Talk:Sciri

Original research ?

This article contains so much wrong information that it needs to be deleted and rewritten completely!!

Example"Note that the early Goths, AD 30, in the Vistula Bay called themselves 'Gothiskandzas' which means to say that they were from 'Gothia' and 'Scandzas/Scania'. In early times Scandzas/Scania was a much larger area than modern day Scania/Skåne and included modern Halland, Skåne, Bornholm, Blekinge, Öland and Tjust (and potentially Herulian Zealand as well) - while Gothia included Bohuslän, Västergötland, Östergötland and Gotland (and potentially Southern Norway as well). "

This is completely false information. We don't know if Goths ever lived in the Vistula bay let alone do we know how these people called themselves. Moreover, the name Gothiscanda is a geographical (not an ethnographic) term of the 6th century. I think this false information was included deliberately to misguide readers regarding the origin of historical Goths!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.5.187.42 (talk) 07:45, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this article is at best naive nonsense or at worst some kind of Scandinavian propaganda. It is beyond redemption and should be deleted as soon as possible. Is there nobody responsible for this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.59.151.181 (talk) 07:55, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

• By 2018 this article appears to have been completely rewritten, with sources. If there are remaining specifics that need further citation, please indicate them with the {{Citation needed}} template. --Bejnar (talk) 20:07, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Germanic

well. if saxons are scirii, and scirii are bastarnae, and bastarnae are scitotauri, and scitotauri are spori thus slavs(saka, sakaliba, siclab), than germans are slavs :). 89.205.2.27 (talk) 01:50, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

There are some DNA problems there. --Bejnar (talk) 20:03, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

This article discussed elsewhere

Posted only at Heruli, though it is about Scirri, this appears to also be part of a systematic effort which is relevant to this article [1]. "Concerns" about this article, recently worked on by me are mentioned as follows: :"The rewrite starts of by classifying the Scirii with the neologism "Roman era people", and then continues claiming that Romans classified them as "Scythian" or "Gothic", that they spoke an "East Germanic language", and that they raided a city near "Odessa". None of this stuff is mentioned in the body or attributed to any source. There are WP:NOR concerns there which deserves the attention of the community." My first response, should perhaps also be registered here:

I have been working for years on slowly building up many of the Germanic articles which are (or recently were in some cases) stubs. These surreal disruptions are also disrupting the addition of more sources and missing bits. Your concerns about sourcing are very clearly zero, as shown by your massive deletion of new sources on this article.

• I will add that Olbia, mentioned in the text, is near Odessa, and often described that way. More sources will be added here soon, but there is clearly a deliberate effort being made to disrupt any such work to fix such "concerns".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:27, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
• Also, FWIW "Roman era people" is not a "neologism", obviously, just a very normal English term, where "Roman era" works like an adjective.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:57, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

There are better sources on the German version of the article, at least for now. Anyone coming to discuss this article should also refer to that one.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:35, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I went there and searched for Scirii: "Keine Ergebnisse für Scirii gefunden." Do you have a link? -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:00, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Don't worry, I found it.[2]. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:30, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

UPDATE. Just so we do not loose it, because this article was mentioned: Main attempt to defend the Heruli revert by Thomas.W has been led by Krakkos at User_talk:Thomas.W#Heruli. It is certainly about Goffart, and involves the interpretation of Goffart and other sources which has been proposed on Wikipedia by Krakkos. The discussion leads me to feel concerned about edits being made on the articles of living scholars like Walter Pohl and Walter Goffart.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:37, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Verification problems

@Krakkos: Can you check please? I own Green's book and I do not find these on p.164...

• They are believed to have spoken an East Germanic language.
• On account of having spoken an East Germanic language, they are frequently grouped together with the Goths, Vandals, Heruli, Rugii, Gepids and Burgundians as East Germanic peoples.
• The Bastarnae, Sciri and Vandals are believed to have been present near the Vistula by the 3rd century BC.

The third one comes closest to something on that page, but it only says that the Scirii, Bastarnae and Vandals probably moved from the UPPER Vistula.

Looking at p.321:

• Along with the Heruli and Rugii, the Sciri were one of the tribes which contributed to the formation of the Bavarii.
• They are believed to have spoken an East Germanic language.
• On account of having spoken an East Germanic language, they are frequently grouped together with the Goths, Vandals, Heruli, Rugii, Gepids and Burgundians as East Germanic peoples.

