Since when did Southern German and Austrians speak a Germanic language ?

The area where nowadays Upper german is spoken (southern Germany, Austria) correlates with the craddle of Halstatt culture.
When did the shift from Celt to German occur ?
Is there a Celtic substrate in Upper German ?

The Celts were largely displaced as the Germans moved south and along the border with the Roman frontier. A number of Celts were absorbed, such as the Bastarnae. That area was, by the time of the late empire, basically fully Germanized. It was mostly by Suevic groups such as Marcommani, Quadi and Bavarians. Also included were tribes such as the Thuringians, Gepids, etc.

spongetaro said:

The area where nowadays Upper german is spoken (southern Germany, Austria) correlates with the craddle of Halstatt culture...Is there a Celtic substrate in Upper German ?

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The Celts have certainly left a heritage in the phonology of the "Upper German" dialects . The benrath line can be the result between the strongly celticized regions of Germany and the northern ones, where the Germanic print has deeper erased the former cultures. But we don't know really who live here before the Germanic advance. And it musn't be forgotten that the actual German language has been formed in ancient Slavic areas (Thuringen land).

Interesting-
Two quick questions:

Could you give or direct us to examples of the phonology that you mentioned?


Also, I didn't catch the meaning of Thuringen Land. Was it meant to mean that the Thuringians were slavicized?

Regulus said:

The Celts were largely displaced as the Germans moved south and along the border with the Roman frontier. A number of Celts were absorbed, such as the Bastarnae. That area was, by the time of the late empire, basically fully Germanized. It was mostly by Suevic groups such as Marcommani, Quadi and Bavarians. Also included were tribes such as the Thuringians, Gepids, etc.

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I question that. The same used to be assumed about the British Celts vis a vis the invading Anglo Saxons, but dna research has drawn a picture more of intermarriage and cultural absorption rather than of extinction or displacement. If we look at Swiss y-DNA, it is dominated by R1b1a2 and has relatively a low frequency of I1 and I2b, even in the German speaking cantons. This is not what one would expect if there had been a wholesale displacement of the Celts by Germans from the north. Add to that the relative prevalence of R1b U-152 and it seems to me that story of the Celts in Switzerland is similar to that of the British Celts. They're still there; they just speak German now.

Note that I did write that a number of Celts were absorbed, such as the Bastarnae. Note also that I utilized the term "Germanized" as opposed to saying that the region was occupied fully or mostly by Germans.
The term displacement as used here is meant to what we know from history with tribes moving away from oncoming Germans. It does not rule out any who remained in place and merged with the newcomers. I don't believe that the original question was about Switzerland either.

Would the austrians be more like Bavarians in genetics and the tirolese ( western austria ) be more helvetic in genetics.

Also I think the austrian side would have more slovene gentics due to carniola ( Krain ) area

Is there a difference in their genetics?

hmmm maybe Ostrogoths??

iapetoc said:

hmmm maybe Ostrogoths??

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after looking around, i found that the ancient tirolese ( rhaetians ) are G2a3 ( L-42 ) in majority of numbers, while the ancient "eastern austrians" where I2a ( P-37) same as the northern and central Illyrians and also different from the Carni who are I1a (M-253)
I always though the bavarians ( celts maybe R1b1c9 ) settled in the modern salzburg, vienna areas, and they had U-106.

I am reading about noricum tribes in the late bronze age and early iron age and have noticed that mtdna class U was prevelant in these areas but over time has settled in slovenian lands ( highest as a percentage).
While I believe the slovenians are in majority not original slavic people , I do believe they are a mix of "norici". one tribe that come to the forefront is the Ambisontes.
They are said to be gallic originally and client of the taurisci - which I do not know exactly what that means.

there neighbours seem entirely different as in the Catubrini who raged around modern Cadore di piave.
the eugenai who some say ligurian and soome say raeti and
the cennomanni who originated near marseilles , next to the volcae tribe.
these other tribes have far less U compared to there "norici" tribes

Note Norici tribes where pre-germanic ( bavarian )

We lack big Y-DNA samples for Switzerland but the ones we have show the same mixtures but with very different within repartitions - I was found of metrics beforehand and what I red showed that Reihengräber Bajuvars (Bavarians) and first Alamans was distinct enough from EITHER the so called "keltic Iron Age elite" OR the basic local population (celtized?) - in Switzerland after some dacades the old pre-germanic population seams to have taken the majority again - it appears that a lot of celtized populations of Southern Germany was mixtures were 'alpine' [R-U152???] (+ borreby'?) =brachycephalic stock was preponderant: after the germanic southwards conquest the more dolichocéphalic germanlike populations was in the valleys and the previous population stayed on the highlands - In today germanophone Switzerland the germanic impact seams to be the heaviest on the Bern "plateau" (high plain) - so the today Bavarians and Wurttembergerians are a mix of Celts-Celtized people and Germanics (with some Rhaetian heritage in some districts)
I don't believe Y-R1b-U106 is typical for Celts, even Belgae Celts (only some seldom traces)
for phonetical traits, western south germanic dialects (Alamans and Franks zones) retains intervocalic -v- as northern dialects when bavarians-austrians ones have -b-(second mutation): a slavic or rhaetic trait??? unsteady ground... I believe Rhaetians (mixed with some Celts) was more dense ont the boundaries between East Switzerland and Western Austria

I think moutainous regions can keep some valleys populated by different enough people concerning DNA, but with time the language of dominant big centers (towns, markets) unifies itself faster than genetic landscape -
concerning linguistics, Baden Württemberg Pfalz (SW Germany of today) was germanized (according to scholars consencus) about III°C end/IV° beginning, Bavaria/Bayern about 500 end/600 only, and a lot of Austria between VII° and VIII° C. So we can imagine that the Rhaetians helped by latin culture and organization resisted a long time; is that to say they received less germanic demic influence? not at all - they was far from the germnazation centers - maybe they required more Germanics soldiers to impose them the germanic culture? it is even possible that they received early enough big amounts of Germanic people but that the germanic culture at that precise time was not high level enough to concurrence latin culture...
left banks of Rhine river (included Lotharingen-Elsass) was germanized in a intermediate time, in the V° C.
very uneasy to figure out correct scenarios, as language depends on a) number of new language carriers >< b) their cultural level and statue (snobism) >< c) level of organization of the new language carriers - large spectrum!

I always did this question as well. From what I have read Austria was multilingual (German was spoken only in northern parts) in the Middle Ages and later. And since Austria was taken by the German king of the Habsburg dynasty (after killing the Czech king under whose rule it had been until then) and passed on to his sons in 1278. Austria was under the Habsburgs' rule for 640 years.

Basically, they were a part of Germany's domain (a colony of sorts), so they had to learn to speak German. Almost like Ireland speaking English. Although speaking English, Ireland identifies himself as a Celtic nation of sort. :weird:

phenotypically speaking, the Salzburg region seems (seemed?) more impacted by Germanics than the remnant of Austria and even than some parts of more northern Baviera: a militar "demic arrow" there? Austria is not level, and except Voralsberg, the Tyrolers seem different from the germanic model - studying german dialects in South would be of some interest: it appears that some very conflicting evolutions exist phonetically, someones evocating something celtic, other something "anti-celtic" (it's a figure!!!) so possibly on the route from N-Germany to South, some non-germanic influences, balanced after bu other influences, non-germanic but of a different origin???