Vandalic language
[1]: 9 Its attestation is very fragmentary, mainly due to the Vandals' constant migrations and late adoption of writing.
[2]: 43–44 Vandalic is traditionally classified as an East Germanic language,[3]: 4 [4] while the reasons for this classification are mostly historical and not linguistical.
[1]: 7 Due to the perception of Vandalic as an East Germanic language, its reconstruction from onomastics recorded by Greek and Roman sources relies on Gothic forms.
Linguistic evidence shows no specific relation between North Germanic and either Gothic or Vandalic.
Still, it is possible that both the Goths and the Vandals migrated from Scandinavia southwards, where their respective languages started to diverge from Proto-Germanic.
They crossed the Rhine in the fifth century,[6] establishing themselves together with the Hasdingi and the Silingi in Gallaecia (northern Portugal and Galicia) and in southern Spain, following other Germanic and non-Germanic peoples (Visigoths, Alans and Suebi) in c. 410 before they moved to North Africa in the 430s.
[2] The regional name Andalusia is traditionally believed to have derived from Vandalic, although this claim is contested.
[10][11] The same phrase appears in Collatio Beati Augustini cum Pascentio ariano 15 by Pseudo-Augustine: "Froja armes".
This may be because both languages were East Germanic and closely related; scholars have pointed out in this context[2]: 48 that Procopius refers to the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepids as "Gothic nations" and opines that they "are all of the Arian faith, and have one language called Gothic".
[3]: 101–109 The Proto-Germanic */z/ is also preserved in the language as a sibilant (always found written ⟨s⟩ or as part of ⟨x⟩), as opposed to having undergone rhotacism as it has in North or West Germanic.
[3]: 107 [2]: 100 The Proto-Germanic fricatives */þ/ and */ð/ often turned into /t/ or /d/, but there are also some names in which they were retained or otherwise represented distinctly: Thrasamundus, Guntha.
[2]: 105 The original Proto-Germanic *-z used to mark the nominative masculine singular in nominals, which was lost in West Germanic early on, is attested within some preserved Vandalic forms as -s or as part of -x (occasionally found Romanized in some name attestations as -us).
[citation needed] The tables below show various Vandalic words, phrases and forms that survive in (or as) names and various Latin texts.
[18][clarification needed] The few names on coins issued by the Vandalic kingdom were written in Latin script.
