[gothic-l] Re: Gothic & Greek B in Slabonic

Wed Aug 25 16:06:48 UTC 2004

Hi Vladimir!

Ah, so the appearance of /b/ in korabl' isn't necessarly evidence in 
itself for an early borrowing.  Thanks for the extra background 
details.

I guess even if we could pin down the pronunciation of Gothic at 
any one time, that still leaves a wide area in space and time where 
the exact value is unknown. In Primitive Germanic, it is thought 
that there was originally no voiced bilabial stop except after /m/. 
Elsewhere there was only a fricative /b/, which eventually became a 
stop initially in all of the historically attested Germanic 
languages, including Gothic. Medially and finally it remained a 
fricative in OE, OS, ON, but became a stop in OHG. In Gothic, 
was used to transliterate a fricative in the name of the Roman month 
November, Got. Naubaimber.

The alternation of : <f> in inflection also implies that at some 
time at least stood for a fricative.

Latin writers spelt Gothic as initially. Medially, they 
normally used <v> (Braune/Helm, Gotische Grammatik, 54). After /l/ 
and /r/ Gothic is usually considered to represent a stop, since 
it isn't devoiced to <f> at the end of a word. Against this is the 
personal name Silva, but the spelling of this particular name was 
probably influenced by the Latin word.

It has also been suggested that Greek Paulos retained a fricative 
pronunciation in Gothic Pawlus, giving rise eventually to Spanish 
Pablo (Braune/Helm, Gotische Grammatik, 39.1) - maybe with an 
intermediate stop stage between Gothic & Modern Spanish?

Occasionally final <f> (representing an earlier /b/) appears written 
as , especially in Luke and certain other parts of the Bible. But 
I'm not sure whether this was just a spelling difference, or if the 
analogy extended to speech.

Finnish laipa might have come from Germanic or Old Norse: 
hlaibaz/hlaibaR. The modern Russian, etc. pronunciation _hlep_ is a 
later development, isn't it? It has in Old Bulgarian.

My thought was that to speakers of a language which has a labio-
dental fricative /v/ and a bilabial stop /b/, hearing words of 
another language with a voiced bilabial fricative, it isn't a 
foregone conclusion that they would interpret this as closer to /v/. 
For example, the Spanish , <v> which has very little friction 
sounds to me more like English /b/ than /v/. Maybe that's why Gothic 
hlaib- appears in Russian as hl'eb. The common omission of medial 
<g> in Gothic names by Latin writers makes me think that maybe this 
too had a fairly gentle pronunciation, more like Spanish <g> than say 
Dutch.

Maybe the writers of Old Bulgarian who prefered <v> to transcribe the 
Greek beta, were following in a tradition themselves, as the later 
Russian writers were - imitating each other. But an adhoc oral 
loanword might involve a more arbitrary choice of nearest equivalent 
sound. Or maybe the Greek sound had become closer to OB /v/ at this 
time?

