 the geats () (old english gÄatas, ; old norse gautar ; swedish gÃ¶tar, ), and sometimes gothse.g. microsoft encarta (on swedish history), translations from old norse, anglo-saxon or latin and the primary chronicle and modern scholarly works on germanic tribes.) were a north germanic tribe inhabiting what is now gÃ¶taland ("land of the geats") in modern sweden. the name of the geats also lives on in the swedish provinces of vÃ¤stergÃ¶tland and ÃstergÃ¶tland, the western and eastern lands of the geats, and in many other toponyms. ==history== ===earliest mentions === the earliest known surviving mention of the geats appears in ptolemy (2nd century a.d.), who refers to them as goutai. in the 6th century, jordanes writes of the gautigoths and ostrogoths (the ostrogoths of scandza); and procopius refers to gautoi. the norse sagas knows them as gautar; beowulf and widsith as gÄatas. michael alexander's 1995 (penguin classics) edition of beowulf mentions a variant: gÄotas ===etymology=== the modern english form geat (old english geatas, from the proto-germanic *gautaz, plural *gautÅz) has long been used in academic english literature and is related, although not identical, to the etymology of the name tribal goth (*gutÃ´, plural *gutaniz) and they are both derived (specifically they are two ablaut grades) from the proto-germanic word *geutanÄ, meaning "to pour".compare the modern swedish gjuta, modern dutch gieten, modern german gieÃen, gothic giutan, old scandinavian giota, old english geotan all cognate with latin fondere "to pour" and old greek cheo "i pour".nordisk familjebok, the article "gÃ¶tar" (in swedish). this means according to the mainly accepted etymology "men",svenskt ortnamnslexikon, sprÃ¥k- och folkminnesinstitutet, uppsala 2003, pages 103 och 92 (articles "gÃ¶taland" and "gotland"). a heiti of the men in the tribe, see further in [[goths#etymology|goths (etymolo
Ancient_Germanic_peoples Geats GAPtaland