Language
|name | Gothic
|region |
is an
extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the
Goths. It is known primarily from
Codex Argenteus, a
6th century copy of a
4th century Bible translation, and is the only
East Germanic language with a sizeable corpus. All others, including
Burgundian and
Vandalic, are known, if at all, only from proper names that survived in historical accounts.
As a Germanic language, Gothic is a part of the
Indo-European language family. It is the Germanic language with the earliest attestation, but 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.''
History and Evidence
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 Visigothic Christians in the Roman province of Moesia (modern Bulgaria/Romania). 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
Ostrogoths in modern Italy. It contains a large part of the four
Gospels. Since it is a translation from Greek, the language of the ''Codex Argenteus'' 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, totaling 193 leaves.
::The ''Codex Ambrosianus'' contains scattered passages from the New Testament (including parts of the
Gospels and the
Epistles), 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 Rehdigerianus from Uppsala universitetsbibliotek
:
Codex Gissensis (Gießen): 1 leaf, fragments of Luke 23-24. It was found in Egypt in 1907, but destroyed by water damage in 1945.
:
Codex Carolinus: (Wolfenbüttel): 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 small dictionary of more than eighty words, and a song without translation, compiled by the Fleming Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, the Habsburg ambassador to the court of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul from 1555 to 1562, who was curious to find out about the language and by arrangement met two speakers of Crimean Gothic and listed the terms 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
Arianism, 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 (such as the
Varangians), 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, and Gothic ''mena'' ("moon"), compared to Crimean Gothic ''mine'', clearly indicates that Crimean Gothic was East Germanic.
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
Wulfila Project .
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
|-----
| Monophthongs
| Diphthongs
|
, 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 digraph or ''false diphthong''), in imitation of Greek usage (ει = /iː/). Single vowels are sometimes long where a historically present nasal consonant has been dropped in front of an (a case of compensatory lengthening). Thus, the preterite of the verb ''briggan'' "to bring" (English ''bring'', Dutch ''brengen'', German ''bringen'') becomes ''brahta'' (English ''brought'', Dutch ''bracht'', 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" (Dutch ''gebruik'', German ''Gebrauch'', Swedish ''bruk'' "usage").
and are long close-mid vowels. They are written as ''e'' and ''o'': ''ne'' "near" (English ''nigh'', Dutch ''nader'', German ''nah''); ''fodjan'' "to feed".
and are short open-mid vowels. They are noted using the digraphs ''ai'' and ''au'': ''taihun'' "ten" (Dutch ''tien'', German ''zehn''), ''dauhtar'' "daughter" (Dutch ''dochter'', 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 diphthongs ''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 vowels, 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 allophones of and respectively before a following vowel: ''waian'' "to blow" (Dutch ''waaien'', German ''wehen''), ''bauan'' "to build" (Dutch ''bouwen'', German "bauen", Swedish ''bo'' "live"), also in Greek words ''Trauada'' "Troad" (Gk. ).
(pronounced like German ''ü'' and French ''u'') 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" (Dutch ''diep'', German ''tief'', Swedish ''djup'').
Greek diphthongs: In Ulfilas' era, all the diphthongs of classical Greek had become simple vowels in speech (''monophthongization''), 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
!
!colspan=2|Labials
!colspan=2|Dentals
!colspan=2|Alveolars
!colspan=2|Palatals
!colspan=2|Velars
!colspan=2|Labiovelars
!Laryngeals
|-
!Plosives
| ''p'' | ''b'' |colspan=2|
| ''t'' | ''d'' |
| ''?ddj'' | ''k'' | ''g'' | ''q'' | ''gw'' |
|-
!Fricatives
| ''f'' | ''b'' | ''þ'' | ''d'' | ''s'' | ''z'' |colspan=2|
| ''g, h'' | ''g'' | '''' |
| ''h'' |-
!Approximants
|colspan=2|
|colspan=2|
|colspan=2|
|
| ''j'' |colspan=2|
|
| ''w'' |
|-
!Nasals
|
| ''m'' |colspan=2|
|
| ''n'' |colspan=2|
|
| ''g, n'' |colspan=2|
|
|-
!Laterals
|colspan=2|
|colspan=2|
|
| ''l'' |colspan=2|
|colspan=2|
|colspan=2|
|
|-
!Trills
|colspan=2|
|colspan=2|
|
| ''r'' |colspan=2|
|colspan=2|
|colspan=2|
|
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In general, Gothic consonants are
devoiced at the ends of words. Gothic is rich in fricative consonants (although many of them may have been
approximants, it is 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" (Dutch ''kennen'', German ''kennen'' "to know", 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 labiovelar stop, (), comparable to the Latin ''qu'': ''qiman'' "to come". In the later Germanic languages this phoneme has become either a voiceless velar stop + 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 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)" (older Swedish ''tvägge'').