Llama Nom

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, åÇÏÒÏ× ÷ÌÁÄÉÍÉÒ <vegorov at i...> wrote:
> ***<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-
com:office:office" />
> 
>  
> 
> Hi Llama nom!
> 
>  
> 
> Having nothing to add to the matter in question, I'd like to 
discuss some 
> your postulates regarding Greek and Gothic influences on Slavonic.
> 
> Pronunciation of the Greek Beta as _v_ in Russian loanwords from 
Greek 
> is usual but not absolutely obligatory. Note that Old Russian 
borrowed 
> most of Greek words in a written form (from ecclesiastic 
literature, 
> hence not earlier than in the XI c.). No matter, which way the real 
Middle 
> (Byzantine) Greeks pronounced the Beta in the XI c., Russian monks 
never 
> heard Greek enunciation and translated solely manuscripts. From 
this standpoint, 
> the Beta might be translated (black and white) as _b_ or _v_ 
depending on 
> preferences of a particular translator. Predominance of the variant 
_v_ 
> is explained only by the fact that many Greek texts, especially 
within the initial 
> period after the Christening, came to Russia through Bulgaria 
already translated 
> into Old Bulgarian (Old Slavonic) where the Bulgarians, well 
acquainted 
> with the Greek culture and language, used to put the Slavonic V-
equivalent 
> instead of the Beta. Nevertheless, there are a few modern Russian 
loanwords 
> from Greek with _b_ in place of the Greek Beta. Besides the 
mentioned 
> <korabl'> I'd point out the word <bibliya> 'the Bible' that 
preserved 
> both _b_ of the Greek original. Maybe we have here an example of 
> a "holding action" of the _l_ after the Beta?
> 
> Now we touch "the presumed fricative Gothic b/f > b in loanwords to 
Slavonic". 
> You know, the stem of the Gothic word <hlaifs> was <hlaib> (cf. G. 
<hlaibis>), 
> but "quality" of this _b_ is under question. I do not know how 
exact is reflection 
> of the sound in a conventional writing _b_. At least the modern 
Russians 
> pronounce <hlep> while the modern Finns pronounce <laipa>, both 
with _p_ 
> in place of the Gothic _b/f_.
> 
>  
> 
> Regards
> 
> Vladimir
> 
>  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: llama_nom [mailto:penterakt at f...]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 1:32 PM
> To: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [gothic-l] Re: Goths and Vandals
> 
> 
> 
> Hi Jim,
> 
> There are some early Greek loanwords in Slavonic, for example 
Russian 
> KORABL' < Gk. karabi(on), a sort of boat.  According to Entwhistle 
& 
> Morison's "Russian & the Slavonic Languages" this must have been 
> borrowed before the Greek Beta became a fricative, because later 
> borrowings have _v_.  Do you know when that happened?  Wright, and 
> Streitberg I think, both say that it was before the time of the 
> Gothic Bible, but I don't know how long before.  (The same word was 
> borrowed later into Norse, giving Old Icelandic KARFI).  On the 
other 
> hand, the presumed fricative Gothic b/f > b in loanwords to 
Slavonic 
> (e.g. chl'eb < hlaifs...
> 
> Maybe a bilabial fricative sounded closer to B than to V in 
Slavonic 
> ears.  I've always assumed that Greek B went through a bilabial 
stage 
> on its way to the modern V sound, but I don't know about the timing 
> of any of this.
> 
> Another Greek loan to Slavonic, OB. kopije 'spear' < Gk. 
> koopion 'haft', is said to have been transmitted via the Germans (?
> Goths).
> 
> Given such words, maybe we shouldn't read too much into Priscus's 
> comment beyond the immediate situation at Attila's court, or maybe 
it 
> didn't apply at an earlier time.  If it was true though, the 
> following article might explain it:
> 
> http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art198e.pdf
> 
> Here Frederik Kortlandt argues that the Goths migrated not directly 
> from the Vistula to the Ukraine, but along a more westerly route, 
> along the Danube.  This, he says, explains certain Latin & Celtic 
> influences on Gothic.  I'm a bit wary of some of his conclusions 
> though.  He seems very definite about certain things, and doesn't 
> mention alternate explanations, e.g.:
> 
> "The words Kreks `Greek' and dat. pl. marikreitum `pearls' also 
> betray the influence of an Upper German dialect without voiced 
> obstruents (cf. Kortlandt 1988: 9)."
> 
> Usually Got. Kreks, OE. crecas, etc. are explained as an earlier 
> borrowing, with K for G due to the lack of voiced stops in 
Germanic.  
> Kortlandt's idea assumes a very early date for this distinctively 
> Upper German consonant shift, pre 350!  Also, that the Germanic 
> tribes had no established name for Greeks before this time.
> 
> "Gothic phonology resembles that of Latin and Romance more than 
that 
> of the other Germanic languages" - is a curious statement.  I 
wonder 
> what exactly he has in mind here.  The other Germanic languages are 
> only recorded extensively in much later forms.  In the mid fourth 
> century the runic evidence suggests that they were much closer to 
> Gothic, with a simpler set of phonemes.
> 
> That said, I don't know enough to comment on the overall 
hypothesis.  
> Maybe there is something in it.
> 
> "It seems to me that gen. pl. skaurpjono `scorpions' almost 
suffices 
> to show that the Goths entered the Balkans from the west, not from 
> the north."
> 
> Almost suffices, I don't know, but Gk. skorpios (accute accent on 
i) 
> versus Lat. scorpio, does suggest that the Goths took the word from 
> Latin rather than Greek.  Another reason for the Latin influence 
> might be the prevelance of Latin in the military, even in the 
East.  
> I'm not sure of dates or sources for this, but I've read that Latin 
> persisted longest in the Eastern Empire as the official language of 
> the army.
> 
> Llama Nom
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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