Most of these footnotes are basically synthesis, interpretations by a Wikipedian - at least arguably. This is strange because we do not even need all these extra footnotes, so there should be no need to work on the edge. Despite your various apologies to Sirfurboy on other articles, you are once again over-loading sentences with a smoke-screen of footnotes. Pick the best one?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:13, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Dennis Howard Green book is available at Google Books. He calls the Scirii East Germanic (EG). This can easily be verified by anyone. In the subsequent citation from Anders Kaliff it is explicitly stated that the Scirii spoke East Germanic. Peter Heather and Herwig Wolfram are also cited for the Scirii being Germanic. Krakkos (talk) 17:32, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Is being East Germanic the same as speaking East Germanic? Everyone just knows that? And why do you need 20 footnotes on every sentence? Does it make things better sourced? Of course we know this is something you do on sentences you know to be controversial. But that in cases like this, adding of extra footnotes for one position does not compensate for the censorship of another, so this is not really logical even in a bad faith way. Concerning the censorship controversies, that is another topic for us to discuss below. Honestly the low level of information you are censoring in this case is quite amazing. It seems you feel compelled to always find something to censor. Why do you need to do that on every article you work on? It just makes articles less stable and means our work is wasted and will be lost when someone fixes it according to WP policy in the future one day.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:52, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

WP policy misunderstanding?

@Krakkos: can you please explain your understanding of how you could justify this deletion of sourced material [3]. Your edsum says Rm redundant non-English sources. There is no problem using non English sources on Wikipedia right? I am trying to AGF but actually it appears you removed these because they disagree with your preferred narrative. That would be in conflict with the core content policies of Wikipedia. A key thing about the removed material is that it shows the field has uncertainty or different opinions, and WP tells its readers about all major opinions, and does not censor this. You have not replaced it with similar English material, but with material that does not show such a range of ideas. Please work according to the core principles of the WP community? Why do you keep doing this? We do not delete sources and we do not say that uncertain things are certain in WP voice.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:23, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

See WP:NONENG. We already have a top-quality citation in English from Herwig Wolfram on this issue. There is no reason to stuff the section with non-English sources of inferior quality. These non-English sources were also added with confusing citation style. Krakkos (talk) 17:30, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

What I am reading is an "answer" which is deliberately written as a non-answer. Please reconsider what I wrote above, and what the policy you quote really says, and the differences between the sources which your edit has censored. I want us to fix it together in a friendly way of possible.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:46, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

And the next series of edits are all deletions of sourced materials:

• [4] Rm unsourced. There is an inline primary source, and given that you are deleting freshly added material this is clearly not a "best practice" edit. A tag would have been sufficient and easy to resolve.
• [5] Rm outdated and redundant source. More recent citations from Dennis Howard Green and Peter Heather should be sufficient for this topic. Clearly not. This was clearly known by you to be a non-consensus edit, both in terms of your sourcing "superiority claim" which is exactly like ones we have debated on other articles, and in terms of you once again actually removing mention of a position found in the field, i.e. censorship. Newer sources are also possible and you know that in this case. When deleting sources like this, it is especially problematic on WP to make edits that look like POV attack edits and then give them a misleading description.
• [6] Rm original research. A non-controversial factum which cites a primary source, and which can easily be defended with modern secondary sources if anyone would ever be concerned. You certainly know this, and you mentioned no concern. This is not a good way of working.

A smaller issue: [7]. I am not sure in this case that it is a deliberate thing, but you have removed some meaning which was good for the narrative. Maybe you felt this was the best way to tidy up after having deleted the source, but that just shows why this way of editing leads to worse articles.

@Krakkos: some of the above could just be re-inserted by me. I think I could merge it in neatly. But it really would be neater if I first ask you to see what you need and whether you can fix it. Will you have a look and let's try to find simple solutions? This is not even a controversial topic? I don't see that seeking conflict with you is necessary for you, or helping you. Let me know of course if you see I have missed some problem or if you need modern secondary sources for the cases with primary or older sources. I am not going to rush but the above are quite simple and understandable concerns?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:44, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Please read WP:PRIMARY and WP:AGE MATTERS. Krakkos (talk) 17:52, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Please ask yourself what you are trying to achieve here. As I have been working on this article of course I did not realize you would be suddenly doing a surprise attack on unfinished work, and quoting rules like these. So sure, great, you were deliberately disruptive and now you can cite some minor guidelines. But surely you realize it is not difficult to bring back the censored material with more sources or whatever. I was just hoping you'd help and we could do it together. For someone breaking much more fundamental core policies and constantly battling to use 1 paragraph tertiary sources in order to censor proper secondary ones, "age matters" and arguments about non-English articles is pretty silly looking? What is the point of this type of disruption?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:59, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

