[gothic-l] Re: Vladimir

Mon Sep 15 07:36:32 UTC 2003

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Hi David!

I was referring to neither specifically 
German nor particularly Finnish. 
I only tried to arouse a doubt in 
the general assurance that Gothic had not 
been featured by any umlauts. My doubts 
were stimulated by some observations on 
cognates between Gothic and Old Russian. 
For instance, the Old Russian cognate for 
Gothic "Airils" is [jarilo]. Should "ai" 
be here pronounced as [e], the Russian 
version would be [(j)erilo]. Though, in 
case of the pronunciation [aj], I realize 
a probability of a metathesis 
[ajrilo]-[jarilo], which would explain 
the Russian cognate without the a-umlaut.

To continue discussion on the alternative 
[e] / [aj]. Francisc Czobor has noticed 
absolutely true the Russian cognate to 
Gothic "hlaifs" as [hleb] indicating 
replacement "ai">[e]. But I’d like to add 
the Finnish cognate “läipä” indicating 
preservation of [aj].

Thus, I do not suggest a revision of 
the Gothic phonetics and grammar having 
offered solely not to isolate ourselves 
in Wulfila’s shackles and always to hold
ourselves in readiness to break them...

Also, I’d like to express a personal 
gratitude to you, David, for a remarkable 
Franconian stem "terwa" for fidelity. 
You give a new impulse to my concoctions 
on etymologizing the Greutungi / Tervingi.

Thank you and

best regards

Vladimir

-----Original Message-----
From: David Kiltz [mailto:dkiltz at gmx.net]
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 11:26 AM
To: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [gothic-l] Re: Vladimir

On Dienstag, August 26, 2003, at 04:53  Uhr, ?????? ???????? wrote:

Before I comment on the following I would like to introduce myself as 
this is my first post to the list. My name is David Kiltz, I live in 
M?nster Germany.
I've studied Historical Linguistics ('Indogermanistik') -inter alia- 
and am involved with it.
Gothic being the most archaic and at any rate a very intriguing 
Germanic language, I subscribed to this list. Of course, the history of 
the this far-travelled people is also fascinating. I'm looking forward 
to an interesting membership.

> I did not contest the Germanic ending in ¦Tervingi¦.
> I only admitted that a Germanic word might have some
> (foreign¦ origin because your metathesis
>
> terv- = *ta?rw- < *tirw- ~ triu, triw-.

As Francisc Czobor already noted, this kind of metathesis is nothing 
unusual.
To give you but one example: The OHG word for 'fidelity' normally shows 
up as _triuwa/treuwa_ (whence NHG 'Treue'). However in the Parisian 
Converstion Book (Pariser Gespr?che) it always shows up as 
_terwe/terwa_. So, apparently, metathesis could quickly occur in one 
dialect (Franconian).
>
> does not look convincing. Also, I do not understand
> the statement that the Gothic language did not have
> umlauts. Why such an exclusion among other Germanic
> languages? Who did ever hear the Gothic enunciation?
> If Ulfila had not contrived special letters for umlauts
> this fact does not mean the umlauts did not exist in
> Gothic. For example, I suppose Gothic ¦ai¦ sounded ¦?¦
> (a-umlaut) rather than ¦e.

1) Why not ? Umlaut in the Germanic languages in not a homogenous 
process. While it can be argued that, e.g. some sort of anticipatory 
umlaut was present it would still have been subphonemic since Wulfila 
didn't mark it.

I don't understand your remark on ? vs e. Their respective 
pronunciation in what language are you referring to ? /e/ can have many 
qualities. While _ai_ by all probability was an open /e/ that has, of 
course, nothing to do with umlaut. _?_ is just a graphic convention. 
Indeed, in German _?_ is used pretty unhistorically. Namely where 
-perchance- a word form containing an _a_ survived or was formed. E.g. 
in German _senken_ 'to sink, tr.'' and _tr?nken_ 'to let drink' both 
_e_ and _?_ are pronounced exactly the same and are, indeed, of the 
same origin (namely _a_ palatalised). Cf Gothic _sagkjan_ and 
_dragkjan_. The _?_ is only there because there happens to be a word 
_Trank_ 'drink'. _?_ in open syllable is pronounced more open than _e_. 
Perhaps you were referring to _e vs ?_ in Finnish ?

David

Forms can be found, e.g. in:
R. Sch?tzeichel: Althochdeutsches W?rterbuch
Braune/Ebbinghaus: Althochdeutsches Lesebuch,
+ any Gothic dictionary, as you'll know.

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