[gothic-l] Re: Goeter, goter, gutar

[czobor at CANTACUZINO.RO]

--- In gothic-l at y..., Grsartor at a... wrote:
...
>
> One last thing. This may seem stupid, and probably is, but I will
ask it
> anyway. The Goths must surely have had a name for themselves before
they
> embarked on their wanderings round Europe, for whatever reason.
Would you not
> expect them to have taken their existing name with them?
>
> Gerry T.
>

We know that the Goths called themselves Gut-thiuda (probably a-stem;
appears in the Gothic Calendar) or *Guta (an-stem), pl. *Gutans
(deduced from the genitive plural form GUTANI, interpreted as *Gutane,
written in runic script on the necklace from the treasure of
Pietroasa).
I have read somewhere (an university textbook for comparative Germanic
grammar, but the sorce is not cited there) that the name Gut-thiuda
means "people of heroes", thus Gut- would mean "hero". As far as I
know, in Old Norse (or, in fact, Old Icelandic), Gut- or Got- means
both "hero" and "Goth".

Francisc

GUTANI WIHAILAG


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