|name=Gothic
- ''Gutisk''
|pronunciation=/ˈɡuˌtʰisk/
|region=throughout mainland Europe
|extinct=by 10th Century
|familycolor=Indo-European
|fam2= Germanic
|fam3= East Germanic
|script= Gothic Alphabet
|iso2=got|iso3=got}}
As a Germanic language, Gothic is a part of the Indo-European Language family. It is the Germanic language with the earliest attestation, but it has no modern descendants. The oldest documents in Gothic date back to the 4th Century . The language was in decline by the mid- 6th Century , due in part to the military defeat of the Goths at the hands of the Franks , the elimination of the Goths in Italy, massive conversion to primarily Latin-speaking Roman Catholicism, and geographic isolation. The language survived in the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal ) as late as the 8th Century , and Frankish author Walafrid Strabo wrote that it was still spoken in the lower Danube area and in isolated mountain regions in Crimea in the early 9th Century (see Crimean Gothic ). Gothic-seeming terms found in later (post-9th century) manuscripts may not belong to the same language.
The existence of such early attested corpora makes it a language of considerable interest in Comparative Linguistics .
''Words in Gothic written in this article are Transliterated into the Roman Alphabet using the system described on the Gothic Alphabet page.''
Documents in Gothic
There are only a few surviving documents in Gothic, not enough to completely reconstruct the language.
- The largest body of surviving documentation consists of Codices written and commissioned by the Arian bishop Ulfilas (also known as ''Wulfila'', 311 - 382 ), who was the leader of a community of Visigoth Christian s in the Roman province of Moesia (modern Bulgaria ). He commissioned a translation of the Greek Septuagint into the Gothic language, of which roughly three-quarters of the New Testament and some fragments of the Old Testament have survived.
- Codex Argenteus (and the Speyer fragment): 188 leaves.
::The best preserved Gothic manuscript, the '' Codex Argenteus '', dates from the 6th Century and was preserved and transmitted by northern Italian Ostrogoths . It contains a large part of the four Gospel s. Since it is a translation from Greek, the language of the ''Codex Argentus'' is replete with borrowed Greek words and Greek usages. The syntax in particular is often copied directly from the Greek.
- Codex Ambrosianus ( Milan ) (and the Codex Taurinensis): Five parts, totalling 193 leaves.
::The ''Codex Ambrosianus'' contains scattered passages from the New Testament (including parts of the Gospel s and the Epistle s), of the Old Testament ( Nehemiah ), and some commentaries known as '' Skeireins ''. It is therefore likely that the text had been somewhat modified by copyists.
- Codex Gissensis ( Gießen ): 1 leaf, fragments of Luke 23-24. It was found in Egypt in 1907, but destroyed by water damage in 1945.
- ): 4 leaves, fragments of Romans 11-15.
- Codex Vaticanus Latinus 5750: 3 leaves, pages 57/58, 59/60 and 61/62 of the Skeireins .
- A scattering of old documents: alphabets, calendars, glosses found in a number of manuscripts and a few Runic Inscriptions (between 3 and 13) that are known to be or suspected to be Gothic. Some scholars believe that these inscriptions are not at all Gothic (see Braune/Ebbinghaus "Gotische Grammatik" Tübingen 1981)
- A few dozen terms compiled by Ogier De Busbecq , a 16th Century Flemish diplomat living in Crimea who listed them in his compilation ''Turkish Letters''. These terms are from nearly a millennium later and are therefore not representative of the language of Ulfilas. See Crimean Gothic .
There have been unsubstantiated reports of the discovery of other parts of Ulfilas' bible. Heinrich May in 1968 claimed to have found in England 12 leaves of a Palimpsest containing parts of the Gospel Of Matthew . The claim was never substantiated.
Only fragments of the Gothic translation of the Bible have been preserved. The translation was apparently done in the Balkans region by people in close contact with Greek Christian culture. It appears that the Gothic Bible was used by the Visigoths in Iberia until circa 700 AD, and perhaps for a time in Italy , the Balkans and what is now Ukraine . In exterminating Arian ism, many texts in Gothic were probably expunged and overwritten as palimpsests, or collected and burned. Apart from Biblical texts, the only substantial Gothic document which still exists, and the only lengthy text known to have been composed originally in the Gothic language, is the " Skeireins ", a few pages of commentary on the Gospel Of John .
