Slavic-speaking people as "Goths". However, it is clear from Ulfilas's translation that – despite some puzzles – the Gothic language belongs with the Germanic language-group, not with Slavic.
Generally, the term "Gothic language" refers to the language of
Ulfilas, but the attestations themselves date largely from the 6th century, long after Ulfilas had died.
Alphabet and transliteration
A few
Gothic runic inscriptions
Very few Elder Futhark Runic inscriptions, inscriptions in the Gothic language have been found in the territory historically settled by the Goths (Wielbark culture, Chernyakhov culture). Due to the early Christianization of the Goths, the Gothic al ...
were found across Europe, but due to early Christianization of the Goths, the Runic writing was quickly replaced by the newly invented Gothic alphabet.
Ulfilas's 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 (such as Braune) claim that it was derived from the
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as wel ...
only while others maintain that there are some Gothic letters of
Runic
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see '' futhark'' vs ''runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were primarily used to represent a sound value (a ...
or
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
origin.
A standardized system is used for transliterating Gothic words into the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...
. The system mirrors the conventions of the native alphabet, such as writing long as ''ei''. The Goths used their equivalents of ''e'' and ''o'' alone only for long higher vowels, using the digraphs ''ai'' and ''au'' (much as in
French) for the corresponding short or lower vowels. There are two variant spelling systems: a "raw" one that directly transliterates the original Gothic script and a "normalized" one that adds
diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...
s (
macrons and
acute accent
The acute accent (), ,
is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Latin, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabet, Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accen ...
s) to certain vowels to clarify the pronunciation or, in certain cases, to indicate the
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
origin of the vowel in question. The latter system is usually used in the academic literature.
The following table shows the correspondence between spelling and sound for vowels:
Notes:
* This "normalised transliteration" system devised by
Jacob Grimm
Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He formulated Grimm's law of linguistics, and was the co-author of the ''Deutsch ...
is used in some modern editions of Gothic texts and in studies of
Common Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bra ...
. It signals distinctions not made by Ulfilas in his alphabet. Rather, they reflect various origins in Proto-Germanic. Thus,
**
''aí'' is used for the sound derived from the Proto-Germanic short vowels ''e'' and ''i'' before and .
**
''ái'' is used for the sound derived from the Proto-Germanic
diphthong
A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...
''ai''. Some scholars have considered this sound to have remained as a diphthong in Gothic. However, Ulfilas was highly consistent in other spelling inventions, which makes it unlikely that he assigned two different sounds to the same digraph. Furthermore, he consistently used the digraph to represent Greek , which was then certainly a
monophthong
A monophthong ( ) is a pure vowel sound, or one whose articulation at beginning and end is relatively fixed, with the tongue moving neither up nor down and neither forward nor backward towards a new position of articulation. A monophthong can be ...
. A monophthongal value is accepted by
Eduard Prokosch in his influential ''A Common Germanic Grammar''. It had earlier been accepted by
Joseph Wright but only in an appendix to his ''Grammar of the Gothic Language''.
**
''ai'' is used for the sound derived from the Common Germanic long vowel ''ē'' before a vowel.
**
''áu'' is used for the sound derived from Common Germanic diphthong ''au''. It cannot be related to a Greek digraph, since then represented a sequence of a vowel and a spirant (
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...
) consonant, which Ulfilas transcribed as ''aw'' in representing Greek words. Nevertheless, the argument based on simplicity is accepted by some influential scholars.
*The "normal environment of occurrence" refers to native words. In foreign words, these environments are often greatly disturbed. For example, the short sounds and alternate in native words in a nearly
allophonic
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosi ...
way, with occurring in native words only before the consonants , , while occurs everywhere else (nevertheless, there are a few exceptions such as before in ''hiri'', consistently in the
reduplicating syllable of certain past-tense verbs regardless of the following consonant, which indicate that these sounds had become phonemicized). In foreign borrowings, however, and occur freely in all environments, reflecting the corresponding vowel quality in the source language.
*Paradigmatic alterations can occur either intra-paradigm (between two different forms within a specific
paradigm
In science and philosophy, a paradigm ( ) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word ''paradigm'' is Ancient ...
) or cross-paradigm (between the same form in two different paradigms of the same class). Examples of intra-paradigm alternation are "district ()" vs. "district ()"; "maiden ()" vs. "maiden ()"; "maiden ()" vs. "maiden ()"; "deed ()" vs. "deed ()"; "corpse ()" vs. "corpses ()"; ?? "tree ()" vs. "tree ()"; "to do" vs. "I/he did"; "to judge" vs. "I/he judged". Examples of cross-paradigm alternation are Class IV verbs "to come" vs. "to carry, to bear", "(having) come" vs. "(having) carried"; Class VIIb verbs "to let" vs. "to sow" (note similar preterites "I/he let", "I/he sowed"). A combination of intra- and cross-paradigm alternation occurs in Class V "to hasten" vs. "I/he hastened" (expected *''snaw'', compare "to come", "I/he came").
*The carefully maintained alternations between ''iu'' and ''iw'' suggest that ''iu'' may have been something other than . Various possibilities have been suggested (for example, high central or high back unrounded vowels, such as ); under these theories, the spelling of ''iu'' is derived from the fact that the sound alternates with ''iw'' before a vowel, based on the similar alternations ''au'' and ''aw''. The most common theory, however, simply posits as the pronunciation of ''iu''.
*Macrons represent long ''ā'' and ''ū'' (however, long i appears as ''ei'', following the representation used in the native alphabet). Macrons are often also used in the case of ''ē'' and ''ō''; however, they are sometimes omitted since these vowels are always long. Long ''ā'' occurs only before the consonants , and represents
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
nasalized < earlier ; non-nasal did not occur in Proto-Germanic. It is possible that the Gothic vowel still preserved the nasalization, or else that the nasalization was lost but the length distinction kept, as has happened with
Lithuanian . Non-nasal and occurred in Proto-Germanic, however, and so long ''ei'' and ''ū'' occur in all contexts. Before and , long ''ei'' and ''ū'' could stem from either non-nasal or nasal long vowels in Proto-Germanic; it is possible that the nasalization was still preserved in Gothic but not written.
