[gothic-l] Re: GUTANI WIHAILAG

[Francisc Czobor]

Hello, Ravi

As I have shown in my previous message, there was a graphic 
transformation, not a phonetic transformation, of T in TH.
In mediaeval Latin texts, they used to write TH instead of T, 
especially when spelling non-Latin words, but that "TH" was read [t].
To remain in the field of words of Gothic origin, we have "Goti" 
and "Gothi", "Tervingi" and "Thervingi", "Attila" and "Athila" etc.
In all these examples, it is clear that the sound was [t], and 
the "H" was added to make the word look more "exotic".
In conclusion, Latin had both "Goti" and "Gothi". The form "Goti" was 
the original one, whereas "Gothi" was only a spelling variation 
of "Goti". It happened that Modern English retained the form 
with "h", but in English "th" is pronounced differently than "t".
As I wrote in my previous message, in many languages the form 
without "h" is used, for instance:
German: Gote, pl. Goten, adj. gotisch
Old Norse: Gotar (pl.)
Hungarian: gót, pl. gótok
Romanian: got, pl. got,i, adj. gotic
Russian: got, pl. goty, adj. goticheski
In Spanish "godo" the word was popular, not scholar (as in most other 
languages), so it suffered the transformation of intervocalic [t] 
into [d], like all Spanish words inherited from Latin.
On the other hand, the French language had the form with "h", as 
in "gothique" (adj.), but here "th" is pronounced [t].
So the transformation "t" > "th" in English "Goth" occured in Latin 
(or in Greek) and has no special significance. Not at all.

Francisc


--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Ravi Chaudhary" 
<ravichaudhary2000 at y...> wrote:
> 
> 
> Thanks it was the  use of the H that was of interest, and the  Th 
> sound not  the T sound, that is got transformed from.
> 
> 
> That makes sense to me,
> 
>  Is this kind of transformation common?
>  
> Are therE other examples ? 
> 
> Ravi
> 
> 



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