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'', Dutch ''meer'', 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 devoiced and become approximants: ''gif'' "give (imperative)" (infinitive ''giban'': German ''geben''), ''miþ'' "with" (Old English ''mid'', Dutch ''met'', German ''mit'').
is written as ''h'': ''haban'' "to have". It was probably pronounced in word-final position and before a consonant as well (not , since > is written ''g'', not ''h''): ''jah'' "and" (Dutch, German, Scandinavian ''ja'' "yes").
is an allophone 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'', Dutch ''Diets'', German ''Deutsch'' > English ''Dutch''), ''áugo'' "eye" (English ''eye'', Dutch ''oog'', 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 certain dialects of English and is predominant in Scots, 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 minimal pairs except in certain contexts where they are neutralized: before a bilabial consonant becomes , whilepreceding a dental stop becomes , 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'',Dutch ''maal'', German ''Mahl'').
is a trilled (eventually a flap ): ''raíhts'' "right", ''afar'' "after".
The sonorants , , 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'', Dutch ''teken'', 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 verbs 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" (Dutch, ''bidden'', German ''bitten'', Swedish ''bedja'', English ''bid'').
Compound words:
Noun second element: ''guda-láus'' "godless".
Verb second element: ''ga-láubjan'' "believe" (Dutch ''geloven'', 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 numbers: the singular and the plural.
One of the most striking characteristics of the
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 pronouns ''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 found in, e.g., German and Swedish, where adjectives are declined not only according to gender and number, but also according to indeterminate/determinate form:
|-
!
!style="text-align: left; padding: 0 5px;"|German
!style="text-align: left; padding: 0 5px;"|Swedish
!style="text-align: left; padding: 0 5px;"|English
!style="text-align: left; padding: 0 5px;"|Gothic
|-
!style="text-align: left; padding: 0 5px;"|weak declension
|style="padding: 0 5px;"|der lange Mann
|style="padding: 0 5px;"|den långe mannen
|style="padding: 0 5px;"|the long man
|style="padding: 0 5px;"|sa lagga manna
|-
!style="text-align: left; padding: 0 5px;"|strong declension
|style="padding: 0 5px;"|(ein) langer Mann
|style="padding: 0 5px;"|(en) lång man
|style="padding: 0 5px;"|(a) long man
|style="padding: 0 5px;"|ains laggs manna
|
Descriptive adjectives in Gothic (as well as superlatives ending in ''-ist'' and ''-ost'') and the
past participle may take either declension. Some pronouns only take the weak declension; for example: ''sama'' (English "same"), adjectives like ''uneila'' ("constantly", from the root ''eila'', "time"; compare to the English "while"), comparative adjectives, and
present participles. 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"):
|-----
! Case
! colspan="5" | Weak declension
! colspan="5" | Strong declension
|-----
! rowspan="2" | Singular
! rowspan="2" | Noun
! colspan="4" | Adjective
! rowspan="2" | Noun
! colspan="4" | Adjective
|-----
! height="58" | root
! M.
! N.
! F.
! root
! M.
! N.
! F.
|-----
| ''Nom.'' || guma
| rowspan="4" align="right" valign="middle" | blind-
| -a || -o || -o || dags
| rowspan="4" align="right" valign="middle" | blind-
| -s || -ø || -a
|-----
| ''Acc.'' || guman || -an || -o || -on
| dag || -ana || -ø || -a
|-----
| ''Gen.'' || gumins || colspan="2" align="center" | -ins
| -ons || dagis
| colspan="2" align="center" | -is || -áizos
|-----
| ''Dat.'' || gumin || colspan="2" align="center" | -in
| -on || daga
| colspan="2" align="center" | -amma || ái
|-----
! Plural
| colspan="5" | || colspan="5" |
|-----
| ''Nom.'' || gumans
| rowspan="4" align="right" valign="middle" | blind-
| -ans || -ona || -ons || dagos
| rowspan="4" align="right" valign="middle" | blind-
| -ái || -a || -os
|-----
| ''Acc.'' || gumans || -ans || -ona || -ons
| dagans || -ans || -a || -os
|-----
| ''Gen.'' || gumane || colspan="2" align="center" | -ane
| -ono || dage
| colspan="2" align="center" | -áize || -áizo
|-----
| ''Dat.'' || gumam || colspan="2" align="center" | -am
| -om || dagam || colspan="3" align="center" | -áim
|
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 and 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'' and ''-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 pronouns (including
reflexive pronouns for each of the three
grammatical persons),
possessive pronouns, both simple and compound
demonstratives,
relative pronouns,
interrogatives and
indefinite pronouns. 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.
The simple demonstrative pronoun ''sa'' (neuter: ''þata'', feminine: ''so'', from the Indo-European root ''
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''.
