The New International Encyclopædia/Gothic Language
GOTHIC LANGUAGE (Lat. Gothicus, from Gothus, Gk. Γόθος, Gothos, Γύθων, Gythōn, from Goth. Gut-þiuda, Goth-people, AS. Gōtan, OSwed. Gutar, Gotar, Goths; cf. dialectic Norweg. gut, boy). The language spoken by the Goths (q.v.). Excepting the Old Icelandic runic inscriptions (see Runes) and a few. Germanic glosses and proper names preserved in classical authors, such as Cæsar and Tacitus, Gothic is the oldest monument of all the dialects of the Germanic group of Indo-Germanic languages. Like Anglo-Saxon, Frisian, and Old Icelandic, it has undergone only the first sound-shifting, or ablaut, and is consequently one of the Low Germanic languages, as contrasted with Old High German, where the second sound-shifting has been carried through. (See Grimm’s Law.) Within this Low Germanic sub-group it is most closely akin to the Scandinavian (Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian, Old Swedish, Old Danish, and their modern representatives), so that some scholars class Gothic and Old Scandinavian together as East Germanic, contrasting this group with the Anglo-Frisian and High Germanic languages, which are then termed West Germanic. The most important points of coincidence between Gothic and Icelandic are the development of Germanic u̱u̱ to ggw (as Gothic triggws, Old Icelandic tryggr, ‘true,’ but Anglo-Saxon trēowe, Old High German triuwi ), and the retention of final z (Gothic s, Old Icelandic r), which is lost in West Germanic (as Gothic dags, Old Icelandic dagr, ‘day,’ but Anglo-Saxon dæg, Old High German tag). On the other hand, Gothic and Scandinavian diverge in many respects, especially in declension and conjugation (as runic Norse þohtriR, ‘daughters,’ but Gothic dohtrjus; runic Norse tawi þo, ‘I did,’ but Gothic tawida). It therefore seems better on the whole to regard Gothic and Scandinavian as belonging to different groups, which may be termed East and North Germanic respectively.
The sources of our knowledge of Gothic are limited. The earliest gloss preserved is in Isidor of Seville, who cites the words medus, ‘mead,’ and reptus, ‘garment.’ The Lex Visigothorum also contains a few Gothic words, as leudes, ‘people,’ and saio (whence the Spanish sayon), ‘beadle.’ The most important and extensive remnant of the language is the fragments of the translation of the Bible by Ulfilas (q.v.). There are also a few words, chiefly proper names, in two documents found at Naples and Arezzo, and a fragment of a calendar.
In phonology and inflection Gothic is the most primitive of all the Germanic languages. Its pronunciation is fixed by our knowledge of that of Greek in the fourth century. Thus as εἰ in Greek then had the itacistic value of ῑ, ῑ is represented in Gothic by ei. Similarly ng is written gg in Gothic in conformity with the Greek use of γγ instead of νγ. The vowels and consonants correspond in general to the Pre-Germanic phonology. Short 𝑒, however, does not occur, being changed to i (as Old High German neman, ‘to take,’ but Gothic niman), which is written ai before h and r (as Gothic airþa, ‘earth,’ raíhts, ‘right,’ but Old High German erda, reht), exactly as u is written aú in a similar position (as Gothic waúrms, ‘worm,’ saúhts, ‘sickness’, but Old High German wurm, suht). Pre-Germanic z, which became r in the other Germanic languages, remained z in Gothic, but sometimes, for reasons not yet altogether clear, it was changed to s (as Gothic ausō, ‘ear’, but Old High German ôra). The declension does not differ materially from the Germanic type. The pronouns of the first and second persons have, as in Old Icelandic, Anglo-Saxon, and Old Saxon, a dual. The conjugation of the verb, while harmonizing in general with the Germanic type, is marked by a number of important features. Gothic is the only Germanic language in which the verb retains the dual number (as bairōs, ‘we two bear,’ bairats, ‘ye two bear,’ Sanskrit, bharāvas, bharathas; bairaiwa, ‘we two bore,’ Sanskrit, abharāva), and the third person of the imperative (baíradau, ‘let him bear’, bairandau, ‘let them bear,’ Sanskrit, bharatu, bharantu). The reduplicated preterit which is very rare in other Germanic languages, is frequent in Gothic, eleven preterits of this type being found in the scanty remnants of the literature. As examples may be cited: faífāh, from fāhan, ‘to seize,’ haíháit, from hātan, 'to call,’ raíroþ, from rēdan, ‘to counsel,’ saisō, from saian, ‘to sow.’ For all these preterits the Anglo-Saxon, for example, has as corresponding forms fēng, heht, reord, sēow. Most noteworthy of all, however, is the fact that Gothic, unlike any other member of the Germanic group, possesses a middle voice in other verbs than hātan, ‘to call.’ Thus Gothic baíraza, ‘thou bearest thyself,’ baírada, ‘he bears himself,’ bairanda, ‘they bear themselves,’ correspond to Sanskrit bharasē, bharatē, bharantē.