The following table shows the correspondence between spelling and sound for consonants:
*, which is written with a single character in the native alphabet, is transliterated using the symbol , which is used only in transliterating Gothic.
* is similarly written with a single character in the native alphabet and is transliterated ''q'' (with no following ''u'').
*, however, is written with two letters in the native alphabet and hence (''gw''). The lack of a single letter to represent this sound may result from its restricted distribution (only after ) and its rarity.
* is written ''þ'', similarly to other Germanic languages.
*Although is the
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plos ...
of occurring before and , it is written ''g'', following the native alphabet convention (which, in turn, follows Greek usage), which leads to occasional ambiguities, e.g. "song" but "faithful" (compare English "true").
Phonology
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, it is known 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's Bible is very informative.
Vowels
* , and can be either long or short. Gothic writing distinguishes between long and short vowels only for by writing ''i'' for the short form and ''ei'' for the long (a
digraph or ''false diphthong''), in an imitation of Greek usage (ει = ). Single vowels are sometimes long where a historically present
nasal consonant
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majo ...
has been dropped in front of an (a case of
compensatory lengthening
Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered ...
). Thus, the preterite of the verb ''briggan'' "to bring" (English ''bring'', Dutch ''brengen'', German ''bringen'') becomes ''brahta'' (English ''brought'', Dutch ''bracht'', German ''brachte''), from
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
*''branhtē''. In detailed
transliteration
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...
, when the intent is more
phonetic transcription
Phonetic transcription (also known as Phonetic script or Phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phonetics'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the ...
, length is noted by a macron (or failing that, often a
circumflex
The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from "bent around"a translation of ...
): ''brāhta'', ''brâhta''. This is the only context in which appears natively whereas , like , is found often enough in other contexts: ''brūks'' "useful" (Dutch ''gebruik'', German ''Gebrauch'', Icelandic ''brúk'' "use").
* and are long
close-mid vowel
A close-mid vowel (also mid-close vowel, high-mid vowel, mid-high vowel or half-close vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned about ...
s. They are written as and : "near" (English ''nigh'', Dutch ''nader'', German ''nah''); ''fodjan'' "to feed".
* and are short
open-mid vowel
An open-mid vowel (also mid-open vowel, low-mid vowel, mid-low vowel or half-open vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned approximat ...
s. They are noted using the digraphs ''ai'' and ''au'': ''taihun'' "ten" (Dutch ''tien'', German ''zehn'', Icelandic ''tíu''), ''dauhtar'' "daughter" (Dutch ''dochter'', German ''Tochter'', Icelandic ''dóttir''). 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 was 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 and appear as digraphs written and in Gothic. Researchers have disagreed over whether they were still pronounced as diphthongs and in Ulfilas's time (4th century) or had become long open-mid vowels: and : ''ains'' "one" (German ''eins'', Icelandic ''einn''), ''augo'' "eye" (German ''Auge'', Icelandic ''auga''). It is most likely that the latter view is correct, as it is indisputable that the digraphs and represent the sounds and in some circumstances (see below), and and were available to unambiguously represent the sounds and . The digraph is in fact used to represent in foreign words (such as ''Pawlus'' "Paul"), and alternations between / and / are scrupulously maintained in paradigms where both variants occur (e.g. ''taujan'' "to do" vs. past tense ''tawida'' "did"). Evidence from transcriptions of Gothic names into Latin suggests that the sound change had occurred very recently when Gothic spelling was standardized: Gothic names with Germanic ''au'' are rendered with ''au'' in Latin until the 4th century and ''o'' later on (''Austrogoti'' > ''Ostrogoti''). The digraphs and are normally written with an accent on the first vowel (''ái, áu'') when they correspond to Proto-Germanic and .
* Long and also occur as allophones of and respectively before a following vowel: ''waian'' "to blow" (Dutch ''waaien'', German ''wehen''), ''bauan'' "to build" (Dutch ''bouwen'', German ''bauen'', Icelandic ''búa'' "to live, reside"), also in Greek words ''Trauada'' "
Troad
The Troad ( or ; , ''Troáda'') or Troas (; , ''Trōiás'' or , ''Trōïás'') is a historical region in northwestern Anatolia. It corresponds with the Biga Peninsula ( Turkish: ''Biga Yarımadası'') in the Çanakkale Province of modern Tur ...
" (Gk. ). In detailed transcription these are notated ''ai, au''.
* The existence of a vowel in Gothic is unclear. It is derived from the use of ''w'' to transcribe Greek υ (y) or the diphthong οι (oi), both of which were pronounced in the Greek of the time. ''W'' is otherwise used to denote the consonant ). It may have been pronounced .
* is usually reconstructed as a falling diphthong (: ''diups'' "deep" (Dutch ''diep'', German ''tief'', Icelandic ''djúpur''), though this has been disputed (see
alphabet and transliteration section above).
* Greek diphthongs: In Ulfilas's era, all the diphthongs of Classical Greek had become simple vowels in speech (''
monophthong
A monophthong ( ) is a pure vowel sound, or one whose articulation at beginning and end is relatively fixed, with the tongue moving neither up nor down and neither forward nor backward towards a new position of articulation. A monophthong can be ...
ization''), except for αυ (au) and ευ (eu), which were probably pronounced and (they evolved into and in
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...
.) Ulfilas notes them, in words borrowed from Greek, as ''aw'' and ''aiw'', probably pronounced : ''Pawlus'' "Paul" (Gk. ), ''aíwaggelista'' "evangelist" (Gk. , via the Latin ''evangelista'').