The interrogative pronouns are also noteworthy for all beginning in ''ƕ-'', which derives from the proto-Indo-European consonant ''
kw'' that was present at the beginning of all interrogratives in proto-Indo-European. This is cognate to the ''wh-'' at the beginning of many English interrogatives which, as in Gothic, are pronounced with ʍ in some dialects. This same etymology is present in the interrogratives of many other Indo-European languages" ''w-'' v in German, ''v-'' in Swedish, the Latin ''qu-'' (which persists in modern Romance languages), the Greek τ or π (a derivation of ''*kw'' that is unique to Greek), and the Sanskrit ''k-'' as well as many others.
Verbs
The bulk of Gothic verbs follow the type of Indo-European conjugation called
thematic because they insert a vowel derived from the reconstructed proto-Indo-European phonemes ''
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-'' + 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
preterites 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 tenses. This dichotomy is still present in modern Germanic languages:
weak verbs ("to have") :
Gothic: ''haban'', preterite ''habáida'', past participle ''habáiþs'' ;
English: ''(to) have'', preterite ''had'', past participle ''had'' ;
German: ''haben'', preterite ''hatte'', past participle ''(ge)habt'' ;
Icelandic: ''hafa'', preterite ''hafði'', past participle ''haft'' ;
Dutch: ''hebben'', preterite ''had'', past participle ''(ge)had'' ;
Swedish: ''hava'', preterite ''hade'', supine ''haft'' ;
strong verbs ("to give") :
Gothic: infinitive ''giban'', preterite ''gaf'' ;
English: infinitive ''(to) give'', preterite ''gave'' ;
German: infinitive ''geben'', preterite ''gab'' ;
Icelandic: infinitive ''gefa'', preterite ''gaf''.
Dutch: infinitive ''geven'', preterite ''gaf'' ;
Swedish: infinitive ''giva'', preterite ''gav'' ;
Verbal inflexions in Gothic have two
grammatical voices: the active and the medial; three numbers: singular, dual (except in the third person), and plural; two tenses: present and preterite (derived from a former perfect tense); three
grammatical moods:
indicative,
subjunctive (from an old
optative form) and
imperative; as well as three kinds of nominal forms: a present
infinitive, a present
participle, and a past
passive. Not all tenses and persons are represented in all moods and voices - some conjugations use
auxiliary forms.
Finally, there are forms called "preterite-present" - old Indo-European perfect tenses that were reinterpreted as present tense. The Gothic word ''wáit'', from the proto-Indo-European ''
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
For the most part, Gothic is significantly closer to Proto-Germanic than any other Germanic language, excepting of that of the (very scantily attested) early Norse runic inscriptions. This has made it invaluable in the reconstruction of Proto-Germanic. In fact, Gothic tends to serve as the primary foundation for reconstructing Proto-Germanic. The reconstructed Proto-Germanic conflicts with Gothic only when there is a clearly identifiable evidence from other branches that the Gothic form is a secondary development.
Gothic fails to display a number of innovations shared by all later-attested Germanic languages. Most conspicuously, Gothic shows no sign of morphological umlaut. Gothic ''fotus'', pl. ''fotjus'', can be contrasted with English ''foot'' : ''feet'', German ''Fuß'' : ''Füße'', Danish ''fod'' : ''fødder'', Swedish ''fot'' : ''fötter''. These forms contain the characteristic change /o:/ > /ø:/ (> Eng. /i:/, Germ. /y:/) due to i-umlaut; the Gothic form shows no such change.
Proto-Germanic ''z'' remains in Gothic as ''z'' or is devoiced to ''s''. In North and West Germanic, *''z'' > ''r''. E.g. Gothic ''drus'' (fall), Old English ''dryre''.
Gothic retains a morphological passive voice inherited from Indo-European, but unattested in all other Germanic languages, except for the single fossilised form preserved in, for example, Old English ''hātte'' "is/am called".
Gothic possesses a number of verbs which form their preterite tense by reduplication, another archaic feature inherited from Indo-European. While traces of this category survived elsewhere in Germanic, the phenomenon is largely obscured in these other languages by later sound changes and analogy. In the following examples the infinitive is compared to the 3rd person singular preterite indicative:
"to sow"
Gothic ''saian'' : ''saiso''.
Old Norse ''sá'' : ''seri'' < Proto-Germanic ''sezō''.
"to play"
Gothic ''laikan'' : ''lailaik''.
Old English ''lācan'' : ''leolc'', ''lēc''.
Gothic and Old Norse
Jordanes, writing in the
6th century, ascribes to the Goths a Scandinavian origin, and there are indeed some linguistic similarities between Gothic and
Old Norse, which set them apart from the
West Germanic languages.
