Talk:Lombards
From Academic Kids
JHK It seem that someone got mixed up here with the names. Langobard =German =(Langbaerte: modern German) or English: Long Beards.
Lombards is the later Italian or Latin name for the Langobarden , after their land was taken and given to the pope (for Vatican city?)
- HJ -- no one got mixed up. Lombards is what we call them in English. Any English-speaking Medievalist can tell you that the name comes from long beards -- it's fairly common knowledge. However, we say Lombards, which is the correct English translation for Langobardi. English and German developed very differently, remember...sometimes we take words from places one doesn't expect. Sorry we don't use the more Germanic derivitive, but there you go. JHK
I'm not sure I understand what is meant by "By the title of this work [Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum] the name of Longobards was commonly turned into Langobards" - is it referred to English or Latin names? In any case, I believe "langobardi" was used before Paul. Also, I thought the ethimology from "long halberds" was dubious at best (and spurious at worst). Lastly, the article seems to imply that Charlemagne created the Papal States.
Longbeards and Long Halberds
The original words used in primary source texts that refer to the Lombardic gens are not considered by serious scholars to translate into either 'long-beards' or 'long halberds'. Ref: J.S. Martin's "An examination of two Langobardic mythological texts" in 'Proceedings of the 11th International Saga Conference' for a summary of currently accepted opinion regarding those two alleged translations that scholars like W.D. Foulke and others thought might be plausible a century ago or even farther back in time.
If either of you have further questions about this matter, please feel free to send them to info@northvegr.org. ***Pádraic
