Gothic

In 1337 Gothic culture survived only in Crimea, where a remnant of East Germanic Goths had lived since the third century, cut off from western Gothic kingdoms after the Ostrogothic realm collapsed under the Huns. They converted to Orthodox Christianity, and around 850 Saint Cyril found them reading scriptures in their Germanic tongue.

After the Fourth Crusade their highland district around Doros fortress, now Mangup, became the Principality of Gothia, or Theodoro, an Orthodox state of Goths, Greeks and other peoples, Greek its official language. In 1337 Theodoro held southwestern Crimea between Genoese colonies and the Mongol steppe khanate.

The Ottomans overran it in 1475, ending Gothic self-rule, yet the language lingered: Habsburg envoy Busbecq collected Crimean Gothic words in the sixteenth century, and travellers reported Gothic speakers near Mangup in the eighteenth century, before the people merged into the Greek and Tatar population.