Ingaevones

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The Ingaevones or Ingvaeones (also referred to as "North Sea Germans")—Ingäwonen, Ingwäonen, Nordsee-Germanen in German—were a West Germanic cultural group or proto-tribe along the North Sea coast. Their name comes from Tacitus's Germania (circa 98 CE), in which he categorized them as one of the three tribes descended from the three sons of Mannus, son of Tuisto. They probably became distinct from the generality of North Germanic groups between around 1000 and 500 BCE, moving into the areas of Jutland, Holstein, Frisia and the Danish islands, where they had by about 50 BCE become further differentiated into the Frisians, Saxons, Jutes and Angles.

The northern varieties of the Low Germanic languages, (Low German, and Dutch), together with English and Frisian, may all be classified as the North Sea Germanic or Ingvaeonic languages. Even in the distant past these languages seem to have been a collection of closely related dialects, sharing common innovations as the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law and continuously influencing each other, rather than diverging linearly from a common linguistic ancestor — a characteristic of West Germanic languages as a whole.

Other West Germanic proto-tribes were the Irminones and Istaevones.

Pliny c.80 AD in his Natural History (chapter IV, paragraph 99) lists the Ingaevones as one of the five German confederations. According to him they were made up of Cimbri, Teutons, and Chauci.

The legendary father of the Ingaevones/Ingvaeones is named *Ingwaz (Ing, Ingo, or Inguio), son of Mannus. Jacob Grimm, in his Teutonic Mythology, and many others consider this Ing to have been originally identical to the vague Scandinavian Yngvi, eponymous ancestor of the Swedish royal house of the Ynglings. An Ingui is also listed in the Anglo-Saxon royalhouse of Bernicia. This is also the name given to the Viking era deity Freyr.

In Nennius we find Mannus corrupted to Alanus and Ingio/Inguio, his son, to Neugio. Here the three sons of Neugio are named as Boganus, Vandalus, and Saxo — from whom came the peoples of the Bogari, the Vandals, and the Saxons and Tarincgi.de:Ingaevonen nl:Ingvaeones ru:Ингевоны