* All vowels (including diphthongs) 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 juxtaposition than of true 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
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do prod ...
): ''alew'' "olive oil" ( < Latin ''oleum''), ''snáiws'' ("snow"), ''lasiws'' "tired" (English ''lazy'').
Consonants
Gothic distinguished single or short consonants from long or
geminated
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
consonants: the latter were written double, as in ''atta'' "dad", ''kunnan'' "to know" (Dutch ''kennen'', German ''kennen'' "to know", Icelandic ''kunna''). Gothic is rich in fricative consonants (although many of them may have been
approximant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do prod ...
s; it is hard to separate the two) originating from
Grimm's law
Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or First Germanic Sound Shift, is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the first millennium BC, first d ...
and
Verner's law. Gothic retained
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
as , unlike
North Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...
and
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germ ...
, which turned this sound into through rhotacization. Voiced fricative consonants were
devoiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to ref ...
at the ends of words.
Stops
* The voiceless stops , and are regularly noted by ''p'', ''t'' and ''k'' respectively: ''paska'' "Easter" (from the Greek ), ''tuggo'' "tongue", ''kalbo'' "calf".
* The letter ''q'' is probably a
voiceless labiovelar stop, , comparable to the Latin ''qu'': ''qiman'' "to come". In later Germanic languages, this phoneme has become either a
consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
of 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''. Like the other Germanic languages, they occurred in word-initial position, when doubled and after a nasal. In addition, they apparently occurred after other consonants,: ''arbi'' "inheritance", ''huzd'' "treasure". (This conclusion is based on their behavior at the end of a word, in which they do not change into voiceless fricatives, unlike when they occur after a vowel.)
* 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'': ''triggws'' "faithful" (English ''true'', German ''treu'', Icelandic ''tryggur''). The existence of a long separate from , however, is not universally accepted.
* Similarly, the letters ''ddj'', which is the regular outcome of Germanic *''jj'', may represent a voiced palatal stop, : ''waddjus'' "wall" (Icelandic ''veggur''), ''twaddje'' "two (genitive)" (Icelandic ''tveggja'').
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'', Icelandic ''meira'') versus ''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 . The cluster became in some words but not others: ''þlauhs'' "flight" from Germanic ''*flugiz''; ''þliuhan'' "flee" from Germanic ''*fleuhaną'' (but see ''flōdus'' "river", ''flahta'' "braid"). This sound change is unique among Germanic languages.
* , and are
allophones
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosi ...
of , and respectively, and are not distinguished from them in writing. may have become , a more stable labiodental form. In the study of Germanic languages, these phonemes are usually transcribed as ''ƀ'', ''đ'' and ''ǥ'' respectively: ''haban'' "to have", ''þiuda'' "people" (Dutch ''Diets'', German ''Deutsch'', Icelandic ''þjóð'' > English ''Dutch''), ''áugo'' "eye" (English ''eye'', Dutch ''oog'', German ''Auge'', Icelandic ''auga''). The voiced fricative allophones were used when came between vowels. When preceded by a vowel and followed by a voiceless consonant or by the end of a word, were devoiced to and spelled as ''f'', ''þ'': e.g. ''hláifs'' "loaf" but genitive ''hláibis'' "of a loaf", plural ''hláibōs'' "loaves"; ''gif'' "give (imperative)" (infinitive ''giban'': German ''geben''); ''miþ'' "with" (
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
''mid'',
Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
''með'', Dutch ''met'', German ''mit''). The velar consonant was probably also phonetically devoiced in the same position, becoming the voiceless velar fricative , but this is less certain; it remained spelled as ''g'' and apparently did not merge with any other phoneme.
* (from Proto-Germanic *x) is written as ''h'': ''haban'' "to have". It could occur in the coda of syllables (e.g. ''jah'' "and" (Dutch, German, Scandinavian ''ja'' "yes") and unlike and , it did not merge at the end of a word or before a voiceless consonant with its etymologically paired voiced consonant: remained written as ''g'', e.g. ''dags'' "day" (German ''Tag''). There are conflicting interpretations of what this data means in terms of phonetics. Some linguists interpret it as a sign that failed to be devoiced in this context, but given that the other voiced fricatives were subject to devoicing in this position, Howell 1991 argues it is more likely that was pronounced with devoicing as and coda was pronounced as something other than a voiceless velar fricative. Two phonetic values that have been proposed for syllable-final are uvular and glottal .
* In some borrowed Greek words there is a special letter ''x'', which represents the Greek letter χ (''ch''): ''Xristus'' "Christ" (Gk. ).
* ''ƕ'' (also transcribed ''hw'') is the labiovelar equivalent of , derived from Proto-Indo-European *kʷ. It was probably pronounced (a voiceless ), as ''wh'' is pronounced in certain dialects of English and in Scots: ''ƕan'' "when", ''ƕar'' "where", ''ƕeits'' "white".
Sonorants
* Gothic has three nasal consonants, . The first two are phonemes, and ; the third, , is an allophone found only in
complementary distribution with the other two.
** The bilabial nasal , transcribed ''m'', can be found in any position in a syllable: e.g. ''guma'' 'man', ''bagms'' 'tree'.
** The coronal nasal , transcribed ''n'', can be found in any position in a syllable. It
assimilates to the
place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is an approximate location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a pa ...
of a following stop consonant: before a
bilabial consonant
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...
, it becomes and before front of a
velar stop
In phonetics and phonology, a velar stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the back of the tongue in contact with the soft palate (also known as the velum, hence velar), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a stop consona ...
, it becomes . Thus, clusters like or are not possible.
** The velar nasal , transcribed ''g'', is not a phoneme and cannot appear freely in Gothic. It occurs only before a velar stop as the result of nasal place assimilation, and so is in
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'' sometimes denotes , but sometimes (see above).
