The Germanic peoples (also called Teutonic, Suebian, or Gothic in older literature) are an Indo-European ethnolinguistic group of Northern European origin identified by their use of the Germanic languages.Their history stretches from the 2nd millennium BCE up to the present day.

Proto-Germanic peoples are believed to have emerged during the Nordic Bronze Age, which developed out of the Battle Axe culture in southern Scandinavia. During the Iron Agevarious Germanic tribes began a southward expansion at the expense of Celtic peoples, which led to centuries of sporadic violent conflict with ancient Rome. It is from Roman authors that the term "Germanic" originated. The decisive victory of Arminius at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE is believed to have prevented the eventual Romanization of the Germanic peoples, and has therefore been considered a turning point in world history.[b]Germanic tribes settled the entire Roman frontier along the Rhine and the Danube, and some established close relations with the Romans, often serving as royal tutors and mercenaries, sometimes even rising to the highest offices in the Roman military. Meanwhile, Germanic tribes expanded into Eastern Europe, where the Goths subdued the local Iranian nomads and came to dominate the Pontic Steppe, simultaneously launching sea expeditions into the Balkans and Anatoliaas far as Cyprus.

The westward expansion of the Huns into Europe in the late 4th century CE pushedmany Germanic tribes into the Western Roman Empire. Their vacated lands were filled by Slavs. Much of these territories were reclaimed in following centuries. Other tribes settled Great Britain and became known as the Anglo-Saxons. With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, a series of Germanic kingdoms emerged, of which, Francia gained a dominant position. This kingdom formed the Holy Roman Empire under the leadership of Charlemagne, who was officially recognized by Pope Leo III in 800 CE. Meanwhile, North Germanic seafarers, commonly referred to as Vikings, embarked on a massive expansion which led to the establishment of the Duchy of Normandy, Kievan Rus' and their settlement of the British Isles and the North Atlantic Ocean as far as North America. With the North Germanic abandonment of their native religion in the 11th century, nearly all Germanic peoples had been converted to Christianity. With the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther in the 16th century, many Germanic nations embraced Protestantism. The ensuing religious division resulted in the political fragmentation of much of Germanic Europe.

The Germanic migrations forged the main component of the population ofmodern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Northern Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, northern and central France, Lowland Scotland and England. The Germanic peoples were instrumental in shaping much of Western Europe's history from the Early Middle Ages to the present.

 By the 1st century CE, the writings of Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, and Tacitusindicate a division of Germanic-speaking peoples into large groupings who shared ancestry and culture. This division has been appropriated in modern terminology describing the divisions of Germanic languages.

Tacitus, in his Germania, wrote that:

In their ancient songs, their only way of remembering or recording the past, they celebrate an earth-born god, Tuisco, and his son Mannus, as the origin of their race, as their founders. To Mannus they assign three sons, from whose names, they say, the coast tribes are called Ingævones; those of the interior, Herminones; all the rest, Istævones.

Tacitus also specifies that the Suevi are a very large grouping, with many tribes within it, with their own names. The largest, he says, is the Semnones, the Langobardi are fewer, but living surrounded by warlike peoples, and in remoter and better defended areas live the Reudigni, Aviones, Anglii, Varini, Eudoses, the Suardones, and Nuithones.

Pliny the Elder, on the other hand, names five races of Germans in his Historia Naturalis,not three, by distinguishing the two more easterly blocks of Germans, the Vandals and further east the Bastarnae, who were the first to reach the Black Sea and come into contact with Greek civilization. He is also slightly more specific about the position of the Istvaeones, though he also does not name any examples of them:

There are five German races; the Vandili, parts of whom are the Burgundiones, the Varini, the Carini, and the Gutones: the Ingævones, forming a second race, a portion of whom are the Cimbri, the Teutoni, and the tribes of the Chauci. The Istævones, who join up to the Rhine, and to whom the Cimbri [sic, repeated] belong, are the third race; while the Hermiones, forming a fourth, dwell in the interior, and include the Suevi, the Hermunduri, the Chatti, the Cherusci, [e] and the Peucini, who are also the Basternæ, adjoining the Daci.

The remote Varini are listed by Tacitus as being in the Suebic or Hermionic group by Tacitus, above, but by Pliny in the eastern Vandalic or Gothic group, so the two accounts do not match perfectly.

These accounts and others from the period often emphasise that the Suebi and their Hermione kin formed an especially large and mobile nation, which at the time were living mainly near the Elbe, both east and west of it, but they were also moving westwards into the lands near the Roman frontier. Pomponius Mela in his slightly earlier Description of the World places "the farthest people of Germania, the Hermiones" somewhere to the east of the Cimbri and the Teutones, and further from Rome, apparently on the Baltic. Strabo however describes the Suebi as going through a period where they were pushed back east by the Romans, in the direction from which they had come:

the nation of the Suevi is the most considerable, as it extends from the Rhine as far as the Elbe, and even a part of them, as the Hermonduri and the Langobardi, inhabit the country beyond the Elbe; but at the present time these tribes, having been defeated, have retired entirely beyond the Elbe.

By the end of the 5th century the term "Gothic" was used more generally in the historical sources for Pliny's "Vandals" to the east of the Elbe, including not only the Goths and Vandals, but also "the Gepids along the Tisza and the Danube, the Rugians, Sciri and Burgundians, even the Iranian Alans."

He spent many years in the Roman provinces of Low and High Germany. He wrote a book called “Natural History”. He was the first who enumerated and classified the military tribes. Germanic tribes in the form of a table.

Germanic tribes in the 1^st c. A.D. consisted of the following groups:

The great historian Pliny spent many years in the Roman provinces of Low and High Germany. He wrote a book called “Natural History”. He was the first who enumerated and classified the military tribes. It was proved by many scientists. According to Pliny there were several Germanic tribes:

1. The Vindili.They lived in the eastern part of the territory inhabited by the Germanic tribes (GT – Germanic territory). They consisted of the Goths, the Burgundians and the Vandals.

2. The Ingvaeons. They lived in the north-western part of the GT. They inhabited the Jutland peninsula and the coast of the North Sea. The tribes of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians were formed later of this group.

3.The Istkveoni.They lived on the Rhine. Later they formed a very powerful tribal union of Franconians. In the early Middle Ages they were powerful group of West Germans.

4. The Pekvini or Bastarni. They lived closed to the place, which is now called Ruminia. Mostly this group is included to the first group of Germanic tribes.

5.The Germioni. They lived in the centre of Germany and later the German nation was formed of these tribes.

6. The Gellivioni. They were isolated from other Germanic tribes. They inhabited Scandinavia.

Compare the classifications of the ancient Germanic languages by Pliny the Elder and F. Engels with the traditional three-part classification, determine the similarities. Present it in the form of a table.

Classification of the ancient Germanic tribes. The question of the ancient Germanic languages ​​and their classification is inextricably linked with the issue of tribes - the carriers of these languages, with the question of the classification of these tribes from the point of view of historical science.

The first classification of the Germanic tribes gave Pliny the Elder. He divides all the numerous Germanic tribes into six main groups: