[gothic-l] Re: Gothic/Old Gutnish

[Francisc Czobor]

Hi Bertil,

Thank you for your answer to my attempt to interprete the examples of 
Gothic-Gutnish relationship provided by you. 

--- In gothic-l at y..., "Beril Haggman" <mvk575b at t...> wrote:
> Francisc,
> 
> Thank you for your comments on my first examples. 
> 
> 1. The fact that there is "scora" on OHG of
> course does not diminish the similarity
> of the Gutnish "skurae" with Gothic
> in this instant.
> 

But the occurence of the word in OHG demonstrates that the word is 
probably a common Germanic word, that was preserved only in Gothic, 
Gutnish and OHG. Should we draw the conclusion that OHG is closer to 
Gothic (or Gutnish) than to the other West Germanic languages?

> 2. The fact that the Gutnish word exists in this
> form but not in other Nordic languages still is
> of interest as it shows a higher closeness than
> other Nordic languages.

This would point to some cultural relationship between Goths and 
Gotlanders than to a common origin of the languages, since it is a 
borrowing from Latin.

> The Gothic word lukarn is derived from lat. lucerna "oil lamp". In 
> this case we have either a common (or parallel) borowing from Latin, 
> or a borrowing from Gothic to Gutnish (the variant 
> Latin>Gutnish>Gothic seems unconceivable to me)
> 
> 4. But Icelandic is West Germanic. What is North-East
> Germanic? Do you mean East Germanic or East
> Scandinavian?

Icelandic is NOT West Germanic. West Germanic languages are High 
German (with OHG, MHG, Modern German, Yiddish, Letzeburgish), Low 
German (with Old Saxon, MLG, Platdeutsch, Dutch-Flemish, Afrikaans), 
Frisian, English, Langobardish (the last could be also a form of OHG).
Icelandic is a NORTH Germanic (Scandinavic) language of the West 
Scandinavic branch (together with Norwegian and Faroese). North-East 
Germanic is (according to some specialists, as I showed in a previous 
message) the ancient ramification of Common Germanic opposed to West 
Germanic. This primary branch of Germanic was induced having in view 
some common innovations of East- and North Germanic (like -jj- > 
-ggj-, in Gothic -ddj-, and -ww- > -ggw-, as I already wrote in a 
previous message). Thus common North-East Germanic means something 
that is common to the North Germanic (Scandinavic) and East Germanic 
(Gothic) languages, but is not found in West Germanic.

> And in Icelandic vör = lip = Goth. wairilo. It seems that here we 

have 
> a common North-East Germanic (Gothic-Scandinavic) word.
> 
> Well, I think the suggestions of Professor Bugge
> are interesting and is a good start. There is an
> extensive material (around 2,500 words of comparative
> Old Gutnish, Gothic and Old Icelandic) to go through,
> and maybe additional investigation is needed. Neither did
> I suggest that these six examples would be conclusive.
> There is indeed no misunderstanding but on your part. If
> you study my earlier contributions in the archive you can
> see that Professor Bugge suggested further examinations
> by Swedish linguists and mentioned these 6  examples
> as an indication and possible reason for further study.
> 
> Underneath is a list of further examples by Professor Bugge.
> I am afraid there is not published etymological dictionary
> but there is in manuscript form the word list of 2,500
> words I mentioned above.
> 
> Your last statement arouses my interest. Could you please
> help me with info on these studies of Gutnish that have been
> made? 
> 
> Further examples of Professor Bugge:

Sorry, I have not my sources at hand to comment these new examples 
now, I'll try in the next days.

> 1. Gothic afswairban, Gutnish svaerva av =dry up (with a cloth),
> sweep off.
> 
> 2. Gothic rikan=pile up, heap up, Gutnish jaeul-rakae=pile of wood
> preserved to last for a longer time, tillrakae=pile of wood.
> 
> 3. Gothic *haggwan, Gutnish hagga but in Swedish hugga
> 
> 4. Gothic hauhs, m., hauha f. hauhata n., Gurnish haur m., hau f.
> and haut n.

This is another case of the preservation of the au-diphthong in both 
languages. As I already told and I will always sustain, this argument 
means nothing. Gutnish still preserved the ai and au diphthongs in the 
14th century. So what? Wulfilan Gothic has these diphthongs intact 
because it is attested from a period (4-6th centuries) when all the 
Germanic languages still preserved these diphthongs. Moreover, as I 
already told you, Gothic, in its subsequent evolution, appears, in 
opposition to Gutnish, to be not particularly conservative in respect 
to these diphthong. As it results from other contributions to the 
Gothic-L, already in Jordanes' times the Gothic language had the 
tendency to monophthongize the [au] to long [o]. We have no 
attestation of Gothic in the 14th century (contemporary to Old 
Gutnish), but the Crimean Gothic of the 16th century has "oe" instead 
of "au" (and "e" or "ie" instead of "ai").
So I will always repeat: the conservation of the Common Germanic 
diphthongs ai and au both in Gothic and Gutnish is not at all a prove 
for a closer relationship of these languages.

