[gothic-l] Gothic and Old Bavarian

[Francisc Czobor]

Subject: Gothic and Old Bavarian

Hails!

First of all, I have to apologize for my imperfect English (some members
of this list seem not to tolerate else but Oxford English), but English
is not my mother tongue, not even my second language (these are Romanian
and German, respectively). Maybe I should not dare to write to this list
as long as my English is not perfect, but I promised to give more
details about the influence of Gothic on Old Bavarian.
In fact, there are some words borrowed from Gothic by the Old Bavarian
dialect of Old High German; some of them are attested only in this old
dialect, others survive in the modern Bavarian (and Austrian) dialects,
and there are also some that became common in (High) German.
The main sources that I used are:
[1] Stefan Sonderegger: Althochdeutsche Sprache und Literatur, de
Gruyter, Berlin - New York, 1987
[2] Werner König: DTV-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache, Deutscher Taschenbuch
Verlag, München, 1996
[3] Günther Drosdowski: DUDEN Etymologie - Herkunftswörterbuch der
deutschen Sprache, Duden Verlag, Mannheim - Leipzig - Wien - Zürich,
1989
[4] Virgil Stefanescu-Draganesti: Introduction to the Comparative
Grammar of the Germanic Languages, University of Bucharest, 1971
[5] Johann Wolf: Banater deutsche Mundartenkunde, Kriterion Verlag,
Bukarest, 1987
The abbreviations that I will use are:
Go. = Gothic
OHG = Old High German
O. Bav. = Old Bavarian (a dialect of OHG)
MHG = Middle High German
Ger. = Modern (High) German
Mod. Bav. = Modern Bavarian dialects (including Austrian)
Gk. = Greek
Lat. = Latin
So, what's about this Gothic influence on OHG?
[1] says: OHG owes a series of loanwords to Gothic, respectively to the
Gothic mission and its influence on the High German, especially Bavarian
church language (page 259). [3] tells us also about a Gothic-Arian
mission that reached the Germans (page 524 etc.). A similar point of
view I have found further in [5] (page 117). But in [2] is written that
a Gothic mission in Bavaria is not historically attested and few
probable, having in view the tolerance of the Arian-Gothic Christianity.
According to this source, the relations between Gothic and southern OHG
(especially O. Bav.) are more probably due to the influence of
Gothic-Christian population groups on the mixed people of the Bavarians,
that appeared suddenly about A.D. 500 (page 69). In another source, but
I can not remember now where, I have read something similar: after the
defeat of the Ostrogoths in Italy, some of their remnants migrated
northwards and participated in the ethnogenesis of the Bavarian people,
giving them some words and the legend of Theodoric the Great (which
became Dietrich von Bern in the German mediaeval epic).
And now, about the Gothic influence on OHG and especially on O. Bav.:
According to [1] (pages 259-260) and [2] (pages 69, 187 ,189) the
following words are for sure of Gothic origin:
OHG pfaffo (Ger. Pfaffe) "priest" < Go. papa < Gk. papas;
OHG (O. Bav.) múta "custom, duty" (Mod. Bav. Maut) < Go. móta;
O. Bav. pferintag "Friday" < Go. paraskaíwé < Gk. paraskeue:
"preparation (for the Sabbath)";
O. Bav. erintag (Mod. Bav. Ergetag, Erchtag, Ertag) "Tuesday" < OHG
*Ariótag < Go. *Arjaus dags < Gk. Areo:s (he:mera) "day of Ares"
(interpreted by the Arians as "day of Arius");
Mod. Bav. Pfinztag "Thursday" < Go. *pintadags < Gk. pempte: (he:mera)
"the fifth day";
[3] (page 340) gives us also:
OHG kúski (MHG kiusche, Ger. keusch) "virtuous, chaste" < Go. *kuskeis
"conscious (of the Christian teaching)" < Lat. conscius.
As of probable Gothic origin are given also (in the same sources):
OHG dult (Mod. Bav. Dult) "feast, holiday" < Go. dulths;
OHG (Dat. pl.) fim(f)chustim (Ger. Pfingsten) "Whitsuntide" < Go.
paíntékusté < Gk. pente:koste: (he:mera) "the 50th day" (this word can
be found also in other Germanic languages, e.g. Old Frisian pinkostra,
Old Norse pikkisdagar, Old English pentecosten, Dutch Pinkster[en]);
OHG sambaztag (Ger. Samstag) "Saturday" < Go. *sambató < Vulgar Gk.
sambaton.
Of possible Gothic origin  are considered also other words, which can be
explained also otherwise.
Some of them can be regarded either as Gothic loanwords or as cognate
Germanic words:
OHG obasa, obisa "hall, vestibule" = Go. ubizwa [1, p. 260];
OHG pfeit (Mod. Bav. Pfait) "shirt" = Go. paida (cf. O. Eng. péda, Gk.
baite:) [5, p. 110].
Others are word of Greek origin, for which the intermediate to German
could be either Gothic or (Vulgar) Latin:
OHG engil (Ger. Engel) "angel" from Gk. aggelos through Go. aggilus or
Lat. angelus [2, p.69] [3, p. 156];
OHG tiufal (Ger. Teufel) "devil" from Gk. diabolos through Go.
diabaúlus, diabulus or lat. diabolus, diabulus [2, p. 69] [3, p. 742];
OHG biscop (Ger. Bischof) "bishop" from Gk. episkopos through. Go.
aípiskaúpus or (rather, I think) from Vulgar Gk. ebiskopos through
Vulgar Lat. *piscopus, *biscopu- [1, p. 260] [3, p. 84].
Another interesting think is the fact that the dual forms of the
personal pronouns were lost in OHG (excepting the isolated "unker zweio"
in Otfrid), but the Mod. Bav. has for the 2nd person pl. old dual forms
with plural meaning (like in modern Icelandic!!):
Nom. es (= Go. jut), Ac. enk (= Go. igqis), Gen. enker (= Go. igqar)
They can be regarded either as a result of Gothic influence on O. Bav.
or as relict forms, lost in OHG but preserved in Bavarian [4, p. 116]
[5, p. 110] [2, p. 157].

Francisc

GUTANI WIHAILAG



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