wales is not Cymry"? Incidently "Cymry" is "Welshmen", "the Welsh" whereas "Cymru" is "Wales". Everyone acknowledges that "Cymry" was and is used as an ethnic designation by the Welsh.Sigurd Dragon Slayer (talk) 12:31, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * What's the connection with the name of the Cimbri ? Cymru is the result of an evolution of Old Celtic *Combrogi, that is not the same as Cimbri.Nortmannus (talk)

Celtic vs Germanic
Sorry to re-arouse this debate, but we need to update how we are assessing this issue. I would argue that they were neither, with qualification. We need to ask what we mean when we propose they were Celtic, or Germanic ? Coz the recent trend of anthropology would argue that the notion of Celtic ethnicity did not exist, nor a Germanic one until at least 800s AD, but perhaps more realistically 1600 were the first of the Germanisists began writing. THus to call them GErmanic or CEltic is somewhat imprecise and anachronistic - especially that the terms are first and foremost lingusitic categories that have been (somewould argue inappropriately) extended to also refer to archaeological features or ancient tribes.

If they really did come from Jutland, the fact that they might have lived in "Germanic" long-houses or used "Celtic" swords does not, in itself, designate ethnicity, but only informs us about their socio-economic mode of existence and the trade contacts they engaged in. We actually have next to no real evidence directly associated with the Cimbri.

All one is left with is the language that they might have spoken. As it has already been mentioned above, if they were proto-Germanic speakers, then they should have been called Chimbri and Theutones. Unless the Romans got the name wrong, it would suggest that they spoke a not yet Germanized IE language. That's all we can leave it at, if we want to aviod false conclusions Hxseek (talk) 06:19, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think there was definitely a Germanic identity much earlier. After all, the Germanic people had a specific word, *walhaz, to refer to a non-Germanic person. I don't know about the Celts though. CodeCat (talk) 04:59, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This discurse is irrelevant. Germanic is a oldeuropean language and much older as Cymraec or celtic. The Cimber spoken nethergermanic. *valla (not stupid *walhaz reconstruction), means a wandering. It comes from walla, wallfahrt, wallhall, valley.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.159.60.41 (talk) 23:33, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Initial v is unlikely in proto-Germanic. Initial c/k is also unlikely. Anyway, the source given for the statement that they are simply unambiguously Germanic, in the lede, is inadequate. 173.66.211.53 (talk) 00:51, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Preceding speech of 5.159.60.41 is completely irrelevant and shows clearly that he never studied etymology. First, Celtic is documented (inscriptions on stones, lead, etc.) a long time before Germanic. For sure, it does not mean anything about the age of the language. Celtic and Germanic are both from Proto-Indo-European and they are certainly as old as one another. Second Wallfahrt (with W, not w) is a German word, only attested in mittelhochdeutsch wallevart and is based on the German verb wallen "go, make a pilgrimage" related to Old English weallian and Dutch wallen. It is only Westgermanic. The reconstructed Germanic form is *wāđlójan not *walla. Valley does not have anything to do with that, it comes from Old French val[l]ee (mod. vallée), the Old English word is only dæl > dale. Etymology of French vallée is Latin vallis + suffix -ATA, so Gallo-Romance VALLATA > vallee, -ee is the result of -ata only in French. Walhall[a]′s first element is the same as Walstatt "battle field, battle place" from OHG wal "place to fight", OE wæl, OI valr, related to Latin vellere and Old Irish fuil "blood", all from PIE root *uel.Nortmannus (talk) 11:25, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Map
Hi. Would it not be possible to get a better map? Cimbri is basically off the map, you can just see the name on it, but not even the whole of Cimri is on the map. Thanks, regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 12:14, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Historians call them Germanic to place the blame of Rome going to war with the Celts on Germanic males.
Chances are better that the cimbri were ethnically celtic. Anti-Germanic historians just call them Germanic because it is beneficial for celtic people to say that the reason why the romans went to war with the celtic tribes of Europe and destroyed celts and enslaved them is because Germanic tribes sacked rome. Historians often lie to make the Celts look like they are nice people who never did anything wrong while assigning blame for everything that is considered bad to Germanic males. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.45.28.100 (talk) 16:02, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

 * Total, unadulterated nonsense. Cagwinn (talk) 17:37, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Verifiability
Reviewing this article's history, I note a very long-running edit war over the matter of whether this article describes the Cimbri as a Germanic people, a Celtic people, or a people of debated but uncertain origin who may have been either Germanic or Celtic. The last is the closest to reality given that the sources are still in conflict, and stood for a long time until somebody edited it last fall to describe them as purely Celtic, following which somebody else revised it just a few days later to describe them as purely Germanic while not simultaneously editing the category from "Celtic peoples" to "Germanic peoples", a major screwup that makes Wikipedia look sloppy and stupid.

The question of whether the Cimbri were Celtic or Germanic remains unresolved as things stand, with sources claiming evidence in both directions. It is not Wikipedia's role to take a stand either way as to which sources are more credible, however — until reliable sources establish a consensus one way or the other, our role here begins and ends at saying that the matter is unresolved.

TLDR: cut it the hell out. Bearcat (talk) 04:41, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

 * One improvement that could be made in this regard would be a smaller bunch of citations, focusing on the best known ones taking each position. At the moment, all sources given push the Germanic theory. An example of someone well know who accepts the Celtic idea is Walter Goffart: https://books.google.be/books?id=dM3kdRzztiIC&pg=PA282 --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:55, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Useful source?
https://www.academia.edu/10287326/SOUTHEAST_EUROPEAN_INFLUENCES_IN_THE_EARLY_IRON_AGE_OF_SOUTHERN_SCANDINAVIA_Gundestrup_and_the_Cimbri I don't have time for it right now, but if anyone does...--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:43, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Article is fundamentally flawed
Characterizing the ethnicities of proto-historic groups is fraught, especially migratory ones we have conflicting information about, like the Cimbri. This article suffers badly from presuming it's necessary or even possible to sort proto-historic tribes into discrete buckets like "Celtic" or "Germanic," as opposed to simply sticking to the facts at hand (i.e., the Cimbri were Cimbric and may have had layers of influence from different other ethnic and linguistic groups).

Throughout the article, the writing argues and asserts a dubious preference for the Cimbri's Germanness, even verging on original research to do so. When the characteristically Celtic linguistics known about the Cimbri come up, the writing grasps at amateurish excuses to dismiss it, or vague handwaving of unequivocal statements from scholars.

Other absurdities include the opening claim under "Origins" that scholars "generally see the Cimbri as a Germanic tribe," which appears to cite a whopping six sources but, upon inspection, half of them turn out to be all Encyclopedia Britannica.

At a minimum, to untangle this, the article should do the following:

 * 1) Clarify its terms. Rather than treating "Celtic" and "Germanic" as self-explanatory and universally applicable concepts, articulate the distinctions between the linguistic criteria modern scholars use vs. the often merely geographic meaning such terms have in Classical sources (i.e., East vs. West of the Rhine).
 * 2) Quit making this foolish issue permeate the entire article as if it's the most important or defining fact about the Cimbri, and relevant to every section. It should get a brief mention in the intro, it should be touched upon (properly) when the linguistic evidence comes up, and the characterizations known from Classical sources should be noted (and properly contexutalized). That's it. Really nothing more.
 * 3) Quit priviliging simplistic and passing mentions from general-purpose encyclopedia like Britannica, while dismissing the more detailed analysis from field experts like linguists.
 * 4) Weed out all of the argumentative and original researching passages.

— Uiscefada (talk) 02:28, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Cimbri