Comparing languages. Examples [gothic-l]

[cstrohmier at YAHOO.COM]

Hi Francisc,
	Thank you for all of the information.  I interspersed some 
thoughts to what you said in your letter below, and added some more 
at the end.
Cory

On Fri, 27 Jul 2001 12:58:38 -0000 cstrohmier at yahoo.com writes:
> --- In gothic-l at y..., "Francisc Czobor" <czobor at c...> wrote:
> Hi Cory,
> 
> --- In gothic-l at y..., cstrohmier at y... wrote:
> > Hi Francisc,
> > 	Concerning the word "attila", if I remember correctly, it 
> is 
> > unattested in Gothic:
> 
> Indeed, it is unattested in the surviving Gothic texts, but the 
> diminutive of atta "father" in Gothic could be only "attila", since 
> "-ila" is the regular diminutive suffix in Gothic.

Yes, that is true.

> 
>   In other words, we don't know for sure what 
> > the Goths called Attila the Hun.  Since the word Etzel (Attila) 
is 
> 
> > attested in Middle High German, perhaps the word is of Old High 
> > German origin, or as I said before, a shared word.
> 
> But his name was attested also by contemporary sources, in the 
forms 
> 
> Attila or Athila. At that time (5th century) it's hard to speak 
> about 
> Old High German, in the best case what the German linguists are 
> calling "Voralthochdeutsch". In several sources I read this 
> interpretation, that Attila means "little father" in Gothic, with 
> two 
> explanations:
> - this was the nickname given to the Hunish king by his East 
> Germanic 
> subjects;
> - this was the Gothicization of the real name of the Hunish king.
>  

Yes, that sounds reasonable to me.

> > ... 
> > 	It is an unproven assumption that all of the words and 
> > structures common to Gothic and Old Bavarian are Gothic loans to 
> Old 
> > Bavarian.  
> 
> It is not my assumption, I found it in all the sources that are 
> discussing this subject, for instance:
> [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 - He
rkunftswörterbuch 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

I'll take your word for it.  (My sources say the same.)

> 
> Old High German, especially Old Bavarian, and Gothic not 
> > only share a number of general vocabulary words, they also share 
> some 
> > unique structure words, such as pronouns (which are rarely 
> borrowed) 
> > and some inflectional endings; these unique sharings are 
connected 
> 
> to 
> > the very structure of the language, and are shared with no other 
> > Germanic language.  I would add that there are many other general 
> > vocabulary words, structure words, and inflections of Old High 
> > German, especially Old Bavarian, which are very near or identical 
> to 
> > Gothic, but which are not considered as a sign of special 
> > relationship, since they are also shared with many other Germanic 
> > tongues.  This may be necessary from a scholarly point of view, 
> but 
> > it is also misleading.
> 
> This fact could be explained also by the assimilation of Goths by 
> the 
> ancestors of Bavarians, the Bavarian dialect of OHG having thus in 
> part a Gothic substratum.

I hope to take up this point in another posting.

> Nevertheless, OHG, including Old Bavarian, remains a West Germanic 
> language, being separated from Gothic by major definitory 
> characteristics shared with other West Germanic languages, and some 
> of 
> them also with the North Germanic languages, as for instance:
> - the rhotacism Gmc. z > r; in Gothic z is preserved or changed in 
> s.
> - the shift of IE and Gmc e: > a:; in Gothic the IE/Gmc long e is 
> preserved.
> - the loss of "-ð-" in Gmc. *feðwo:r/*feður- "four". Only
in Gothic 
> it 
> is preserved: Wulfilan fidwor/fidur-, Crimean fyder. All the West 
> and 
> North Germanic languages have lost it: OHG fior, Germ.&Dutch vier, 
> W.Fris. fjouwer, N.Fris. sjauer, OE feower, Eng. four, ON
fiórer, 
> Icel. fjórir/fjórar/fjögur, Norw.&Danish fire, Swedish
fyra, 
Gutnish 
> 
> fiaurum/fiugur.
> These two phonetic features are in my view major differentiating 
> criteria, creating a gap between Gothic (East Germanic in general), 
> on 
> one side, and West and North Germanic, on the other side, so that 
> even 
> languages like Old Bavarian and Old Gutnish, that appear to have 
> some 
> special relationship with Gothic, can not be considered as East 
> Germanic languages or descendants of Gothic.
> 
> Francisc
> --- End forwarded message ---
> 
> 
Your points concerning the commonality of certain traits among 
the "West Germanic" tongues to the exclusion of North and East 
Germanic and the commonality of certain traits among "West Germanic" 
and North Germanic to the exclusion of East Germanic are good and 
valid points.  I suppose my question would be:  How and when did 
these characteristics become a part of Southern German?  There are 
various theories that attempt to answer these questions, but they all 
seem rather tenative and uncertain.  I would like to add some 
tenative and uncertain thoughts of my own.
	The characteristics which you mentioned are present in Old 
Saxon:  Old Saxon has the characteristics which "West Germanic" 
shares exclusively with other "West Germanic" tongues; Old Saxon has 
the characteristics "West Germanic" shares exclusively with "North 
Germanic".  When Kaiser Karl der Grosse pacified the Old Saxons, he 
deported large numbers of them south to other parts of his kingdom.  
If those Old Saxons were settled throughout southern Germany, this 
could account for how the exclusively "West Germanic" traits and the 
exclusively "West" and North Germanic traits became present in 
Southern German.
	Is there any historical evidence that might support this 
conclusion?  That Kaiser Karl der Grosse deported a large number of 
Old Saxons to other parts of his kingdom is a well-known historical 
fact.  (I would add that the Franks and the Saxons had a long history 
of clashing; it is not unreasonable to suspect that groups of 
captives from earlier skirmishes [even under earlier rulers] may have 
also been deported south.)  That Das Nibelungenlied contains a 
curious mix of Southern German and Saxon is a well-known literary 
fact.  I believe there are also traces of Saxon in the Old 
Bavarian "Das Wessobrunner Gebet" and in the church vocabulary of 
Southern German.
	I don't know what the population of Southern Germany was at 
the time of Karl der Grosse, but I have an estimate that before the 
Thirty Years War, the population of all of Germany was 18 million. 
(At the end of the war, it was reduced by 2/3 to 6 million.)  In the 
time of Karl der Grosse, the population was probably even smaller.  
This, together with the Kaiser's education program, suggests to me 
that Southern Germany at that time was somewhat sparsely settled and 
mostly uneducated outside of the monasteries.  Without schools, 
literature, dictionaries, and grammars, a sudden influx of Old Saxons 
thinly spread throughout Southern Germany may have rather quickly 
caused Old Saxon characteristics to have spread throughout Southern 
German.
	If this idea has any merit, it would remove Southern German 
from the "West Germanic" family, and it would put it very close 
indeed to East Germanic.

