GOTHIC LANGUAGE: the FORGOTTEN GERMANIC LANGUAGE of SPAIN
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- DISCOVER the LOST LANGUAGE of the GOTHS !
Gothic is the Germanic language that was spoken, among other places, in what is today Spain and Italy. It is part of the extinct East Germanic branch.
What more is Gothic language? How is it? And how does it compare with other Germanic languages?
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Main sources *
-Heather, P., ed., 1999. The Visigoths from the Migration Period to the Seventh Century: An Ethnographic Perspective. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press
-Miller, G.D., 2019. The Oxford Gothic Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-Wright, J., 1910. Grammar of the Gothic Language. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
-Wikisource. Gothic Bible in Ulfilan Gothic Script.
-Wulfila project website: Wulfila.be
#Gothic #EastGermanic #Grammar #Wulfila #GothicBible #GermanicLanguages #Spain
great video! even if there are some minor things pointed out by others, the concepts were explained well. i’m always happy to hear people talk about gothic^^
Hi, thank you, I appreciate it! And yes, some aspects were pointed out, but all feedback is welcome, I'll take them into account for future videos!
I see Thiudans being close to Teuton /Diets/Deutsch etc equating to (people) as in leader of people or of the people hence King/ leader
post-vocalic g should be /ɣ/ or /x/ not /k/
also þiuðans does exist in Icelandic as þjóðann
also also the instrumental was no longer in Gothic. the only attested germanic language with a true instrumental was old high german.
Hi, thank you for your input! Here is a full, but long, explanation for each of the points.
1. The Instrumental Case
You are right, Old High German indeed had a full-fledged instrumental case. But it is not the only one, Old Saxon for instance also had a fully developed instrumental.
Concerning this video, it claims that Gothic has a residual instrumental (and vocative) case, which is a claim shared by, among others, the Oxford Gothic Grammar (D. Gary Miller, 2019). The Grammar states that “demonstratives and pronominals have a residual instrumental” (p.58), and about the cases, it states that “at most there are six, if vocative and instrumental are present” (p.103).
2. The word þjóðann
About þjóðann, most of Icelandic dictionaries do not include it. The Modern Icelandic dictionary “Íslensk nútímamálsorðabók” (developed by the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, part of the Icelandic Ministry of Education, Culture and Science), which contains more than 56.000 entries, was used as a main reference, and it does not include the word þjóðann.
3. Post-Vocalic G
Concerning post-vocalic g, I imagine you are referring to the word 𐌳𐌰𐌲𐍃. The transliterations in the video are made to be optimised for English speakers and easily reproducible by them, without the need of extensively knowing IPA.
For the sake of conciseness and accessibility, some aspects were therefore vulgarised. One such aspect is transliteration: [ð] and [þ] are for instance transliterated into /th/, [ʍ] and [w] into /w/, and [b] and [β] into /b/.
The most accommodating sound for [ɣs] was considered to be /ks/. The main argument against a transliteration of [ɣs] into /gs/ was to avoid voicing assimilation: to be short, in English phonology, a voiced sound like /g/ is likely to cause voicing assimilation, turning a /gs/ into a /gz/ (as in “dogs”, pronounced /dogz/ and not /dogs/). The /ks/ allowed the preservation of a velar consonant (k) and a sibilant s. The choice may debatable, but here are the reasons behind.
TLDR:
1. Old High German is not the only attested Germanic language that has instrumental. Gothic does have residual instrumental.
2. þjóðann does not appear in the main dictionary of reference for Icelandic.
3. 𐌳𐌰𐌲𐍃 was transliterated into /daks/ to preserve the correct voiceless sound for English speakers, and to be accessible to those who don’t know IPA.
I thought that the word for 'see' included an 'h'? 'saíhwan', analogous to Latin 'sequi'. And 'swerto', with a 't'?
Hi there, thank you for the comment!
Regarding the "h" in 𐍃𐌰𐌹𐍈𐌰𐌽, it is often transliterated as ƕ (or /ʍ/ in IPA). However, as I mentioned in another comment, one motivation behind these transliterations was to ensure they are easily understood even to those with little to no knowledge with transliteration scripts. For this reason, instead of using ƕ or /ʍ/, the more familiar /w/ sound was selected to make it easier for a broader audience to understand.
That being said, I understand that this approach may be seen as an oversimplification and might not be appreciated by everyone. This will be taken into account for future transliterations.
TLDR: /w/ was chosen instead of ƕ of /ʍ/ to be more widely understood. Future transliterations will be made differently.