There are very few references to the Gothic language in secondary sources after about 800 AD, so perhaps it was rarely used by that date. In evaluating medieval texts that mention the Goths , it must be noted that many writers used the word ''Goths'' to mean any Germanic people in eastern Europe, many of whom certainly did not use the Gothic language as known from the Gothic Bible. Some writers even referred to Slavic -speaking people as Goths.
The relationship between the language of the Crimean Goths and Ulfilas' Gothic is less clear. The few fragments of their language from the 16th Century show significant differences from the language of the Gothic Bible, although some of the glosses, such as ''ada'' for "egg", imply a common heritage.
Generally, the Gothic language refers to the language of Ulfilas , but the attestations themselves are largely from the 6th Century - long after Ulfilas had died. The above list is not exhaustive, and a more extensive list is available on the website of the Wulfilas Project .
Alphabet
''See Gothic Alphabet .''
Ulfilas' Gothic, as well as that of the ''Skeireins'' and various other manuscripts, was written using an alphabet that was most likely invented by Ulfilas himself for his translation. Some scholars (e.g. Braune) claim that it was derived from the Greek Alphabet only, while others maintain that there are some Gothic letters of Runic or Latin origin.
This Gothic Alphabet has nothing to do with Blackletter (also called ''Gothic script''), which was used to write the Roman Alphabet from the 12th to 14th Centuries and evolved into the Fraktur writing later used to write German .
Sounds
It is possible to determine more or less exactly how the Gothic of Ulfilas was pronounced, primarily through comparative phonetic reconstruction. Furthermore, because Ulfilas tried to follow the original Greek text as much as possible in his translation, we know that he used the same writing conventions as those of contemporary Greek. Since the Greek of that period is well documented, it is possible to reconstruct much of Gothic pronunciation from translated texts. In addition, the way in which non-Greek names are transcribed in the Greek Bible and in Ulfilas' Bible is very informative.
Vowels
- , and can be either long or short. Gothic writing distinguishes between long and short vowels only for - writing ''i'' for the short form and ''ei'' for the long (a has been dropped in front of an (a case of Compensatory Lengthening ). Thus, the preterite of the verb ''briggan'' "to bring" (English ''bring'', German ''bringen'') becomes ''brahta'' (English ''brought'', German ''brachte''), from the Proto-Germanic ---''braŋk-dē''. In detailed Transliteration , where the intent is more Phonetic Transcription , length is noted by a Macron (or failing that, often a Circumflex ): ''brāhta'', ''brâhta''. is found often enough in other contexts: ''brūks'' "useful" (German ''Gebrauch'', Swedish ''bruk'' "usage").
- and are long Close-mid Vowel s. They are written as ''e'' and ''o'': ''ne'' "near" (English ''nigh'', German ''nah''); ''fodjan'' "to feed".
- and are short Open-mid Vowel s. They are noted using the digraphs ''ai'' and ''au'': ''taihun'' "ten" (German ''zehn''), ''dauhtar'' "daughter" (German ''Tochter''). In transliterating Gothic, accents are placed on the second vowel of these digraphs ''aí'' and ''aú'' to distinguish them from the original diphthongs ''ái'' and ''áu'': ''taíhun'', ''daúhtar''. In most cases short and are allophones of before . Furthermore, the reduplication syllable of the reduplicating preterites has ''ai'' as well, which is probably pronounced as a short . Finally, short and occur in loan words from Greek and Latin (''aípiskaúpus'' = "bishop", ''laíktjo'' = ''lectio'' "lection", ''Paúntius'' = ''Pontius'').
- The Germanic Diphthong s ''ai'' and ''au'' appear as ''ai'' and ''au'' in Gothic (normally written with an accent on the first vowel to distinguish them from ''ai, au'' < Germanic ''i/e, u''). Some researchers suppose that they were still pronounced as diphthongs in Gothic, i.e. and , whereas others think that they have become long Open-mid Vowel s, i.e. and : ''ains'' "one" (German ''eins''), ''augo'' "eye" (German ''Auge''). In Latin sources Gothic names with Germanic ''au'' are rendered with ''au'' until the 4th century and ''o'' later on (''Austrogoti'' > ''Ostrogoti''). Long and occur as allophons of and respectively before a following vowel: ''waian'' "to blow" (German ''wehen''), ''bauan'' "to build" (German "bauen", Swedish ''bo'' "live"), also in Greek words ''Trauada'' "Troad" (Gk. ).
