[gothic-l] Introduction

[jdm314 at AOL.COM]

I tend to read without the diphthongs, pronouncing them instead as long 
versions of the normal open vowels. There is no consensus on this list though 
for what the original pronunciation would have been. BTW, David Salo recently 
pointed out to me that the Gothic word háils was spelled in a Latin text 
"eils" or somethign similar, and was suggesting that this might indicate some 
sort of diphthong.

JDM


In a message dated 7/12/00 8:57:30 AM, you wrote:

<<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?>>


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