What I'm trying to achieve is the building of Wikipedia. The present version of this article is clearly a major improvement compared to the previous version, which was characterized by original research, dubious sources, poor citation style and poor prose. Krakkos (talk) 18:18, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Relevant context: You aggressively disrupted someone else editing an article that was still being built up. You deleted sources which explained aspects of the topic you do not want. You do not use the best sources, just cherry pick to get your own ideas published. And that is why I am asking you to please read the concerns I have posted here, and see if you can be constructive about those. Someone is going to fix up the bits which are in obvious opposition to what the community wants, so why not do that yourself? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:52, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

review of latest edits

@Krakkos: I notice your editing after the above discussion deserves a more careful look. I hope this is a good sign. Here are some notes on things that still look like they need tweaking. Perhaps you will already see solutions, or be able to point me to a mistake in my thinking.

• The Scirii may have been mentioned along with the Bastarnae in the late 3rd century BC as participants in a raid on the city of Olbia north of the Black Sea. I believe there is no doubt they were mentioned, only doubt that the Bastarnae were also involved?
• At least two of the above-mentioned concerns about the new Name section remain: censorship of doubts, and deletion of the newest most detailed source. I believe that can be fixed up. I also have my doubts about whether we should use Schütte, though I am open to discussion. Why do we need to do that? Editing concern: to explain the name, all our sources compare to the Bastarnae's name. I think the names are seen as a set. You removed mention of that, possibly not on purpose.
• Language. I remain concerned about the censorship of doubts here also, again as already mentioned. I see your point about the old source, so I will first try to find a newer one for us. I expect no problem doing that, but on the other hand, the source Sirfurboy found should not have been deleted if we found no modern dismissals, and no better source for that point. As usual one author making a simple remark is something we have to be careful of, when we use WP voice.
• Classification. Again as already discussed, you removed my comment about the Procopius lists, which I actually got from secondary sources but never had a chance to finish. Wolfram does not always speak for the field on things like this. But also on this one, I will first try to find a source ASAP. I expect no problem doing that.
• Thanks for including Pliny. Not sure it is better by being so short. We want to inform. (If you think about it, this is the only evidence connecting the Scirii to the north BTW.)
• Edeko was probably not a Scirian himself, but rather a Thuringian married to a Scirian noblewoman. We need to report that there are several ideas/arguments. The Thuringian theory is pretty speculative. He may for example have simply been a Hun. You probably have sources yourself for this, but anyone I will look if necessary.
• Along with the Heruli and Rugii, the Scirii were one of the tribes which contributed to the formation of the Bavarii. That needs a "possibly" or "probably". Green does not specify that he is sure they were involved, but even if we did, on points like this we need to be careful of using one author in WP voice.

I'll be back to it soon, but feel free to point to any issues with my summary.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:49, 13 March 2020 (UTC) Updates (working on this piece by piece):

• Bastarnae in lead. Changed lead, but will ASAP review body to make sure nothing is lost.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:35, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

It is still my thinking to reintroduce at least the 2015 article which was deleted. It is quite handy because it also reviews the literature. It cites the specialists as being sure the Scirii are Germanic, and either a branch of the Bastarnae or related to them. "Les savants" are however not in consensus about the "Galatae" and whether these would be Celtic (as favoured by Russian and Ukrainian scholars) or Germanic.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:46, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

• Avram, Alexandru (2015), Virgilio (ed.), Les premiers peuples germaniques sur le Bas Danube. Autour du décret SEG 52, 724, Studi ellenistici, vol. 29, pp. 27–76

The author thinks that Pliny's description shows the in the plain of the Bug(s?) and therefore so close to Olbia that Pliny must have been influenced by an old Greek writer. He notes in passing that both Scirii and Bastarnae were categorized by Greek authors as Galatae. p.49: Toutefois, la position aussi septentrionale des Sarmates et des Scires (dans la région de la Vistule) dans ce passage de l’Histoire naturelle, conjointement à la présence à la fois des mêmes Sarmates et des mêmes Scires dans la plaine du Boug à la fin du iiie siècle (décret d’Olbia) laisse dévoiler que, malgré le temps présent utilisé par Pline dans sa description, il s’agit d’une situation d’au moins trois siècles antérieure à l’époque de l’auteur. Même si l’on en ignore la source exacte, il est sûr pour le moins que Pline avait mis à profit, pour la description de ces régions, un écrit dû à un auteur grec.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:46, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