- (pronounced like German ''ü'' and French ''u'' and similar to the ''ew'' in ''new'') is a Greek sound used only in borrowed words. It is transliterated as ''w'' in vowel positions: ''azwmus'' "unleavened bread" (< Gk. ). It represents an υ (y) or the diphthong οι (oi) in Greek, both of which were pronounced in period Greek. Since the sound was foreign to Gothic, it was most perhaps pronounced .
- is a descending Diphthong , i.e. and not : ''diups'' "deep" (German ''tief'', Swedish ''djup'').
- Greek diphthongs: In Ulfilas ' era, all the diphthongs of classical Greek had become simple vowels in speech ('' Monophthong ization''), except for αυ (au) and ευ (eu), which were probably still pronounced as and . (They evolved into and in modern Greek.) Ulfilas notes them, in words borrowed from Greek, as ''aw'' and ''aiw'', probably pronounced : ''Pawlus'' "Paul" (Gk. ), ''aíwaggelista'' "evangelist" (Gk. , via the Latin ''evangelista'').
- Simple vowels and diphthongs (original and spurious ones) can be followed by a , which was likely pronounced as the second element of a diphthong with roughly the sound of . It seems likely that this is more of an instance of Phonetic Coalescence than of phonological diphthongs (such as, for example, the sound in the French word ''paille'' ("straw"), which is not the diphthong but rather a vowel followed by an Approximant ): ''alew'' "olive oil" (< Latin ''oleum''), ''snáiws'' ("snow"), ''lasiws'' "tired" (English ''lazy'').
Consonants
In general, Gothic consonants are Devoiced at the ends of words. Gothic is rich in fricative consonants (although many of them may have been Approximant s, it's hard to separate the two) derived by the processes described in Grimm's Law and Verner's Law and characteristic of Germanic Languages . Gothic is unusual among Germanic languages in having a phoneme which has not become through Rhotacization . Furthermore, the doubling of written consonants between vowels suggests that Gothic made distinctions between long and short, or Geminated consonants: ''atta'' "dad", ''kunnan'' "to know" (German ''können'' "to be able", Swedish: ''kunna'').
Stops
- The voiceless stops , and are regularly noted by ''p'', ''t'' and ''k'' respectively: ''paska'' ("Easter", from the Greek ), ''tuggo'' ("tongue"), ''kalbo'' ("calf"). The stops probably had (non-phonemic) aspiration like in most modern Germanic languages: . Thus, the High German Consonant Shift seems to presuppose aspiration.
- The letter ''q'' is probably a voiceless + a Labio-velar Approximant (English ''qu'') or a simple voiceless Velar Stop (English ''c, k'')
- The voiced stops , and are noted by the letters ''b'', ''d'' and ''g''. To judge from the other Germanic languages, they were probably restricted to a word-initial position and the position after a the nasal; in other positions they had affricative allophones. In the end of a word and before a voiceless consonant, they were most likely also devoiced: ''blinds'' "blind", ''lamb'' "lamb".
- There was probably also a voiced Labiovelar stop, , which was written with the digraph ''gw''. It occurred after a nasal, e.g. ''saggws'' "song", or long as a regular outcome of Germanic ---''ww'', e.g. ''triggws'' "faithful" (English ''true'', German ''treu'', Swedish ''trygg'').
- Similarly the letters ''ddj'', which is the regular outcome of Germanic ---''jj'', may represent a voiced palatal stop, : ''waddjus'' "wall" (Swedish ''vägg''), ''twaddje'' " two (genitive)".
Fricatives
- and are usually written ''s'' and ''z''. The latter corresponds to Germanic ---''z'' (which has become ''r'' or silent in the other Germanic languages); at the end of a word, it is regularly devoiced to ''s''. E.g. ''saíhs'' "six", ''máiza'' "greater" (English ''more'', German ''mehr'') ~ ''máis'' "more, rather".
