[gothic-l] Lehmann's GEW

[M. Carver]

on 11/18/00 7:02 AM, keth at online.no at keth at online.no wrote:

> Matþaius wrote:
> 
>> Hails
>> 
>> I was wondering if anyone could give me their professional opinion on the
>> utility of Lehmann's Gotisches Etymologisches Woerterbuch. I'm trying to
>> rate the Gothic resources available currently.
>> 
> 
> I can't give you a professional opinion.
> But the book certainly tells you a lot more than the "Gotisch-Griechisch-
> Deutsches Wörterbuch" that accompanies Streitberg's "Gotische Bibel".
> It is based upon Sigmund Feists's "Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der
> Gotischen Sprache" and contains a Note from Sigmund Feist's daughter,
> where she says that this 4th edition of her father's work is being
> prepared in the United States by someone she describes as a scholar of
> great experise. From this same note it also appears that the book
> was prepared with financial support from the University of Texas at
> Austin. She (Elisabeth Feist Hirsch) also declares that her father
> had great respect for the scholarship in this field in the United States.
> 
> 
> Somewhat confusing I find it that Old Norse words are referred to
> by the abbreviation "OI" which is not listed among the abbreviations.
> At first I thought it referred to "Old Irish", but after looking at
> a few examples, I concluded that it must mean "Old Icelandic".
> Personally I should have preferred the abbreviation "ON", since
> the sources for this languages are not only Icelandic.
> 
> In the back of the book there are also many lists of words in
> different languages, that allows you to start from a word
> in a given language, and then find the Gothic word that corresponds
> to it etymologically. These are, in other words, not small
> dictionaries, but lists that allow a quick overview of which words a
> given language has in common with the part of the Gothic vocabulary
> that is still known to us today.
> 
> However, one will look in vain for exotic lists of words from
> such "trümmer" languages, as were recently discussed on this list
> (Vandalic etc).
> 
> How easy it is to use in actual practice, I do not know.
> But I should think that its usefulness can only improve
> if used in conjunction with such standard items as Falk and Torp's
> "Norwegisch Dänisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch", certainly
> if you are from somewhere in Scandinavia. There also exist
> a number of excellent German etymological dictionaries, and
> these too I would consider as a must in order to tap the
> full potential of the book. Also of great use would be any
> Biblical concordance that lists the original Greek and Gothic words
> in their contexts, by actually writing out in full the biblical
> sentences in which a given word occurs.
> 
> What other dictionaries/reference books are there that you can recommend?
> 
> 
> Keth

Hails!

My only sources right now are, aside from Wright and Bennett, Koebler's
Gothic Dictionary (Gotisches Wörterbuch), which is fairly useful actually,
though a little expensive. It has a few interesting and useful appendices
including gothic names, biblical names, fragments, and vocabulary of
burgundian, vandalic, suebic, etc.

In related news, I just received tentative permission from Brill in Boston
(by email, I will send a snailmail for hard verification) to publish a
reverse index to the same Gothic Dictionary to be used in translating from
MnE to Go. This will be available at no charge and no credit to my work, of
course. However, because I have opted for manual entry of the data, it
should be a little while yet before completion.

Matþaius



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