• Schütte. I would like to hear opinions on whether we should use this source this way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:39, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
• Deleted material (and source) about language doubts: Although often classified as Germanic speakers like the Goths, this has been doubted by some scholars, and the evidence is inconclusive. Reynolds and Lopez for example wrote that "the Sciri were found, in the nineteenth century, to be an old Gothonic group, indeed, the first of them all to have raided the classic peoples in Gothonic style (on the strength of the Olbia inscription). But there is absolutely nothing that hints that any contemporary author thought of them as Germanic."<>Reynolds, R. L.; Lopez, R. S. (1946). "Odoacer: German or Hun?". American Historical Review. 52 (1): 36–53. doi:10.2307/1845067. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)<>--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:40, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
• Deleted material about Procopius, the source of "Gothic peoples" lists. They do, however, acknowledge that the 7th century author Procopius refers in his works several times to the "Gothic peoples" includes the Scirii in at least one such listing (Gothic War 1.1), but they point out that in the same list he includes the Alans who are believed to have spoken an Iranian language.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:39, 14 March 2020 (UTC) Secondary source: Goffart, B. Tide p.204; p.335,n.86; p.333,n.56.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:47, 14 March 2020 (UTC) Concerning those Gothic peoples also: https://books.google.be/books?id=O0urZR2JOAgC&lpg=PA48--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:55, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Quote from Barbarian Tide p.205 clashes with several parts of our article:

In view of the early date of the Greek inscription and its reference to Galatians, the residents of Olbia are very likely to have classed the Sciri as "Celts". Five centuries later, when the Sciri hare encountered not very far from where they had been when annoying Olbia, it hardly matters what ethnic conglomerate they had belonged to so long before. The most suitable way to describe them now is geographical, as lower Danubians. The Verona List flanks them with Sarmatians, an Iranian steppe people, and with Carpi (Carpodaces), the term used for Dacians outside Dacia (in our classification, a Thracian people). In half a millenium, much intermarriage is likely to have taken place. We have no idea how the name survived. There is no trace of a Scirian tradition.

Goffart refers to "Edico (Edica), a Hun married to a Scirian".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:03, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

If you'll give me a sec i will fix these issues. Krakkos (talk) 18:11, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Great, I am certainly not wanting to rush either. I'll see what you do and double check later.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:48, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

It's interesting that Walter Goffart in your quote classifies the Dacians as "a Thracian people". It would be interesting to have him explain why classifying peoples as Thracian is alright, while classifying peoples as Germanic is wrong. Sounds quite hypocritical. Krakkos (talk) 21:32, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Florin Curta makes the exact criticism you make in his review in Speculum: classifying Dacians as "Thracian people" (p. 205), presumably on linguistic grounds alone, is no better than calling Goths "Germanic". I think you, Curta and me the first time around misread him. I now read "in our classification" as meaning "in modern scholarship" and not "under my theory". He's highlighting how they are not considered Germanic. In the same chapter he writes "those whom we lump together as Germanic" and "a nomadic people classified by us as Iranian". Srnec (talk) 02:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

That is also how I read Goffart in this passage, which I also noticed. However, FWIW I think it is an example of a "side remark" which on WP, us editors, not being reliable sources ourselves, basically should not be using (without help from expert review sources) because it requires interpretation. OTOH Krakkos, just to be clear, IMHO nearly the big name popular historians in this field are controversial in one way or another and that includes Heather, so indeed there is nothing wrong with being careful to identify which positions need attribution. But for sure the field is not "99%" in agreement with Heather who refers to archaeological evidence, though not himself an archaeologist, but is (according to Curta) sceptical of the scepticism which archaeologists themselves now have. The works of Goffart and Pohl and Kulikowski etc have changed the whole field irreversibly and it is not our job on WP to fight for that or against it. For this reason attribution or qualification should also sometimes be considered for Heather's positions. I feel like it is safest to err on the side of caution. The good news is that simply by all of us allowing more "maybes" and attributions (not WP voice), and avoiding deleting sources we do not like, we should be able to get most positions fairly represented in WP. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:28, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

RGA article

As used by the German Wikipedia article (Skiren) the RGA article about the Scirii is another two-part article with two authors. FWIW they quote it as one article in a bibliography but then split it for actual citations! :)

• Helmut Castritius, Stefan Zimmer: Skiren. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2. Auflage. Band 28, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-018207-6, S. 639–645.