In its vocabulary Gothic has a number of Indo-Germanic words which are not found in the other Germanic languages, as us-anan, ‘to breathe forth,’ Latin animus, ‘breath;’ aljis, ‘other,’ Latin alius. On the other hand, it has no etymological representation of such common Germanic words as do, say, fall, mother, for which it substitutes taujan, qi þan, driusan, aiþ ei. As might be expected in a translation of the Bible, Greek and Latin loan-words are quite numerous. It has likewise borrowed a few Celtic words, as kēlikn, ‘tower,’ from Gallic célicnon, and two from the Slavic, plinsjan, ‘to dance,’ and smakka, ‘fig’ (cf. Old Church Slavic plesati, smoky).
Literary Gothic is sometimes termed West Gothic, to distinguish it from East, or Krim, Gothic. The Crimean Goths preserved their identity until the sixteenth century. A collection of eighty-six Krim Gothic words was made in 1595 by a Fleming named Busbeck. The list, which is of great value as being the only remnant of this dialect of Gothic, is in general accurate, although some errors naturally crept in, as hazer, ‘thousand’, which is a loan-word from Persian hazār. It adds a number of words to the Gothic vocabulary, as miera, ‘ant,’ rinck, ‘ring,’ ada, ‘egg,’ waghen, ‘wagon.’ In phonology Krim Gothic seems to have differed from the language of Ulfilas. The vocabulary of Busbeck contains little information on inflection. If we may judge, however, from such hints as Krim oeghene beside Gothic augōna, ‘eyes,’ Krim ahte, ‘eight’ beside Gothic ahtáu, Krim singhen, ‘to sing,’ beside Gothic siggwan, Krim tag (for *dag), ‘day,’ beside Gothic dags, it would seem that a change had taken place within the twelve centuries between Ulfilas and Busbeck, which was, roughly speaking, analogous to the transition from Old to Middle High German.
To the same East Germanic group as the Gothic belong the Vandal and Burgundian languages, of which only scanty fragments, chiefly proper names, survive.
The Gothic alphabet was invented by Ulfilas. He took as his basis the Greek letters, adding some Latin characters, and a few signs from the runes which were previously in use among the Goths. The number of letters was twenty-seven, of which two, corresponding to the Greek koppa and sampi, had numerical values alone, and a third, the equivalent of the Greek chi, was used only in foreign proper names. The alphabet really consisted, therefore, of twenty-four letters, which are, in modern editions of Gothic texts, transliterated into the ordinary Roman alphabet with the addition of þ and ƕ.
Consult: Bernhardt, Kurzgefasste gotische Grammatik (Halle, 1885); Braune, Gotische Grammatik (4th ed., ib., 1895); Streitberg, Gotisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg, 1896); Wright, Primer of the Gothic Language (2d ed., Oxford, 1899); Kluge, “Geschichte der gotischen Sprache,” in Paul, Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, vol. i. (2d ed., Strassburg, 1901); Skeat, Maso-Gothic Glossary (London, 1868); Balz, Comparative Glossary of the Gothic Language (Mayville, Wis., 1887–89); Feist, Grundriss der gotischen Etymologie (Strassburg, 1888); Uhlenbeck, Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache (2d ed., Amsterdam, 1900); Tomaschek, Die Goten in Taurien (Vienna, 1881); Loewe, Die Reste der Germanen am Schwarzen Meere (Halle, 1896); Wrede, Ueber die Sprache der Wandalen (Strassburg, 1886); id., Ueber die Sprache der Ostgoten in Italien (ib., 1891). For editions of the Gothic texts, see the bibliography on Ulfilas.