other eastern peoples escaping disturbances associated with the Huns. In 406 AD, Suebian tribes led by Hermeric, together with other Danubian groups including Alans and Vandals, crossed the Rhine and overran Gaul and Hispania. They eventually established the Kingdom of the Suebi in Galicia. With the breaking up of Hunnic power after the Battle of Nedao there was also a short-lived Kingdom of the Suebi on the Danube, under Hunimund. They were defeated by the Ostrogoths, one of the peoples of eastern origin who had been allies of the Huns. In the sixth century the Suevic Longobards moved from the Elbe to become one of the major powers of the Middle Danube, in competition with the dynasties from the east such as the Herules, Gepids and Ostrogoths. During the last years of the decline of the Western Roman Empire, the Suebian general Ricimer was its de facto ruler. The Lombards, with many Danubian peoples both Suebian and eastern, later settled Italy and established the Kingdom of the Lombards. The Alamanni, Bavarii and Thuringii who remained in Germania gave their names to the still-existing German regions of Swabia, Bavaria and Thuringia respectively. Suebian languages are thought to be a main source of the later High German languages, especially the Upper-German dialects predominant in Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria, which experienced the Second consonant shift some time after about 600 AD. Etymology Etymologists trace the name from Proto-Germanic *swēbaz based on the Proto-Germanic root *swē- found in the third-person reflexive pronoun, giving the meaning "one's own" people, in turn from an earlier Indo-European root *swe- (Polish swe, swój, swoi, Latin sui, Italian suo, Sanskrit swa, each meaning "one's own"). The etymological sources list the following ethnic names as being from the same root: Suiones (whence also the name of the Swedes), Samnites, Sabellians, and Sabines, indicating the possibility of a prior more extended and common Indo-European ethnic name, "our own people". Notably, the Semnones, known to classical authors as one of the largest Suebian groups, also seem to have a name with this same meaning, but recorded with a different pronunciation by the Romans. Alternatively, it may be borrowed from a Celtic word for "vagabond". Classification More than one tribe Caesar placed the Suebi east of the Ubii apparently near modern Hesse, in the position where later writers mention the Chatti, and he distinguished them from their allies the Marcomanni. Some commentators