Irminones

Irminones
Geographic distribution:	Originally the North Sea coast from Friesland to Jutland
Linguistic classification:	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Irminones
Subdivisions:	German language High German
Glottolog:	high1286  (High German) high1287  (High Franconian)
The distribution of the primary Germanic dialect groups in Europe in around AD 1:   North Germanic   North Sea Germanic, or Ingvaeonic   Weser-Rhine Germanic, or Istvaeonic   Elbe Germanic, or Irminonic   East Germanic

The Irminones, also referred to as Herminones or Hermiones (Ancient Greek: Ἑρμίονες), were a group of early Germanic tribes settling in the Elbe watershed and by the 1st century AD expanding into Bavaria, Swabia and Bohemia. Irminonic or Elbe Germanic is a conventional term grouping early West Germanic dialects ancestral to High German, which would include modern Standard German.

The name Irminones or Hermiones comes from Tacitus's Germania (98 AD), where he categorized them as one of the tribes of descended from Mannus, and noted that they lived in the interior of Germany. Other Germanic groups of tribes were the Ingvaeones, living on the coast, and Istvaeones, who accounted for the rest. Tacitus also mentioned the Suebi as a large grouping who included the Semnones, the Quadi and the Marcomanni, but he did not say precisely which (if any) of the three nations they belong to.

Pomponius Mela wrote in his Description of the World (III.3.31) in reference to the Kattegat and the waters surrounding the Danish isles (see the Codanus sinus): "On the bay are the Cimbri and the Teutoni; farther on, the farthest people of Germania, the Hermiones." Mela then begins to speak of the Scythians.