Charini

The Charini (also Chariner or Charinner ) were part of the Vandilii ( Vandals ), an East Germanic people with settlement areas on the Upper Oder and Silesia . The Charini are only documented by name in Pliny ( Naturalis historia 4,14,99).

"Germanorum genera quinqué: Vandili, quorum pars Burgodiones, Varini, Charini, Gutones."

"There are five main tribes of the Germanic peoples: The Vandil, to which the Burgodionen, Variner, Chariner and Gutonen belong."

The name ( ethnonym ) is formed from a Germanic stem * harja- = " army ", as the comparable forms Gothic harjis , Old Norse lord and * harja- "warrior, fellow army" show. The situation of the derivation of the suffix is unclear , whether with Adolf Bach a suffix - Una - can be assumed or with Wolfgang Meid a - na - suffix is more likely . Günter Neumann notes to that in MEIDs approach similar to the Norse Odin-epithet Herjann at - na - * Chariani would be expected.

Furthermore, the basic meaning of the Charini could be more closely linked to the ethnonym of the Harians in Tacitus ( Germania 43). Bach goes from his suffix derivation as an "extension of the national name" [i. e. Harier] to the form Charini and Meid is based on the appellative * harja- meaning "members of the army". Neumann considers both to be undecidable, especially since the ethnic name Harii was formally identical to the appellative.

literature

• Günter Neumann : Charini. In: Heinrich Beck, Herbert Jankuhn, Kurt Ranke, Reinhard Wenskus (eds.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Volume 4. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1981, ISBN 978-3-11-086526-4 , pp. 371–372 ( fee Germanic Altertumskunde online at de Gruyter ).
• Alexander Sitzmann, Friedrich E. Grünzweig: Old Germanic ethnonyms. A handbook on its etymology using a bibliography by Robert Nedoma. (= Philologica Germanica . 29). Fassbaender, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-902575-07-4 , pp. 89f.