* is transliterated as ''w'' before a vowel: ''weis'' ("we"), ''twái'' "two" (German ''zwei'').
* is written as ''j'': ''jer'' "year", ''sakjo'' "strife".
* and occur as in other European languages: ''laggs'' (possibly , or ) "long", ''mel'' "hour" (English ''meal'', Dutch ''maal'', German ''Mahl'', Icelandic ''mál''). The exact pronunciation of is unknown, but it is usually assumed to be a
trill
TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) is a networking protocol for optimizing bandwidth and resilience in Ethernet networks, implemented by devices called TRILL switches. TRILL combines techniques from bridging and routing, and ...
or a
flap ): ''raíhts'' "right", ''afar'' "after".
* , , and may occur either between two other consonants of lower sonority or word-finally after a consonant of lower sonority. It is probable that the sounds are pronounced partly or completely as
syllabic consonant
A syllabic consonant or vocalic consonant is a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable on its own, like the ''m'', ''n'' and ''l'' in some pronunciations of the English words ''rhythm'', ''button'' and ''awful'', respectively. To represe ...
s in such circumstances (as in English "bottle" or "bottom"): ''tagl'' or "hair" (English ''tail'', Icelandic ''tagl''), ''máiþms'' or "gift", ''táikns'' or "sign" (English ''token'', Dutch ''teken'', German ''Zeichen'', Icelandic ''tákn'') and ''tagr'' or "tear (as in crying)".
Accentuation and intonation
Accentuation in Gothic can be reconstructed through phonetic comparison,
Grimm's law
Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or First Germanic Sound Shift, is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the first millennium BC, first d ...
, and
Verner's law. Gothic used a
stress accent rather than the
pitch accent
A pitch-accent language is a type of language that, when spoken, has certain syllables in words or morphemes that are prominent, as indicated by a distinct contrasting pitch (music), pitch (tone (linguistics), linguistic tone) rather than by vol ...
of
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...
. This is indicated by the shortening of long vowels and to
and the loss of short vowels and in unstressed final syllables.
Just as in other Germanic languages, the free moving
Proto-Indo-European accent was replaced with one fixed on the first syllable of simple words. Accents do not shift when words are inflected. In most compound words, the location of the stress depends on the type of compound:
* In compounds in which the second word is a ''noun'', the accent is on the first syllable of the first word of the compound.
* In compounds in which 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 such as
separable verb
A separable verb is a verb that is composed of a lexical core and a separable particle. In some sentence positions, the core verb and the particle appear in one word, whilst in others the core verb and the particle are separated. The particle is t ...
s in German and Dutch). In those cases, the prefix is stressed.
For example, with comparable words from modern Germanic languages:
* Non-compound words: ''marka'' "border, borderlands" (English ''march'', Dutch ''mark''); ''aftra'' "after"; ''bidjan'' "pray" (Dutch, ''bidden'', German ''bitten'', Icelandic ''biðja'', English ''bid'').
* Compound words:
** Noun first element: ''guda-láus'' "godless".
** Verb second element: ''ga-láubjan'' "believe" (Dutch ''geloven'', German ''glauben'' <
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...
''g(i)louben'' by
syncope of the unaccented ''i'').
Grammar
Morphology
Nouns and adjectives
Gothic preserves many archaic Indo-European features that are not always present in modern Germanic languages, in particular the rich Indo-European
declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence by way of an inflection. Declension may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and det ...
system. Gothic had
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
,
accusative
In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "her", " ...
,
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
and
dative case
In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this examp ...
s, as well as vestiges of a
vocative case
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numeral ...
that was sometimes identical to the nominative and sometimes to the accusative. The three
genders of Indo-European were all present. Nouns and adjectives were inflected according to one of two
grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a Feature (linguistics), feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement (linguistics), agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and many other ...
s: the singular and the plural.
Nouns can be divided into numerous declensions according to the form of the stem: ''a'', ''ō'', ''i'', ''u'', ''an'', ''ōn'', ''ein'', ''r'', etc. Adjectives have two variants, ''indefinite'' and ''definite'' (sometimes ''indeterminate'' and ''determinate''), with definite adjectives normally used in combination with the definite
determiner
Determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a term used in some models of grammatical description to describe a word or affix belonging to a class of noun modifiers. A determiner combines with a noun to express its reference. Examp ...
s (such as the
definite article
In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" ...
''sa''/''þata''/''sō'') while indefinite adjectives are used in other circumstances., Indefinite adjectives generally use a combination of ''a''-stem and ''ō''-stem endings, and definite adjectives use a combination of ''an''-stem and ''ōn''-stem endings. The concept of "strong" and "weak" declensions that is prevalent in the grammar of many other
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...
is less significant in Gothic because of its conservative nature: the so-called "weak" declensions (those ending in ''n'') are, in fact, no weaker in Gothic (in terms of having fewer endings) than the "strong" declensions (those ending in a vowel), and the "strong" declensions do not form a coherent class that can be clearly distinguished from the "weak" declensions.
Although descriptive adjectives in Gothic (as well as superlatives ending in ''-ist'' and ''-ost'') and the
past participle
In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...
may take both definite and indefinite forms, some adjectival words are restricted to one variant. Some pronouns take only definite forms: for example, ''sama'' (English "same"), adjectives like ''unƕeila'' ("constantly", from the root ''ƕeila'', "time"; compare to the English "while"), comparative adjective and
present participle
In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...
s. Others, such as ''áins'' ("some"), take only the indefinite forms.
The table below displays the declension of the Gothic adjective ''blind'' (English: "blind"), compared with the ''an''-stem noun ''guma'' "man, human" and the ''a''-stem noun ''dags'' "day":
This table is, of course, not exhaustive. (There are secondary inflexions of various sorts not described here.) An exhaustive table of only the ''types'' of endings that Gothic took is presented below.
