[gothic-l] vowel table; Re: Reidgotaland

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Hi Francisc,
I am in the process of closing last month's mail-windows, and your
mail is among those that have not been closed yet. Reading it
over quickly once more, I see that there is a question of
phonetics I have not sufficiently taken up. Since such things
are probably very much in the line of the list, I'd like to add
some remarks. I believe you are very much correct on this, but
in this case I'd like to see a more detailed discussion. For
that purpose, I'll make up a table of comparisons below. I hope
you'll give some comments.

You wrote:
>I personally am not very convinced that (H)Reidgoth = Greutung
>There are two reasons:
>1. The phonetic difficulties of hreid = greut
>There is not only the problem of h~g (to a Gothic G corresponds
>generally a G in the other Germanic languages, including Norse), but
>also ei is not the same as eu.
>2. In the Edda appears also the term "Gryting", in connection with the
>Goths, and in my opinion this "Gryting" is the exact Norse equivalent
>of "Greutung".

The Norse word "gryte" means a cooking vessel. The old ones were
made of stone, a soft kind that could be shaped by means of tools.
In English I believe it is called "soapstone". From this again
derives the name of the contents of the "gryte", that is, that which
was cooked in it, which in general was various kinds of porridge =
"graut" in Norse.

Here we already see signs of what may be what has earlier, in a
slightly different connection, been called "Ablautreihe":
  y - au

(the earlier one was "gyta" (=to pour), "gaut"=name of ancestor of the goths)

However  - back to the "grytingar" and the "gryte" - the name of the
stone cooking vessel itself, derives from the Norse word for stone,
which is "grjot". Here we see the phenomenon of "breaking" which is
well known in Norse. For example "jotunn" = giant (etin). Another
example is "hjort" = deer (the animal), in German "Hirsch", in Dutch
"hert", English "hart", Old Low Frankish "hirot", Old High German
"hiruz", Old English "heorot", but it does not say what it would have
been in Gothic.


Let us on the basis of these few ideas do a comparison:

Norse   Danish    Gothic    Old English

gaut    gøt       got       geat         (the Goths)
graut   grøt      grot?     great?       (porridge, grits?)
naut    nøt                 neat         (cow)
daud    død       dauþs     dead
haug    høj

ljos    lys
grjot   gryt      greut?
skjota  skyde               sceotan      (to shoot)
hljoð   lyd       hliuþ     hleoþor      (sound)
bjoda   byde      biudan    beodan       (to bid)
þjoð     -        þiuda     þeod         (people)


heiðr   hede      haiþi     hæþ          (heath)
feitr   fed                 fætt         (fat)
geit    ged                 gat          (goat, Lat. haedus)
leiðr   led                 laþ          (loath)
reiða   rede                             (to prepare)
reiðr   rede                ræde         (ready)
hreiðr  rede        ?       hræþ?        (nest)


Well, I suppose I could spend some more time trying to fill
out the table. What the table indicates, indeed seems to
support what you said. But you also see that the column
for Gothic words is somewhat wanting. Perhaps other list
members know what Gothic for "goat" is, or maybe "light"?
Given some more time, I might be able to find out. But
maybe our Gothic vocabulary is so meagre that we simply
don't know?

Best regards
Keth



Remark: From the table it will incidentally be seen that
the word for "people" (Anglo Saxon "þeod") is related
to Danish "tyde", which means "to interpret". If we go
to German, we have the corresponding verb "deuten",
which of course again relates to "Deutsch".

We also see that when it comes to these few vowels, Gothic
seems to be closer to German, than it is to either Scandinavian
or English.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another tangential remark: We discussed the role of the
'Ablautreihe' of a verb in the formation of nouns.
Perhaps this was discussed before, but in that case I
must have missed it. Here I thought of an examle from
Dutch:
          "gieten  -  goot  -  gegoten",

are the main forms of the Dutch verb meaning "to pour".
Thus they say "ik giet, jij giet, hij giet, wij gieten, etc..",
"ik heb gegoten, jij hebt gegoten, etc.." (that is the
way the main forms are used).

But they also have a noun related to this verb, which is
"goot", and it means a gulley for conducting water,
e.g. a gutter or a channel to drain roofs or streets
and such. The point of the example is that the noun
here is formed from the verb's past tense. Could that
be a general rule of te thumb? (i.e. that the past
tense of verbs often form nouns)

For example in Norwegian we have the same verb with
the following main forms:

          gjota - gyt - gaut - gotet.

Here "gjota" is the infinitive form, "gyt" the present and
"gaut" the past tense. Interestingly, we here find the
Norwegian name of the Goths (=Gautar) as the past tense of
this verb!  (the verb is used about fish and about molten
metals)





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