- and , written ''f'' and ''þ'', are voiceless bilabial and voiceless dental fricatives respectively. It is likely that the relatively unstable sound became . ''f'' and ''þ'' are also derived from ''b'' and ''d'' at the ends of words, when they are devoices and become approximants: ''gif'' "give (imperative)" (infinitive ''giban'': German ''geben''), ''miþ'' "with" ( Old English ''mid'', German ''mit'').
- is written as ''h'': ''haban'' "to have" (German "haben"). It was probably pronounced in word-final position as well (not , since > is written ''g'', not ''h''): ''jah'' "and" (German, Scandinavian ''ja'' "yes"). Before another consonant, it may have had the allophon , given that all modern Germanic languages have before and German has before (the Scandinavian languages, on the other hand, have ''ht'' > ''tt''): ''saíhs'' "six" (German ''sechs'' , Swedish ''sex'' ), ''ahtau'' "eight" (German ''acht'' , Swedish ''åtta'' ).
- is an allophon of at the end of a word or before a voiceless consonant; it is always written ''g'': ''dags'' "day" (German ''Tag''). In some borrowed Greek words, we find the special letter ''x'', which represents the Greek letter χ (''ch''): ''Xristus'' "Christ" (Gk. ). It may also have signified a .
- , and are voiced fricatives only found between vowels. They are Allophones of , and and are not distinguished from them in writing. may have become , a more stable labiodental form (a case of Articulatory Strengthening ). In the study of Germanic languages, these phonemes are usually transcribed as ', ' and '''' respectively: ''haban'' "to have", ''þiuda'' "people" (Old Norse ''þióð'', German ''Deutsch'' > English ''Dutch''), ''áugo'' "eye" (English ''eye'', German ''Auge'').
- '''' (also transcribed ''hw'') is a Labiovelar Variant of (derived from the proto-Indo-European ). It probably was pronounced as (a voiceless ) as it is in many dialects of English, where it is always written as ''wh'': ''an'' "when", ''ar'' "where", ''eits'' "white".
Nasals and approximants and other phonemes
Gothic has three nasal consonants, of which one is an allophone of the others, found only in Complementary Distribution with them. Nasals in Gothic, like most languages, are pronounced at the same Point Of Articulation as either the consonant that follows them ( Assimilation ). Therefore, clusters like and are not possible.
- and are freely distributed - they can be found in any position in a syllable and form becomes , while and preceding a Dental Stop becomes an , as per the principle of assimilation described in the previous paragraph. In front of a Velar Stop , they both become . and are transcribed as ''n'' and ''m'', and in writing neutralisation is marked: ''sniumundo'' ("quickly").
- is not a phoneme and cannot appear freely in Gothic. It is present where a nasal consonant is neutralised before a Velar Stop and is in a complementary distribution with and . Following Greek conventions, it is normally written as ''g'' (sometimes ''n''): ''þagkjan'' "to think", ''sigqan'' "to sink" ~ ''þankeiþ'' "thinks''. The cluster ''ggw'' denotes now , now (see above).
- is transliterated as ''w'' before a vowel: ''weis'' ("we"), ''twái'' "two" (German ''zwei'').
- is written as ''j'': ''jer'' "year", ''sakjo'' "strife".
- is used much as in English and other European languages: ''laggs'' "long", ''mel'' "hour" (English ''meal'', German ''Mahl'').
- is a Trilled (eventually a Flap ): ''raíhts'' "right", ''afar'' "after".
- The Sonorant s , , and act as the nucleus of a Syllable ("vowels") after the final consonant of a word or between two consonants. This is also the case in modern English: for example, "bottle" is pronounced in many dialects. Some Gothic examples: ''tagl'' "hair" (English ''tail'', Swedish ''tagel''), ''máiþms'' "gift", ''táikns'' "sign" (English ''token'', German ''Zeichen'', Swedish ''tecken'') and ''tagr'' "tear (as in crying)".
Accentuation and Intonation
Accentuation in Gothic can be reconstructed through phonetic comparison, Grimm's Law and Verner's Law . Gothic used a Stress Accent rather than the Pitch Accent of Proto-Indo-European . It is indicated by the fact that long vowels and were shortened and the short vowels and were lost in unstressed syllables.