* vowel declensions:
** roots ending in ''-a'', ''-ja'', ''-wa'' (masculine and neuter): equivalent to the Greek and Latin second declension in ''‑us'' / ''‑ī'' and ‑ος / ‑ου;
** roots ending in ''-ō'', ''-jō'' and ''-wō'' (feminine): equivalent to the Greek and Latin first declension in ''‑a'' / ''‑ae'' and ‑α / ‑ας (‑η / ‑ης);
** roots ending in ''-i'' (masculine and feminine): equivalent to the Greek and Latin third declension in ''‑is'' / ''‑is'' ( ''‑ī'', ''-ium'') and ‑ις / ‑εως;
** roots ending in ''-u'' (all three genders): equivalent to the Latin fourth declension in ''‑us'' / ''‑ūs'' and the Greek third declension in ‑υς / ‑εως;
* ''n''-stem declensions, equivalent to the Greek and Latin third declension in ''‑ō'' / ''‑inis/ōnis'' and ‑ων / ‑ονος or ‑ην / ‑ενος:
** roots ending in ''-an'', ''-jan'', ''-wan'' (masculine);
** roots ending in ''-ōn'' 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'', ''-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 inflection.
Pronouns
Gothic inherited the full set of Indo-European pronouns:
personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it''). Personal pronouns may also take different f ...
s (including
reflexive pronoun
A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that refers to another noun or pronoun (its antecedent) within the same sentence.
In the English language specifically, a reflexive pronoun will end in ''-self'' or ''-selves'', and refer to a previously n ...
s for each of the three
grammatical person
In linguistics, grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event; typically, the distinction is between the speaker ( first person), the addressee ( second person), and others ( third p ...
s),
possessive pronoun
A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a number of other types of relation to a greater or le ...
s, both simple and compound
demonstratives
Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning depending on a particular frame ...
,
relative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. An example is the word ''which'' in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the relative pronoun ''which'' introduces the relative clause. The relative clause modifies th ...
s,
interrogatives and
indefinite pronoun
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific, familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns.
Indefinite pronouns can represent either count nouns or noncount nouns. They often have related for ...
s. Each follows a particular pattern of inflection (partially mirroring the noun declension), much like other Indo-European languages. One particularly noteworthy characteristic is the preservation of the
dual number
In algebra, the dual numbers are a hypercomplex number system first introduced in the 19th century. They are expressions of the form , where and are real numbers, and is a symbol taken to satisfy \varepsilon^2 = 0 with \varepsilon\neq 0.
D ...
, referring to two people or things; the plural was used only 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
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
), most Old Germanic languages are unusual in that they preserved it only for pronouns. Gothic preserves an older system with dual marking on both pronouns and verbs (but not nouns or adjectives).
The simple demonstrative pronoun ''sa'' (neuter: ''þata'', feminine: ''so'', from the Indo-European root ''*so'', ''*seh
2'', ''*tod''; cognate to the Greek article ὁ, ἡ, τό and the Latin ''istud'') can be used as an article, allowing constructions of the type ''definite article + weak adjective + noun''.
The interrogative pronouns begin with ''ƕ-'', which derives from the proto-Indo-European consonant ''*kʷ'' that was present at the beginning of all interrogatives in proto-Indo-European, cognate with the ''wh-'' at the beginning of many English interrogative, which, as in Gothic, are pronounced with in some dialects. The same etymology is present in the interrogatives of many other Indo-European languages: ''w-'' in German, ''hv-'' in
Danish, the Latin ''qu-'' (which persists in modern
Romance languages
The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
), the Greek τ- or π-, the
Slavic and
Indic ''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. The pattern is also present in Greek and Latin:
*Latin – ''leg-i-mus'' ("we read"): root ''leg-'' + thematic vowel ''-i-'' (from ''*o'') + suffix ''-mus''.
*Greek – λύ-ο-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', in which suffixes are added directly to roots, exists only in unproductive vestigial forms in Gothic, just like 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
The preterite or preterit ( ; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple p ...
s formed by appending the suffixes ''-da'' or ''-ta'', parallel to past participles formed with ''-þ'' / ''-t''. Strong verbs form preterites by
ablaut
In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut ( , from German ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE).
An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its relate ...
(the alternating of vowels in their root forms) or by
reduplication
In linguistics, reduplication is a Morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which the Root (linguistics), root or Stem (linguistics), stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
The cla ...
(prefixing the root with the first consonant in the root plus ''aí'') but without adding a suffix in either case. This parallels the Greek and Sanskrit
perfects. The 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: ''gehabt'';
** Icelandic: ''hafa'', preterite: ''hafði'', past participle: ''haft'';
** Dutch: ''hebben'', preterite: ''had'', past participle: ''gehad'';
** Swedish: ''ha(va)'', 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'' (''ge''), preterite: ''gav''.
Verbal conjugation in Gothic have two
grammatical voice
In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formu ...
s: 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); three
grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used for signaling modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying (for example, a statement ...
s:
indicative
A realis mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentence
Dec ...
,
subjunctive
The subjunctive (also known as the conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of an utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude toward it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unrealit ...
(from an old
optative form) and
imperative as well as three kinds of nominal forms: a present
infinitive
Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all ...
, a present
participle
In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...
, and a past
passive
Passive may refer to:
* Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive
* Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works
* Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of ...
. Not all tenses and persons are represented in all moods and voices, as some conjugations use
auxiliary forms.
Finally, there are forms called 'preterite-present': the old Indo-European perfect was reinterpreted as present tense. The Gothic word ''wáit'', from the proto-Indo-European ''*woid-h
2e'' ("to see" in the perfect), corresponds exactly to its Sanskrit cognate ''véda'' and in Greek to ϝοἶδα. Both etymologically should mean "I have seen" (in the perfect sense) but mean "I know" (in the preterite-present meaning). Latin follows the same rule with ''nōuī'' ("I have learned" and "I know"). The preterite-present verbs include ''áigan'' ("to possess") and ''kunnan'' ("to know") among others.