--- In gothic-l at y..., "Francisc Czobor" <czobor at c...> wrote:
> Hi Cory,
> 
> --- In gothic-l at y..., cstrohmier at y... wrote:
> > Hi Francisc,
> > 	Concerning the word "attila", if I remember correctly, it is 
> > unattested in Gothic:
> 
> Indeed, it is unattested in the surviving Gothic texts, but the 
> diminutive of atta "father" in Gothic could be only "attila", since 
> "-ila" is the regular diminutive suffix in Gothic.
> 
>   In other words, we don't know for sure what 
> > the Goths called Attila the Hun.  Since the word Etzel (Attila) 
is 
> > attested in Middle High German, perhaps the word is of Old High 
> > German origin, or as I said before, a shared word.
> 
> But his name was attested also by contemporary sources, in the 
forms 
> Attila or Athila. At that time (5th century) it's hard to speak 
about 
> Old High German, in the best case what the German linguists are 
> calling "Voralthochdeutsch". In several sources I read this 
> interpretation, that Attila means "little father" in Gothic, with 
two 
> explanations:
> - this was the nickname given to the Hunish king by his East 
Germanic 
> subjects;
> - this was the Gothicization of the real name of the Hunish king.
>  
> > ... 
> > 	It is an unproven assumption that all of the words and 
> > structures common to Gothic and Old Bavarian are Gothic loans to 
Old 
> > Bavarian.  
> 
> It is not my assumption, I found it in all the sources that are 
> discussing this subject, for instance:
> [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 - He
rkunftswörterbuch 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
> 
> Old High German, especially Old Bavarian, and Gothic not 
> > only share a number of general vocabulary words, they also share 
> some 
> > unique structure words, such as pronouns (which are rarely 
borrowed) 
> > and some inflectional endings; these unique sharings are 
connected 
> to 
> > the very structure of the language, and are shared with no other 
> > Germanic language.  I would add that there are many other general 
> > vocabulary words, structure words, and inflections of Old High 
> > German, especially Old Bavarian, which are very near or identical 
to 
> > Gothic, but which are not considered as a sign of special 
> > relationship, since they are also shared with many other Germanic 
> > tongues.  This may be necessary from a scholarly point of view, 
but 
> > it is also misleading.
> 
> This fact could be explained also by the assimilation of Goths by 
the 
> ancestors of Bavarians, the Bavarian dialect of OHG having thus in 
> part a Gothic substratum.
> Nevertheless, OHG, including Old Bavarian, remains a West Germanic 
> language, being separated from Gothic by major definitory 
> characteristics shared with other West Germanic languages, and some 
of 
> them also with the North Germanic languages, as for instance:
> - the rhotacism Gmc. z > r; in Gothic z is preserved or changed in 
s.
> - the shift of IE and Gmc e: > a:; in Gothic the IE/Gmc long e is 
> preserved.
> - the loss of "-ð-" in Gmc. *feðwo:r/*feður- "four". Only
in Gothic 
it 
> is preserved: Wulfilan fidwor/fidur-, Crimean fyder. All the West 
and 
> North Germanic languages have lost it: OHG fior, Germ.&Dutch vier, 
> W.Fris. fjouwer, N.Fris. sjauer, OE feower, Eng. four, ON
fiórer, 
> Icel. fjórir/fjórar/fjögur, Norw.&Danish fire, Swedish
fyra, 
Gutnish 
> fiaurum/fiugur.
> These two phonetic features are in my view major differentiating 
> criteria, creating a gap between Gothic (East Germanic in general), 
on 
> one side, and West and North Germanic, on the other side, so that 
even 
> languages like Old Bavarian and Old Gutnish, that appear to have 
some 
> special relationship with Gothic, can not be considered as East 
> Germanic languages or descendants of Gothic.
> 
> Francisc


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