I maintain what I have already written: I am convinced that Gutnish is 
a North Germanic (Scandinavic) language, being closer related to the 
other North Germanic (Scandinavic) languages than to Gothic (East 
Germanic). The overall Scandinavic character of Gutnish is in my view 
uncontestable, taking into account the fact that Gutnish has all the 
definitory innovations of North Germanic that make this branch 
distinct from West Germanic and East Germanic (Gothic), like for 
instance:
- the rhotacism *z > r
- the loss of final -n after unstressed vowel: the infinitive verbal 
ending in Gutnish is -a (like in Old Norse, Icelandic, and Swedish), 
but in Wulfilan Gothic it is -an, and in Crimean: -en
- the "breaking" of e before a or u: thus, in Gutnish "earth" = iorth, 
exactly like in Old Norse, whreas in Gothic it's airtha; in Gutnish 
"star" = stiarna, and in Gothic: stairno
- the word usage is also like in other North Germanic languages, the 
most striking example being ok = "and", while in Gothic "and" = jah, 
while auk means "for, because, but, also".
etc. etc.
Of course, everybody may believe what he wants to believe. In my 
country, Romania, are some people who try to prove that the Romanian 
language is not a descendant of Latin, but rather viceversa; the Old 
Dacians already spoke Romanian from the most ancient times and the 
Latin character of Romanian is not the result of the romanization of 
the Dacians, but it is due to the fact that Latin and the language of 
Dacians (Romanian) were already closely related. Another example: some 
people of Hungary try to demonstrate that Hungarian is not of 
Finno-Ugric origin, but derives directly from Sumerian (or that 
Sumerian is in fact an ancient Hungarian dialect). Another example: 
some people of Turkey are persuaded that Turkish is not a Turkic 
language, but a descendant of Hittite. And, believe me, in all these 
cases there are also university professors involved!!
But if we want to undertake an objective, scientific examination, we 
must rely on the facts, not on what we would like to be.
And in the case of Gutnish, the facts indicate that it has all the 
definitory characters of North Germanic, and a few coincidences with 
Gothic, that can not change its North Germanic character into an East 
Germanic one. In the best case, they show some special relationship 
between a North Germanic and an East Germanic language. There are even 
more such special relationships between Gothic and OHG (especially Old 
Bavarian). But this doesn't mean that OHG or Old Bavarian is no more a 
West Germanic language, but an East Germanic one. In the case of 
Gutnish, I think that there is a Gothic substratum. In the case of Old 
Bavarian, probably after their defeat by the Bizantine some Ostogoths 
took refuge among the Old Bavarians and were assimilated. But Bavarian 
remains West Germanic, and likewise Gutnish remains North Germanic.

With best regards,

Francisc

> Bugges words in the Norwegian original: "derfor framsaetter jag 
> kun som et till svenske Sproggranskere rettet Spoergsmaal, at 
> der paa Gotland engang har vaeret talt gotisk Sprog."
> 
> This is thus only a question from Professor Bugge. You have, 
> Francisc, provided your answer. An additional answer, will, I hope, 
> be provided after an examination of a large number of words.
> 
> Professor Bugge also wrote:
> 
> Concerning vowels the Gutnish forms are in several instances
> closer to Gothic than any of the other Scandinavian languages.
> This seems not to be a coincidence. Could it maybe not be explained 
> by the development in relation to a Gothic language being spoken 

before
> the Scandinavian.
> 
> Gothically
> 
> Bertil 
> 
> 
> 
> Other list members showed that lamb = sheep appears also in other 
> North Germanic languages.
> 
> Your 6 examples are not convincing. And even if they would, 6 words 
> (or 12, or 20) can not change the overall clearly Scandinavic 
> character of Gutnish (characteristic Scandinavic phonetic 

innovations, 
> word usage like in Scandinavian languages).
> 
> I am convinced that there is a missunderstanding here.
> I am shure that Prof. Bugge does not claim that Gutnish is not 
> Scandinavian, but Gothic. 
> 
> An etymological dictionary would be very useful, that compares the 
> Guntish words not only with Gothic, but also with Old Norse, (Old) 
> Swedish and (Old) Danish.
> 
>  Other people cleverer than me have done the work, and the result is 
> that the general opinion among the specialists is that Old Gutnish 

is 
> an East Scandinavic language, like Swedish and Danish.



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