I do not have access to this. Anyone else? The citations on de.wikipedia show nothing surprising, but FWIW it seems to contain a good discussion of the the Turcilingi question, which comes out in favour of the Thuringian theory. If anyone has access it would be good to scan it especially for anything different to other sources.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:13, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Scirii as Baltic- or Sarmatian-speakers

In Scirii#Classification, it is currently stated that the Scirii "were probably a Baltic or Sarmatian speaking people". This is attributed to the following source:

• Reynolds, Robert L.; Lopez, Robert S. (October 1946). "Odoacer: German or Hun?". The American Historical Review. 52 (1). American Historical Association: 36–53. doi:10.2307/1845067. JSTOR 1845067. Retrieved March 14, 2020. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |layurl=, |laydate=, |nopp=, and |laysource= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)

There are several issues with this claim:

1. The source is from 1946 (WP:RS AGE)
2. The authors of the source, Robert L. Reynolds and Robert Sabatino Lopez, were economic historians, and neither of them are thus ideal sources for such a claim
3. The citation is not attributed to any page number, but on page 51 of the source, Reynolds and Lopez write that "The Sciri (originally a Baltic [?] or Sarmatic [?]-but hardly a Germanic- people) were drawn into the Hunnic political constellation around the middle of the fourth century".
4. The source is misrepresented, as Lopez and Reynolds are not discussing what language the Scirii spoke, but rather their ethnic origin.
5. When suggesting a Baltic or Sarmatian origin of the Scirii, Reynolds and Lopez are merely speculating. They provide no justification for these suggestions nor do they provide any citations.
6. Reynolds and Lopez's Baltic/Sarmatian theory is not repeated in any recent sources of higher quality. (WP:REDFLAG)
7. Reynolds and Lopez's article has been criticized in more recent scholarship.[8]
8. Reynolds and Lopez's Baltic/Sarmatian theory is contradicted in more recent scholarship from Herwig Wolfram, Peter Heather, Dennis Howard Green, Anders Kaliff, Maximilian Diesenberger and others, in which the Scirii are classified as a Germanic-speaking Germanic/East Germanic people. (WP:REDFLAG)

Conclusion: Reynold's and Lopez' Baltic/Sarmatian speculations should not be given undue weight. Krakkos (talk) 14:59, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I have moved and shortened the sentence. I'm not particularly attached to it, but it seems harmless to me. Maenchen-Helfen criticized that article in a later issue of the same volume and Reynolds & Lopez responded. The article is called "ground-breaking" by Hyun Jin Kim in The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe (2013). Most of their proposed etymologies are unconvincing, but the sentence in question isn't based on etymologies but (implicitly) on geography. Srnec (talk) 16:42, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

It seems like my position is similar to Srnec. This is not something I feel strong about but this is clearly a paper which is still being cited (also by Steinbacher), and in effect deleting mention of it seems to have no justification. The argumentation above seem to be OR and a bit over-dramatized. We are not supposed to be picked winners here. Krakkos above you seem to be criticizing reliable sources like Steinacher and Hyun Jin Kim and asking WP to follow your position?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:25, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Of course this is a notable paper which can be used in this article, but it is more relevant to the origins of Odoacer than the origins of the Scirii. For the origins of the Scirii we have numerous better and more recent sources. I think the addition by Srnec of the response from Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen added useful balance to the subject. Krakkos (talk) 21:09, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

But censorship is a big call right?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:58, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

FWIW I note that E A Thompson and Walter Pohl (writing in RGA) have also both cited the 1946 article in relatively positive ways.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:30, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Edico: do we just assume it is one?

Another point I do not want to over-dramatize but should we just assume he is one person? I tried making some edits to leave the option open that there might be more than one man with the same name. From my reading I had the feeling this might be something some authors would prefer to do, but I don't have a detailed analysis of this specific point. Krakkos you prefer to write as if everyone is sure that it is one person, but it does not win us many extra words or anything so is there a specific concern you have?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:35, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

The equation of the Hunnic Edeko with the Scirian Edeko is generally accepted, according to Peter Heather. Detailed discussion of the origins of Edeko should be reserved for the article Edeko. Krakkos (talk) 21:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

It seems quite likely. But does everyone say it is proven? We seem to want to say it is proven? Our secondary sources seem not to use such certain language all the time?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:58, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Does the etymology really need so many attributions for the standard theory?