Just like other Germanic Languages , the free moving Indo-European accent was fixed on the first syllable of simple words. (For example, in modern English, nearly all words that do not have accents on the first syllable are borrowed from other languages.) Accents do not shift when words are Inflected . In most compound words, the location of the stress depends on its placement in the second part:
- In compounds where the second word is a ''noun'', the accent is on the first syllable of the first word of the compound.
- In compounds where the second word is a ''verb'', the accent falls on the first syllable of the verbal component. Elements prefixed to verbs are otherwise unstressed, except in the context of separable words (words that can be broken in two parts and separated in regular usage, for example, Separable Verb s in German and Dutch) - in those cases, the prefix is stressed.
Examples: (with comparable words from modern Germanic languages)
- Non-compound words: ''marka'' "border, borderlands" (English "march" as in the Spanish Marches ); ''aftra'' "after"; ''bidjan'' "pray" (German ''beten'', Swedish ''bedja'').
- Compound words:
- --- Noun second element: ''guda-láus'' "godless".
- --- Verb second element: ''ga-láubjan'' "believe" (German ''glauben'' < Old High German ''g(i)louben'' by Syncope of the atonic ''i'').
Morphology
Nouns
Gothic preserves many archaic Indo-European features that are not always present in modern Germanic languages, in particular the rich Indo-European Declension system. Gothic had Nominative , Accusative , Genitive and Dative cases, as well as vestiges of a Vocative Case that was sometimes identical to the nominative and sometimes to the accusative. The three Genders of Indo-European were all present, including the neuter gender of modern German and Icelandic and to some extent modern Dutch, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, in opposition to the "common gender" (''genus commune'') which applies to both masculine and feminine nouns. Nouns and adjectives were inflected according to one of two Grammatical Number s: the singular and the plural.
One of the most striking characteristics of the East Germanic Languages is the division of nouns between those with ''weak declensions'' (generally those where the Root Word ends in an ''n'') and those with ''strong declensions'' (those whose roots end in a vowel or an inflexional suffix indicative of a pronoun). This separation is particularly important in Gothic. While a noun can only belong to one class of declensions, depending on the end of the root word, some adjectives can be either strongly or weakly declined, depending on their meaning. An adjective employed with a particular meaning and accompanied by a Deictic article, like the Demonstrative Pronoun s ''sa'', ''þata'', or ''so'' which act as definite articles, took a weak declension, while adjectives used with indefinite articles had a strong declension.
This process is still sometimes found in German, where adjectives are declined:
- weak declension: ''der gut'''e''' Wein'' ("the good wine") ;
- strong declension: ''guter Wein'' ("good wine"), ''ein guter Wein'' ("a good wine")
Descriptive adjectives in Gothic (as well as superlatives ending in ''-ist'' and ''-ost'') and the s. Others, such as ''áins'' ("some"), take only the strong declension.
The table below displays the declension of the Gothic adjective ''blind'' (English: "blind") with a weak noun (''guma'' - "man") and a strong one (''dags'' - "day"):
This table is, of course, not exhaustive. (There are secondary inflexions, particularly for the strong neuter singular and irregular nouns among other contexts, which are not described here.) An exhaustive table of only the ''types'' of endings Gothic took is presented below.
- strong declension :
- --- roots ending in ''-a'', ''-ja'', ''-wa'' (masculine and neuter): equivalent to the Greek and Latin second declension in ''‑us'' / ''‑i'' and ‑ος / ‑ου;
- --- roots ending in ''-o'', ''-jo'' and ''-wo'' (feminine): equivalent to the Greek and Latin first declension in ''‑a'' / ''‑æ'' and ‑α / ‑ας (‑η / ‑ης);
- --- roots ending in ''-i'' (masculine et feminine): equivalent to the Greek and Latin third declension in ''‑is'' (acc. ''‑im'') and ‑ις / ‑εως;
- --- roots ending in ''-u'' (all three genders) : equivalent to the Latin fourth declension in ''‑us'' / ''‑us'' and the Greek third declension in ‑υς / ‑εως;
- weak declension (all roots ending in ''-n''), equivalent to the Greek and Latin third declension in ''‑o'' / ''‑onis'' and ‑ων / ‑ονος or ‑ην / ‑ενος:
- --- roots ending in ''-an'', ''-jan'', ''-wan'' (masculine);
- --- roots ending in ''-on'' et ''-ein'' (feminine);
- --- roots ending in ''-n'' (neuter): equivalent to the Greek and Latin third declension in ''‑men'' / ''‑minis'' and ‑μα / ‑ματος;
- minor declensions : roots ending in ''-r'', en ''-nd'' and vestigial endings in other consonants, equivalent to other third declensions in Greek and Latin.
