Getae and Dacians? Are they the same? Or is this unknowable?

[Rumo]

Alan,

Quite frankly, your insistance that the Gothic hierarchy spoke a language other than Gothic has no substrantive foundation. You haven't shown any real proof, only suggesting that the entire Gothic culture did not speak the command language. These are entirely different associations-- (a) hierarchial command language and (b) varying tongues of a broader populace within the Guthilda. You are using the opinions of Heather, or Matthews, or whomever, but their writings are opinions not gospel. An inquiring mind has the perfect right to disagree with any opinion until it can be proven unequivically sound. And that hasn't happened yet.

The burden of proof lies on the affirmative. If one believes the entire pre-Hunnic Gothic hierarchy spoke a Germanic dialect, that their soldiers of Sarmatian extraction received orders in a Germanic dialect (the same or another one) or that in three generations the Sarmatians, Dacians and other non-Germanic populations learned to speak Gothic (like Ulfilas or people purchasing groceries, because they had to serve in the army or to understand the Bible or whatever other reason was assumed), then some evidence is needed to support such theories. I argued all along there's no evidence for such things, so what should I do more? To bring evidence there's no evidence? I can't prove a seven-legged three-eyed green dwarf doesn't exist, those who advocate its existence should present a proof first.

You write about free inquiry and the right to disagree. But then who is the author of claims such as "whatever nit-picking you and I are doing isn't going to change the fact that the Goths extended from a Germanic ethos" or "the Tyrfing-Tryfingi-Hervar-Saga link is irrefutable in the standard world of common sense and logic"?

First off, I "stated" that Safrax was an Alan. I did not "admit" he was one, because there was no argument for him being otherwise.

I know and I already corrected you on that. No source calls Saphrax an Alan. For both Jordanes and Ammianus Marcellinus, Alatheus and Safrac/Saphrax are no more and no less but two generals of the Goths.

Perhaps the nomen Alatheus is also Iranian, but it doesn't matter. That's not the point;

That's exactly the point because that was a reply to "the rulers of those Goths that crossed the Danube (and rulers of previous generations) had Gothic names" which is obviously not true if by Gothic here you mean a Germanic language.

and shifting gears to Matthews doesn't help you much.

As in the previous case you probably missed the point. If the Christian communities were only "a minority of the population at large" and they did not penetrate "to any great extent the higher echelons of Gothic society", then their language (and also that of the Gothic Bible) cannot be proven to be the common language of the Goths (at some point you supported a "full scale evangelism") or of their rulers.

There is one fact that is entirely Not Controversial-- He was a high-ranking Greutungus within the Gothic social framework.

These two men are linked to the Eastern Goths who lived in the same geographical location of the east part of the Cernjachov Culture. Ermaneric appears to be the last king involved in the great consolidation of all these eastern tribes; and after his death, the new king was Vithimiris. Upon the death of Vithimiris, his young son Vidimir was placed in charge of Alatheus and Safrax, "the Two Duces," his guardians and regents. Alatheus was obviously a Greutungus, simply because the tribe would not have handed Vidimir over to the Alans. It was the specific role of Two Duces to raise Videric until he reached majority and would assume leadership of the Greutungi.

According to Ammianus the name of the child was Viderichus. However Alatheus and Saphrax are mentioned together, not raising a child, but leading the Goths.