Syntax
Word order
The word order of Gothic is fairly free as is typical of other inflected languages. The natural word order of Gothic is assumed to have been like that of the other old Germanic languages; however, nearly all extant Gothic texts are translations of Greek originals and have been heavily influenced by Greek syntax.
Sometimes what can be expressed in one word in the original Greek will require a verb and a complement in the Gothic translation; for example, διωχθήσονται (''diōchthēsontai'', "they will be persecuted") is rendered:
:
Likewise Gothic translations of Greek noun phrases may feature a verb and a complement. In both cases, the verb follows the complement, giving weight to the theory that basic word order in Gothic is object–verb. This aligns with what is known of other early Germanic languages.
However, this pattern is reversed in imperatives and negations:
:
:
And in a ''wh''-question the verb directly follows the question word:
:
Clitics
Gothic has two
clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic ( , backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...
particles placed in the second position in a sentence, in accordance with
Wackernagel's Law.
One such clitic particle is -''u'', indicating a yes–no question or an indirect question, like Latin -''ne'':
:
:
The prepositional phrase without the clitic -''u'' appears as ''af þus silbin'': the clitic causes the reversion of originally voiced fricatives, unvoiced at the end of a word, to their voiced form; another such example is ''wileid-u'' "do you () want" from ''wileiþ'' "you () want". If the first word has a
preverb attached, the clitic actually splits the preverb from the verb: ''ga-u-láubjats'' "do you both believe...?" from ''galáubjats'' "you both believe".
Another such clitic is ''-uh'' "and", appearing as ''-h'' after a vowel: ''ga-h-mēlida'' "and he wrote" from ''gamēlida'' "he wrote", ''urreis nim-uh'' "arise and take!" from the imperative form ''nim'' "take". After ''iþ'' or any indefinite besides ''sums'' "some" and ''anþar'' "another", -''uh'' cannot be placed; in the latter category, this is only because indefinite determiner phrases cannot move to the front of a clause. Unlike, for example, Latin -''que'', -''uh'' can only join two or more main clauses. In all other cases, the word ''jah'' "and" is used, which can also join main clauses.
More than one such clitics can occur in one word: ''diz-uh-þan-sat ijōs'' "and then he seized them ()" from ''dissat'' "he seized" (notice again the voicing of ''diz-''), ''ga-u-ƕa-sēƕi'' "whether he saw anything" from ''gasēƕi'' "he saw".
Comparison to other Germanic languages
For the most part, Gothic is known to be significantly closer to Proto-Germanic than any other Germanic language except for that of the (scantily attested)
Ancient Nordic runic inscriptions, which 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 clearly identifiable evidence from other branches that the Gothic form is a secondary development.
Distinctive features
Gothic fails to display a number of innovations shared by all Germanic languages attested later:
* It lacks
Germanic umlaut
The Germanic umlaut (sometimes called i-umlaut or i-mutation) is a type of linguistic umlaut (linguistics), umlaut in which a back vowel changes to the associated front vowel (fronting (phonology), fronting) or a front vowel becomes closer to ...
.
* It lacks
rhotacism.
The language also preserved many features that were mostly lost in other early Germanic languages:
* dual inflections on verbs,
* morphological passive voice for verbs,
* reduplication in the past tense of Class VII strong verbs,
* clitic conjunctions that appear in second position of a sentence in accordance with
Wackernagel's Law, splitting verbs from pre-verbs.
Lack of umlaut
Most conspicuously, Gothic shows no sign of morphological umlaut. Gothic , , can be contrasted with English ''foot'' : ''feet'', German : , Old Norse : , Danish : . These forms contain the characteristic change > (English), > (German), > (ON and Danish) due to i-umlaut; the Gothic form shows no such change.
Lack of rhotacism
Proto-Germanic ''*z'' remains in Gothic as ''z'' or is devoiced to ''s''. In North and West Germanic, ''*z'' changes to ''r'' by
rhotacism:
* Gothic ,
≠
* Old English , "wild animal" (Modern English ''deer'').
Passive voice
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'' or Runic Norse () ''haitē'' "am called", derived from Proto-Germanic ''*haitaną'' "to call, command".
The morphological passive in North Germanic languages (Swedish ''gör'' "does", ''görs'' "is being done") originates from the
Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
middle voice
In grammar, the voice (aka diathesis) of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc.). When the subject is the agent or doer of ...
, which is an innovation not inherited from Indo-European.
Dual number
Unlike other Germanic languages, which retained dual numbering only in some pronoun forms, Gothic has dual forms both in pronouns and in verbs. Dual verb forms exist only in the first and second person and only in the active voice; in all other cases, the corresponding plural forms are used. In pronouns, Gothic has first and second person dual pronouns: Gothic and Old English ''wit'', Old Norse ''vit'' "we two" (thought to have been in fact derived from ''*wi-du'' literally "we two").
Reduplication
Gothic possesses a number of verbs which form their preterite 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 third person singular preterite indicative:
* Gothic ''saian'' "to sow" : ''saiso''
* Old Norse ''sá'' : ''seri'' < Proto-Germanic *''sezō''
* Gothic ''laikan'' "to play" : ''lailaik''
* Old English ''lācan'' : ''leolc'', ''lēc''
Classification
The standard theory of the origin of the Germanic languages divides the languages into three groups:
East Germanic (Gothic and a few other very scantily-attested languages),
North Germanic (
Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
and its derivatives, such as
Swedish,
Danish,
Norwegian,
Icelandic, and
Faroese) and
West Germanic
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germ ...
(all others, including
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
,
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...
,
Old Saxon
Old Saxon (), also known as Old Low German (), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Eur ...