Significant points of agreement between North and East Germanic include:
1) The evolution of the
Proto-Germanic ''-jj-'' and *''-ww-'' into Gothic ''ddj'' (from Pre-Gothic ''ggj''?) and ''ggw'', and Old Norse ''ggj'' and ''ggv'' ("Holtzmann's law"), in contrast to West Germanic where they remained as semivowels. For instance, the genitive of the numeral "two" appears in Old High German as ''zweio'', but in Gothic as ''twaddje'' and Old Norse ''tveggja''. Compare Modern English ''true'', German ''treu'', with Gothic ''triggws'', Old Norse ''tryggr''.
2) The existence of numerous inchoative verbs ending in -''na'', such as Gothic ''ga-waknan'', Old Norse ''vakna''.
3) 2nd person singular preterite indicative with the ending -''t'' and the same root vowel as the 1st and 3rd persons singular. E.g. Gothic ''namt'' (you received), Old Norse ''namt'', versus Old High German ''nāmi'', Old English ''nāme'', ''nōme''. In West Germanic, the 2nd person preterite indicative ending -''t'' is restricted to
preterite-present verbs.
4) Absence of gemination before ''j'', or (in the case of old Norse) only ''g'' geminated before ''j''. E.g. Proto-Germanic
''kunjam'' > Gothic ''kuni'' (kin), Old Norse ''kyn''; but Old English ''cynn'', Old High German ''kunni''.
5) The dative absolute formed using the preposition ''at'' with a participle: Gothic ''at urrinnandin sunnin'', Old Norse ''at upprennandi sólu'' (at sunrise, when the sun rose); Gothic ''at Iesu ufdaupidamma'' (when Jesus had been baptised), Old Norse ''at liðnum vetri'' (when the winter had passed).
However, other isoglosses have led scholars to propose an early split between East and
Northwest Germanic.
Gothic is also important for the understanding of the evolution of Proto-Germanic into Old Norse through
Proto-Norse. For instance, the origin of the final -''n'' in Old Norse ''nafn'' (name) is shown by Gothic ''namo'', genitive plural ''namne''. Sometimes Gothic casts light on word-forms found on the oldest runestones, e.g. ''gudija'' (see
gothi) found on the runestone of Nordhuglo in Norway, for which a Gothic
cognate ''gudja'' (priest) is attested.
Old Gutnish (''Gutniska'') shows a number of similarities with Gothic which are not shared by other Old Norse dialects: lack of a-umlaut in short high vowels (e.g. ''fulk'' : Old Icelandic ''folk''), lowering of ''u'' to ''o'' before ''r'' (e.g. ''bort''), the use of ''lamb'' with the sense "sheep", the appearance in both of an early Germanic loanword from Latin ''lucerna'' (Gothic ''lukarn'', Old Gutnish ''lukarr''), and, arguably, the preservation of the Proto-Germanic diphthongs
''ai'' and *''au'' (but see above). It is debated to what extent these similarities are due to coincidence or ancestral connection. Elias Wessén went as far as to classify Old Gutnish as a Gothic dialect. But such a proposal should be understood in strictly historical terms; that is to say, it properly refers to the precursor of Old Gutnish contemporary with the Gothic texts. By the time Old Gutnish came to be recorded in manuscripts, it possessed most of the characteristics which distinguish Old Norse from Wulfilan Gothic (in terms of vocabulary, morphology, phonology and syntax), as can be seen in this text sample from the Gutasaga about a migration to southern Europe (Manuscript from the 14th century written in Old Gutnish):
:''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.
Examples
!colspan="2"|The Lord's Prayer in Gothic:
|-
!Gothic!!English
|-
|Atta unsar þu in himinam weihnai namo þein ||Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name
|-
|qimai þuidinassus þeins wairþai wilja þeins||Thy kingdom come thy will be done
|-
|swe in himina jah ana airþai.||as in heaven so on earth.
|-
|Hlaif unsarana þana sinteinan gif uns himma daga ||Give us this day our daily bread
|-
|jah aflet uns þatei skulans sijaima||And forgive us guilty as we are
|-
|waswe jah weis afletam þaim skulam unsaraim||As we also forgive our debtors
|-
|jah ni briggais uns in fraistubnjai||Also do not bring us into temptation
|-
|ak lausei uns af þamma ubilin ||But free us from this evil
|-
|unte þeina ist þiudangardi jah mahts ||For thine is the kingdom and the power
|-
|jah wulþus in aiwins.||And glory in eternity.
|
References
This article draws heavily on the corresponding article 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 3-484-10852-5 (hbk), ISBN 3-484-10850-9 (pbk)
Wilhelm Streitberg, ''Die gotische Bibel '', 4th edition, 1965, Heidelberg
Joseph Wright, Grammar of the Gothic language , 2nd edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1966
2nd edition, 1981 reprint by Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-811185-1
W. Krause, ''Handbuch des Gotischen'', 3rd edition, 1968, Munich.