Gothic adjectives follow noun declensions closely - they take same types of inflexion.
Pronouns
Gothic inherited the full set of Indo-European pronouns: Personal Pronoun s (including Reflexive Pronoun s for each of the three Grammatical Person s), Possessive Pronoun s, both simple and compound Demonstratives , Relative Pronoun s, Interrogatives and Indefinite Pronoun s. Each follows a particular pattern of inflexion (partially mirroring the noun declension), much like other Indo-European languages. One particularly noteworthy characteristic is the preservation of the Dual Number , referring to two people or things while the plural was only used for quantities greater than two. Thus, "the two of us" and "we" for numbers greater than two were expressed as ''wit'' and ''weis'' respectively. While Proto-Indo-European used the dual for all grammatical categories that took a number (as did classical Greek and Sanskrit ), Gothic is unusual among Indo-European languages in only preserving it for pronouns.
- so'', ''---seh2'', ''---tod''; cognate to the Greek article ὁ, τό, ἡ and the Latin ''istud'') can be used as an article, allowing constructions of the type ''definite article + weak adjective + noun''.
Verbs
- e'' or ''---o'' between roots and inflexional suffixes. This pattern is also present in Greek and Latin :
- Latin - ''leg-i-mus'' ("we read"): root ''leg-'' + thematic vowel ''-i-'' (from ''---e'') + suffix ''-mus''.
- Greek - λυ-ό-μεν ("we untie"): root λυ- + thematic vowel -ο- + suffix -μεν.
- Gothic - ''nim-a-m'' ("we take"): root ''nim-'' ( German ''nehmen'') + thematic vowel ''-a-'' (from ''---o'') + suffix ''-m''.
The other conjugation, called "athematic" , where suffixes are added directly to roots, exists only in unproductive vestigial forms in Gothic, just as it does in Greek and Latin. The most important such instance is The Verb "to Be" , which is athematic in Greek, Latin, Sanskrit and many other Indo-European languages.
Gothic verbs are, like nouns and adjectives, divided into strong verbs and weak verbs. Weak verbs are characterised by Preterite s formed by appending the suffixes ''-da'' or ''-ta'', parallel to past participles formed with ''-þ'' / ''-t''. Strong verbs form preterites by alternating vowels in their root forms or by doubling the first consonant in the root, but without adding a suffix in either case. This parallels the Greek and Sanskit Perfect Tense s. This dichotomy is still present in modern Germanic languages:
- weak verbs ("to have") :
- --- Gothic: ''haban'', preterite ''habáida'', past participle ''habái'''þ'''s'' ;
- --- English: ''(to) have'', preterite ''had'', past participle ''had'' ;
- --- German: ''haben'', preterite ''hatte'', past participle ''(ge)hab'''t''''' ;
- --- Icelandic: ''hafa'', preterite ''hafði'', past participle ''haf'''t''''' ;
- strong verbs ("to give") :
- --- Gothic: infinitive ''giban'', preterite ''g'''a'''f'' ;
- --- English: infinitive ''(to) give'', preterite ''g'''a'''ve'' ;
- --- German: infinitive ''geben'', preterite ''g'''a'''b'' ;
- --- Icelandic: infinitive ''gefa'', preterite ''g'''a'''f''.
Verbal inflexions in Gothic have two , a present Participle , and a past Passive . Not all tenses and persons are represented in all moods and voices - some conjugations use Auxiliary Forms .
- woid-h2e'' ("to see" in the perfect tense), corresponds exactly to its Sanskrit cognate ''véda'' and in Greek to Ϝοἶδα. Both etymologically should mean "I saw" (in the perfective sense) but mean "I see" (in the preterite-present meaning). Latin follows the same rule with ''nōuī'' ("I knew" and "I know"). The preterite-present verbs include ''áihan'' ("to possess") and ''kunnan'' ("to know") among others.