We have "According to Herwig Wolfram, the name Scirii means "the pure ones".[1] Gudmund Schütte connected it to Gothic skeirs ("sheer", "pure").[2] Wolfram contrasts their name with that of the neighboring Bastarnae, who were ethnically mixed according to this interpretation and thus named "the bastards".[1]" I suppose it could even be argued we are being misleading, implying that Wolfram invented this proposal.

• Perhaps best practice would be to name who originally proposed it. The historical discussions may well be mentioned in the RGA article (Vol 28, and 2 parts done by Zimmer and Castritius. See German article). The relevant volume is here but I can not access the page.

Schütte, who we cite, does have some references to the old standard 19th century sources, but they don't tell us who developed this idea. I will walk through them out of interest to editors. It at least shows us that Wolfram was not the source:

• Zeuss (must be 1837 Die Deutschen) p.156 gives no etymology.
• Schmeller, Johann Andreas, Bayerisches Wörterbuch, Vol.3 (1836) is on various website. p.390 is about Bavarian placenames, but does mention the subject of this article in a speculative way, as possibly connected to a place with such a name, which can be seen as implying the name of an old clan. And p.391 mentions the etymology we are talking about. However, I think this author saw these as two different possible sources of the placename(s)?
• Müllenhoff, Karl, in Nordalbingische Studien, Vol. 1 (1844) "p.163" but I only find them on p.123 with no discussion of etymology.
• Grimm p.466, must refer to Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, in Vol.2 p.466 (which is using an old pagination that is still given in the margin of the 1880 edition). It gives another interesting comment about the possible connection to Bavarian placenames, but no comment on the etymology.
• Rudolf Much, Zeitschrift [Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur], Vol.41. (1897) p.138. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20651373 http://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/img/?PID=PPN345204123_0041%7Clog20 mentions the etymological possibility in connection to placenames found in Ptolemy.
• Much's article in the original Hoops RGA (1918-1919). That presumably refers to the Skiren article in Vol.4. which starts on page 191. It gives the normal etymology which was clearly established already at this date but mentions that there is a question about the exact sense of the etymology "ob wir fir ihn die Bedeutun 'clari, splendidi' oder 'candidi, sinceri' vorauszusetzen oder - was bei einem Vol in Grenzgebieten naheliegt - an 'die schieren, reinen, unvermischten' zu denken haben" (It kind of looks like this speculation about a border people became popular and as often happens, later authors simply ignore the more cautious wording of the original writer.)
• Schütte cites his own 1917 work on Ptolemy's maps, p.17 which is also about Ptolemy and does not add much for our question.

A secondary issue I would be interested to clear up is the source of the pairing up of this etymology with one for the Bastarnae. This doublet seems to now be a key part of what keeps historians citing it, and clearly seems to have developed as a complement to the proposal mentioned by Much in a more speculative way. In any case historians often seem to mention it now, as if important to the case as they see it. The Bastarnae etymology is also older than this pairing up, as shown eg by Much's article on them in the above mentioned old RGA [9].--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:32, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 25 July 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Lennart97 (talk) 09:04, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

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Scirii → Sciri – The current title is not used in RS and appears to be wrong. See NGRAM. Walter Goffart, Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire, pp. 203–205, lists 13 mentions of the Sciri in Greek or Latin sources. I've looked up every one I could and never found an implied Scirii (sgl. Scirius). You can check Jordanes' Getica and Romana yourself. Google Scholar does not seem to know this form for the barbarian tribe. Heather and Wolfram use Sciri. The article currently at Sciri is a unneeded dab page that can be deleted. Hatnotes will suffice. For those concerned about primary topic, see pageviews. Srnec (talk) 22:54, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• support as proposed.--Ermenrich (talk) 23:25, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
• support. Good call. Reynolds and Lopez also use Sciri. Maenchen-Helfen prefers Scirians it seems. All the other options we list seem un-necessary? Ermenrich for your interest, that old debate which is on JSTOR also questioned whether the Heruli were Germanic (and IIRC some BTW argue they were North Germanic speakers, because of their supposed connection to an area near Denmark).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.