[gothic-l] Introduction

[Thomas Leigh]

Hailai!

I just joined the group and was asked to introduce myself.

I've been fascinated by the Gothic language for years, though somehow 
never managed to have the time to try and acquire an active knowledge 
of it yet. I stumbled across Matthew's web site and discovered the 
existence of this list, so I immediately joined up in the hope of 
getting in touch with other Gothic enthusiasts and hope to be soon be 
able to practice using the language with those of you who are so 
inclined :)

My other main liguistic interests are several of the Germanic 
languages both ancient (eg. Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse) and modern (e.g. 
Frisian, Icelandic), and also Celtic languages (my degree is in 
Scottish Gaelic, and I dabble in the other 5 modern ones). 

I do have one question, re pronunciation: according to the books on 
Gothic I've seen (Wright's primer and grammar, and Bennett's 
"Introduction") it seems to be the academic consensus that in the 
Gothic of Wulfila "ai" and "au" were open vowels /E/ and /O/, and it 
is merely an academic convention to use the accents (ái, áu,
aí, aú) 
to indicate, for historical/etymological purposes, which /E/'s and 
/O/'s developed out of original diphthongs and which out of original 
open vowels. Yet the websites I found seem to recommend pronouncing 
"ái", "áu" as diphthongs /aj/, /aw/. I was wondering what
opinions 
the people on this list who actually like to speak (or read aloud) 
Gothic have on this matter, and if it all right if I choose to use 
the "Wulfilic" pronunciation instead of the "etymological" one?

Looking forward to Gothicking with you all,

Thomas 

PS. I don't have any texts handy -- is my name attested at all? What 
would it be in Gothic, any ideas?




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