Superfluous... is the unthinking modern transposition into … - Walter Goffart

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Superfluous... is the unthinking modern transposition into history of a common "Germanic" language family-a concept borrowed from comparative philology. The history of a language as known to philologists has nothing to do with that of human beings... No discernible benefit comes from our being reminded again and again in modern writings that many of these barbarians at each other's throats probably spoke dialects of the same language. The G-word can be dispensed with.

Walter Goffart

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About Walter Goffart

Walter Andre Goffart (born February 22, 1934) is a Belgian-born American historian of the later Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages who specializes in research on the barbarian kingdoms of those periods.

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Alternative Names: Walter Andre Goffart • Walter A. Goffart

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Additional quotes by Walter Goffart

The myth of the Germans before Germany is hard to suppress because, owing to its great age and genesis in the sources themselves.

If Europe has had a supreme invented tradition, that of the Germans before Germany is it-so much so that most people who speak about it do not realize that they are dealing with fiction.

The main goal of this book is to reform thinking and writing about the barbarians in late antiquity by driving out the anachronistic terms "German" and "Germanic" and the baggage that goes with them.

Superfluous... is the unthinking modern transposition into history of a common "Germanic" language family-a concept borrowed from comparative philolo… - Walter Goffart

About Walter Goffart

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