In linguistics, the term "
The term Istvaeonic is derived from a culturo-linguistic grouping of Germanic tribes mentioned by
Tacitus (56 – ~120 AD):
Pliny the Elder (23 – 79 AD):
The Istvaeones (Pliny) or Istaevones (Tacitus) are therefore one of the least clearly defined of these groups, but Pliny and Tacitus and other classical sources clearly associated various tribes with the Rhine frontier region, and the description of Pliny also explains that the Chatti, Cherusci and Chauci are not included in the group. In this period, between them and the Rhine, Tacitus also specifically named various tribes such as the
The historical sources give no complete account of the Istvaeones. Modern historians attempt to extrapolate their tribal constituents based on later sources, archeological findings and linguistic information.
There is an overlap between Germanic tribes generally assumed to have been Istvaeonic in terms of dialect and culture, and the tribes who came later to be thought of collectively as the earliest "Franks". Edward James [7] speculated that the Chamavi may have been the first such tribe, around which neighbours came also to be called by this name:
The large "Irmionic" nation of the Chatti also seem to have been considered Franks, or allies of the Franks, at least once. In one of the last mentions of them as a separate people, Sulpicius Alexander, cited by Gregory of Tours mentions them as being led along with the Ampsivarii by the Frankish king Marcomer.
Other Franks, sometimes called
During the late 5th century, the Frankish frontier tribes and the Roman territories of Northern Gaul came to be politically united under a Frankish military leader of northern Roman Gaul, King
At some point in the above sequence, the ethnonyms "Frank" and "Frankish" morphed into a term closer in meaning to a proto-state or political identity, rather than a tribal or ethnic designation and can no longer be considered synonymous with the Istvaeones.[9] However from the Merovingian period it is clear, as for example reported by Gregory of Tours, that there was a "Frankish language" distinct from the Romance languages which continued to be spoken by much of the population in what would become France.
The German linguist
Finds assigned to the Istvaeones are characterized by a greater heterogeneity than can be found in the other Germanic archaeological groupings. Their predominant burial type is the pyre grave. There are no richly equipped princely graves or weapons as grave goods to be found as, for example, occur with the neighboring
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