HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS

Germanic languages prior to AD 500 are attested in two major types of documents, the Gothic Bible translation and runic inscriptions. The bulk of the runic inscriptions are in a language different from Gothic. Most of them are found in Scandinavia, but there is some controversy as to whether the language represents a common Northwest Germanic stage or a separate North Germanic variety (see §1.2). Without further implications and without prejudice in favor of one or the other view, I will henceforth refer to this language as Ancient Nordic.

Prehistory

There is considerable controversy over the absolute chronology of the Indo-European settlement of Northern Europe and of the development of a separate branch of Germanic languages. But most archeologists and historical linguists seem to have reached the consensus that southern Scandinavia and northern Germany were inhabited by speakers of an Indo-European language by the beginning of the third millennium BC (Østmo 1996), and that a distinct branch of Indo-European had evolved by c. 500 BC. From this region the Germanic-speaking people spread north into Sweden and Norway and south into the European continent.

The Germanic area was never politically unified; there has never been a Germanic nation (Haugen 1976:100). The Germanic-speaking people were farmers and cattle-herders organized in loosely knit bands of extended families and clans. During the late Roman period, pre-Christian Scandinavia was a stable society with a strict social hierarchy. Marriage, funerals, and inheritance were conducted according to fixed laws and regulations (Grønvik 1981).