[gothic-l] The Language of the Goths

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Well, if Bertil does not care about the truth, as Dirk recently
said, then Dirk himself clearly doesn't care about giving
correct quotes. In fact, I just read the Brockhaus entry about
the Goths, and it clearly says that :

"nach der Einwanderung von «Traditionskernen» (unter andere
Königsdynastie) aus Skandinavien, kam es um Christi Geburt
in Ostpommern und an der unteren Weichsel....."


>> in a clearly defined and identified area of northern Poland and
>> nowhere else. BTW, even the latest Brockhaus entry on the Goths has
>> now abandoned the old thesis of a Scandinavian origin of the Goths.
>>
>> Dirk

So Brockhaus does not abandon the old thesis of Scandinavian origin,
it only modifies it, by stressing the "agglutination" of other (unspecified)
ethnic groups.

Whether such agglutination, as, according to Brockhaus, evident
in archaeological findings, is mostly an agglutination of material
objects, or whether it is actually constitutes a major change in the
Gothic genetic stock, Brockhaus does not say; and I suppose they cannot
say anything about it, because it isn't known. Hence we are left with
a case of mere supposition, and an evaluation of likelihoods or
probabilities by professors who are probably experts in any field
except statistics - which would be the relevant field of expertise
for such judgements.

  
>
>Where does the linguistic evidence fall in this regard. Is there a heavy
>Gothic influence on Polish -- or are you dealing with "German" areas of
>Poland -- how about gothic influence on Old Prussian -- or does your
>theory force one to reconsider whether the Gothic Language was actually
>spoken by the "Goths"?

I think Carey has a very good point here, that the "genetic agglutination"
must have been below a certain critical threshold, since they were able
to preserve a clearly germanic language over a period of 5 centuries.

When two or more different peoples merge, then it can often happen
that the merged group adopts one single language for the whole group,
as is, for example happening in Europe, where English is now in the
process of taking over. (Otherwise some Swedes, Danes, Norwegians,
Germans and Austrians wouldn't have been carrying on internet discussions
in English)  But whether that will prove an easy process to finish,
and how long it will take is difficult to say. It is different in America,
because the immigrants there are from so many differennt countries,
and therefore English is the only option.

Here I had the example of Iceland in mind, where people have
pointed out some Irish personal names, due to what must have
been a relatively large section of the population from the
British isles. (I refer to posts by Einar Birg on [Germanic-L])

Is there a similar acgglutination of non-gothic names taking
place in the case of the Goths?

Anyway, Brockhaus quotes but one source on the Goths, and it
is Wolfram's book that they quote. Clearly the Brockhaus
editors have gotten someone to take a look at Wolfram's book
and then write the article in question.

Best regards
Keth





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