[gothic-l] Re: Question: Gothic words in non-gothic languages

[Francisc Czobor]

I have already posted a message on the subject of Gothic loanwords in 
Bavarian (no. 2225, Jun 21, 2000.
I send now that information again:

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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