,
Old Dutch
In linguistics, Old Dutch ( Modern Dutch: ') or Old Low Franconian (Modern Dutch: ') is the set of dialects that evolved from Frankish spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from around the 6th Page 55: "''Uit de zesde eeu ...
,
Old Frisian
Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the late 13th century and the end of 16th century. It is the common ancestor of all the modern Frisian languages except for the North Frisian language#Insular North Frisian, Insular North ...
and the numerous modern languages derived from these, including English, German, and
Dutch). Sometimes, a further grouping, that of the
Northwest Germanic languages, is posited as containing the North Germanic and West Germanic languages, reflecting the hypothesis that Gothic was the first attested language to branch off.
A minority opinion (the so-called Gotho-Nordic hypothesis) instead groups North Germanic and
East Germanic together. It is based partly on historical claims: for example,
Jordanes
Jordanes (; Greek language, Greek: Ιορδάνης), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, claimed to be of Goths, Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life.
He wrote two works, one on R ...
, writing in the 6th century, ascribes to the Goths a Scandinavian origin. There are a few linguistically significant areas in which Gothic and Old Norse agree against the West Germanic languages.
Perhaps the most obvious is the evolution of the
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
*''-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. Compare Modern English ''true'', German ''treu'', with Gothic ''triggws'', Old Norse ''tryggr''.
However, it has been suggested that these are, in fact, two separate and unrelated changes. A number of other posited similarities exist (for example, the existence of numerous inchoative verbs ending in -''na'', such as Gothic ''ga-waknan'', Old Norse ''vakna''; and the absence of gemination before ''j'', or (in the case of old Norse) only ''g'' geminated before ''j'', e.g. Proto-Germanic *''kunją'' > Gothic ''kuni'' (kin), Old Norse ''kyn'', but Old English ''cynn'', Old High German ''kunni''). However, for the most part these represent
shared retentions, which are not valid means of grouping languages. That is, if a parent language splits into three daughters A, B and C, and C innovates in a particular area but A and B do not change, A and B will appear to agree against C. That shared retention in A and B is not necessarily indicative of any special relationship between the two.
Similar claims of similarities between
Old Gutnish
Old Gutnish was a stage in the development of the North Germanic language Gutnish, spoken on the Baltic Sea, Baltic island of Gotland and Fårö. The extant body of Old Gutnish is small, and Gutalagen and the Guta saga constitute its majority. ...
(''Gutniska'') and
Old Icelandic are also based on shared retentions rather than shared innovations.
Another commonly-given example involves Gothic and Old Norse verbs with the ending ''-t'' in the 2nd person singular preterite indicative, and the West Germanic languages have ''-i''. The ending ''-t'' can regularly descend from the Proto-Indo-European perfect ending ''*-th₂e'', while the origin of the West Germanic ending ''-i'' (which, unlike the ''-t''-ending, unexpectedly combines with the zero-grade of the root as in the plural) is unclear, suggesting that it is an innovation of some kind, possibly an import from the optative. Another possibility is that this is an example of independent choices made from a doublet existing in the proto-language. That is, Proto-Germanic may have allowed either ''-t'' or ''-i'' to be used as the ending, either in
free variation
In linguistics, free variation is the phenomenon of two (or more) sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers.
Sociolinguists argue that describing such ...
or perhaps depending on dialects within Proto-Germanic or the particular verb in question. Each of the three daughters independently standardized on one of the two endings and, by chance, Gothic and Old Norse ended up with the same ending.
Other
isogloss
An isogloss, also called a heterogloss, is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistics, linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Isoglosses are a ...
es have led scholars to propose an early split between East and
Northwest Germanic. Furthermore, features shared by any two branches of Germanic do not necessarily require the postulation of a
proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unatte ...
excluding the third, as the early
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...
were all part of a
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
in the early stages of their development, and
contact between the three branches of Germanic was extensive.
Polish linguist
Witold Mańczak argued that Gothic is closer to German (specifically
Upper German) than to Scandinavian and suggested that their ancestral homeland was located in the southernmost part of the Germanic territories, close to present-day Austria, rather than in Scandinavia.
Frederik Kortlandt has agreed with Mańczak's hypothesis, stating: "I think that his argument is correct and that it is time to abandon Iordanes' classic view that the Goths came from Scandinavia."
Influence
The reconstructed
Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium BC through the 6th ...
language features several apparent
borrowed words from East Germanic (presumably Gothic), such as , "bread", vs. Gothic ().
The
Romance languages
The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
also preserve several loanwords from Gothic, such as
Portuguese ("warm clothing"), from Gothic (*, "companion, comrade"); ("goose"), from Gothic (, "goose"); ("glove"), from Gothic (, "palm of the hand"); and ("truce"), from Gothic (, "treaty; covenant"). Other examples include the French ("to embroider"), from Gothic (, "to embroider"); ("gaffe"), from Gothic (, "catch; something which is caught"); and the Italian ("quarrel, dispute"), from Gothic (, "quarrel").
Use in Romanticism and the Modern Age
J. R. R. Tolkien
Several linguists have made use of Gothic as a creative language. The most famous example is "" ("Flower of the Trees") by
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...
, part of ''
Songs for the Philologists''. It was published privately in 1936 for Tolkien and his colleague
E. V. Gordon.
Tolkien's use of Gothic is also known from a letter from 1965 to Zillah Sherring. When Sherring bought a copy of
Thucydides
Thucydides ( ; ; BC) was an Classical Athens, Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts Peloponnesian War, the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been d ...
' ''
History of the Peloponnesian War
The ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' () is a historical account of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), which was fought between the Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) and the Delian League (led by Classical Athens, Athens). The account, ...