Gothic compared to other Germanic languages
Gothic and Old Norse
The Goths had a tradition of a Scandinavian origin, and there are linguistic similarities with Old Norse , especially with its dialect Old Gutnish . The number of similarities that Old Gutnish had with Gothic made the prominent linguist Elias Wessén classify it as a Gothic dialect. This is a text sample from the Gutasaga about a migration to southern Europe (Manuscript from the 14th Century ):
siþan af þissum þrim aucaþis fulc j gutlandi som mikit um langan tima at land elptj þaim ai alla fyþa þa lutaþu þair bort af landi huert þriþia þiauþ so at alt sculdu þair aiga oc miþ sir bort hafa som þair vfan iorþar attu... so fierri foru þair at þair quamu til griclanz... oc enn byggia oc enn hafa þair sumt af waru mali
:over a long time, the people descended from these three multiplied so much that the land couldn't support them all. Then they draw lots, and every third person was picked to leave, and they could keep everything they owned and take it with them, except for their land. ... They went so far that they came to the land of the Greeks. ... they settled there, and live there still, and still have something of our language.
The main points cited for grouping North and East Germanic are:
- ''-jj-'' and ---''-gg-'' into Gothic ''ddj'' (from an older Gothic ''ggj''?) and ''ggw'' and Old Norse ''ggj'' and ''ggv'' ("Holtzmann's law"). For instance, the Old High German genitive of ''zwei'' (two) is ''zweio'', which is distinct from Gothic ''twaddje'' and Old Norse ''tveggja''. Whereas German has the form ''treu'', Gothic has ''triggws'' and modern Swedish ''trygg''.
2) The existence of numerous inchoative verbs ending with -''na'', such as Gothic ''waknan'' and modern Swedish ''vakna''.
3) Gothic is important for the understanding of the evolution of Proto-Germanic into Old Norse through Proto-Norse . For instance, the final -''n'' in North Germanic languages, such as ''navn'' and ''namn'' (name) is explained by referring to Gothic in which ''namo'' had its plural genitive ''namne''. Sometimes, Gothic explains forms of words found on the oldest runestones, such as the Gothic word ''gudja'' ( Gothi , man serving as priest) which explains the word ''gudija'' found on the runestone of Nordhuglo in Norway.
But there have also been theories grouping West and East Germanic. Today, the three groups are generally treated as derived independently from Proto-Germanic .
Other unique features of Gothic
Being the first attested Germanic language, Gothic fails to display a number of traits that are shared by all other known Germanic languages. Most conspicuously, Gothic contains no morphological Umlaut ; the Gothic word ''gudja'' "priest" can be contrasted with the Old Norse ''gydja'' ("priestess"); the Norse form contains the characteristic change /u/ > /y/ that indicates the influence of i-umlaut in Proto-Norse ; the Gothic form shows no such change.
Gothic retains a Passive Voice inherited from Indo-European, but unattested in all other Germanic languages. Gothic preserves several verbs that display Reduplication (''haitan'', "to be called" > ''haihait''; cf. Norwegian ''heita'' , Dutch ''heten'', German ''heißen'', archaic English ''hight'') in the formation of the Preterit ; another Indo-European inheritance that has left only a few traces in Old English, Old Norse and Old High German.
References
- This article draws heavily on the in the French Wikipedia, retrieved April 6, 2005.
- F. Mossé, ''Manuel de la langue gotique'', Aubier Éditions Montaigne, 1942
- W. Braune and E. Ebbinghaus, ''Gotische Grammatik'', 17th edition 1966, Tübingen
- --- 20th edition, 2004. ISBN 3484108525 (hbk), ISBN 3484108509 (pbk)
- W. Streitberg, ''Die gotische Bibel '', 4th edition, 1965, Heidelberg ;
- J. Wright, ''Grammar of the Gothic language'', 2nd edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1966
- --- 2nd edition, 1981 reprint by Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198111851
- W. Krause, ''Handbuch des Gotischen'', 3rd edition, 1968, Munich.
See also
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