'' in Salisbury, she found strange inscriptions in it; after she found his name in it, she wrote him a letter and asked him if the inscriptions were his, including the longest one on the back, which was in Gothic. In his reply to her he corrected some of the mistakes in the text; he wrote for example that should be and ("of those books"), which he suggested should be ("of this book"). A semantic inaccuracy of the text which he mentioned himself is the use of for read, while this was . Tolkien also made a
calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...
of his own name in Gothic in the letter, which according to him should be .
Gothic is also known to have served as the primary inspiration for Tolkien's
invented language, Taliska which, in
his legendarium, was the language spoken by the race of Men during the
First Age before being displaced by another of his invented languages,
Adûnaic. , Tolkien's Taliska grammar has not been published.
Others
On 10 February 1841, the published a reconstruction in Gothic of the Creed of
Ulfilas.
The Thorvaldsen museum also has an alliterative poem, "", from 1841 by
Massmann, the first publisher of the Skeireins, written in the Gothic language. It was read at a great feast dedicated to Thorvaldsen in the Gesellschaft der Zwanglosen in
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
on July 15, 1841. This event is mentioned by
Ludwig von Schorn in the magazine from the 19th of July, 1841. Massmann also translated the academic
commercium song into Gothic in 1837.
In 2012, professor Bjarne Simmelkjær Hansen of the
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University.
...
published a translation into Gothic of for
Roots of Europe.
In , an online magazine for art and literature, the poem of Dutch poet Bert Bevers appeared in a Gothic translation.
''
Alice in Wonderland
''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...
'' has been translated into Gothic () by David Carlton in 2015 and is published by
Michael Everson
Michael Everson (born January 1963) is an American and Irish linguistics, linguist, Character encoding, script encoder, typesetting, typesetter, type designer and Publishing, publisher. He runs a publishing company called Evertype, through which ...
.
Examples
The
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer, also known by its incipit Our Father (, ), is a central Christian prayer attributed to Jesus. It contains petitions to God focused on God’s holiness, will, and kingdom, as well as human needs, with variations across manusc ...
in Gothic:
See also
*
Geats
The Geats ( ; ; ; ), sometimes called ''Geats#Goths, Goths'', were a large North Germanic peoples, North Germanic tribe who inhabited ("land of the Geats") in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the Late Middle Ages. They are one of ...
*
Gutes
The Gutes ( Old West Norse: ''Gotar'', Old Gutnish: ''Gutar'') were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting the island of Gotland. The ethnonym is related to that of the ''Goths'' (''Gutans''), and both names were originally Proto-Germanic *''Gutan ...
*
List of Germanic languages
*
Modern Gutnish
*
Name of the Goths
*
Old Gutnish
Old Gutnish was a stage in the development of the North Germanic language Gutnish, spoken on the Baltic Sea, Baltic island of Gotland and Fårö. The extant body of Old Gutnish is small, and Gutalagen and the Guta saga constitute its majority. ...
*
Thurneysen's law
*
Vandalic language
Vandalic was the Germanic language spoken by the Vandals during roughly the 3rd to 6th centuries. It was probably closely related to Gothic, and, as such, is traditionally classified as an East Germanic language. Its attestation is very fragm ...
General references
*
*
* W. Braune and E. Ebbinghaus, ''Gotische Grammatik'', 17th edition 1966, Tübingen
** 20th edition, 2004. (hbk), (pbk)
*
Fausto Cercignani, "The Development of the Gothic Short/Lax Subsystem", in ''Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung'', 93/2, 1979, pp. 272–278.
*
Fausto Cercignani, "The Reduplicating Syllable and Internal Open Juncture in Gothic", in ''Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung'', 93/1, 1979, pp. 126–132.
*
Fausto Cercignani, "The ''Enfants Terribles'' of Gothic 'Breaking': ''hiri, aiþþau'', etc.", in ''The Journal of Indo-European Studies'', 12/3–4, 1984, pp. 315–344.
*
Fausto Cercignani, "The Development of the Gothic Vocalic System", in ''Germanic Dialects: Linguistic and Philological Investigations'', edited by Bela Brogyanyi and Thomas Krömmelbein, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, Benjamins, 1986, pp. 121–151.
* N. Everett, "Literacy from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages, c. 300–800 AD", ''The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy'', ed. D. Olson and N. Torrance (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 362–385.
*
Carla Falluomini, "Traces of Wulfila's Bible Translation in Visigothic Gaul", ''Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik'' 80 (2020) pp. 5–24.
* W. Krause, ''Handbuch des Gotischen'', 3rd edition, 1968, Munich.
* Thomas O. Lambdin, ''An Introduction to the Gothic Language'', Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006, Eugene, Oregon.
* F. Mossé, ''Manuel de la langue gotique'', Aubier Éditions Montaigne, 1942
* Irmengard Rauch, ''Gothic Language: Grammar, Genetic Provenance and Typology, Readings'', Peter Lang Publishing Inc; 2nd Revised edition, 2011
* C. Rowe, "The problematic Holtzmann’s Law in Germanic", ''Indogermanische Forschungen'', Bd. 108, 2003. 258–266.
*
*
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,
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Portal for information on Gothic (in German)
– early (Public Domain) editions of several of the references.
* Texts:
*
The Gothic Bible in Latin alphabet*
The Gothic Bible in Ulfilan script (Unicode text) from Wikisource*
has Streitberg's ''Gotische Bibel'' and Crimean Gothic material after Busbecq.
*
Wulfila Project*
Skeireins ProjectA website with the Skeireins including translations in Latin, German, French, Swedish, English, Dutch, Greek, Italian and Icelandic.
Gothic Onlineby Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum, free online lessons at th
Linguistics Research Centerat the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...
Gothic ReadingsVideo clips in Gothic language
Gothic basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical DatabaseA page with information about the discovered Bononiensa fragment from 2013
an online collection of introductory videos to Ancient Indo-European languages produced by the University of Göttingen
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