[gothic-l] Re: du usfilhan ana gastim

Fri Nov 12 08:07:43 UTC 2004

Hi Sigi,

And thanks for your suggestions!

> As far 
> as I know, there is no single verb in the Gothic Bible for the 
> (jewish?) custom of stoning someone; rather, it is translated 
> by "throwing stones *ana* someone".

At 2Cor 11,25 eliqasqhn = stainiths was "I was stoned".  Another 
alternative, with a nominal compliment, but no preposition J 11,8: 
sokidedun thuk afwairpan stainam "sought to stone thee" 
(instrumental dat.)

I see that all the examples you give, of throwing something at 
someone, have ANA +acc.  I wonder if there are any dative examples?  
With verbs of "going", as you know, the opposition with ANA and IN 
is:

+acc. = direction
+dat. = position, direction

Acc. is maybe twice as commonly used for direction?  The situation 
is similar with IN, with acc. possibly 3 times as common for 
direction -- but this difference in proportion might not be 
significant: I only counted a small sample.  UF and UNDAR might 
behave in a similar way, but I think there's only one example each 
of acc. (direction) & dat. (position) with UF.  And one acc. 
(direction) with UNDAR.  So this is more of an inference.

But both acc. & dat. are used with ANA for things falling or thrown 
onto the ground, or "descending onto":

1) Mk 11,8 wastjom seinaim strawidedun ana wiga "they strewed their 
clothes on the road"

2) Mat 5,45 jah rigneith ana garaihtans jah inwidans "it rains on 
the just and the unjust"

So maybe ANA +dat. could theoretically be used as well as ANA +acc. 
for missiles, etc. striking a non horizontal object.  Or maybe not, 
I don't know...  Acc. seems to be more common, anyway.

3) L 1,35 ahma weihs atgaggith ana thuk "the Holy Spirit shall come 
upon you"

4) J 7,39 ni nauhthanuh was ahma sa weiha ana im "the Holy Spirit 
was not yet upon them"

Metaphorical uses continue the pattern, with acc. where the image is 
of a horizontal trajectory "at, against", and dat. for things 
falling "onto, on top of": gadriusan ana +dat. (R 11,22), afhrisjan 
ana +acc. (L 9,5), (faur)sniwan ana +acc. (1Thess 2,16; 1Tim 1,8), 
weitwodjan ana +acc.(J 27, 13), ushof fairzna ana mik (J 13,18).  Do 
you know any exceptions?

> So, my guess is that "usfilhan ana gastim" means: "to be buried 
> towards/near/at the foreigners", expressing negative connotations 
of 
> the burial location (perhaps something like "they threw his body 
in 
> the ground where they bury the foreigners, a grave unfit for a 
jew").

To recap: the priests are talking not about where to bury Judas, who 
has only just gone off to hang himself, but what to do with the 
field.  But yes I guess it could be "they got rid of the field and 
threw it (metaphorically) at the foreigners for them to use for 
their burials."  Right, I'll try to paraphrase the suggestions so 
far:

1) to be buried in, by foreigners (Terry)
2) ? to bury ... foreigners (Durante)
3) for burials among the foreign community (Llama)
4) at the foreigners, for their burials (Sigi)

Appologies to everyone who's ideas I may have garbled here!  In 
defense of Terry's suggestion, we should probably bear in mind that 
the natural word order may be distorted (or unexpectedly natural), 
and that an adverbial ANA wouldn't sound so strange if it read: 
gastim du anafilhan -- apart from the fact that this would mean 
something quite different "to commend to foreigners".  Actually, 
come to think of it, that might be a good reason *not* to think of 
it as adverbial in this instance, quite apart from the lack of other 
examples of it appearing as a separable adverb.

I wonder what the force of the Greek dative is here (tois cenois).  
English translations suggest "for foreigners", which would make me 
expect a Gothic preposition like FAUR (cf. 1Cor 5,7, etc.) or AT 
(cf. Mk 3,9; J 14,23; N 5,15).

In defense of ANA = "among", cf. 2Cor 7,7 and Calendar 10,23 & 29.  
Although I'm not sure to what extent _ana guttthiudai_ would 
mean "among the Goths", or "in the land of the Goths".

Llama Nom

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Sigi Vandewinkel" 
<sigivandewinkel at y...> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi all, 
> 
> A few years ago I have written an MA thesis on Gothic 
prepositions, 
> and here's what I've been able to come up with on "usfilhan ana 
> gastim". To my knowledge, there is no instance of "ana" being used 
as 
> an adverb. If "ana" in Mt. 27:7 indeed is a preposition (and not 
an 
> adverb), perhaps it is related to instances such as the following:
>  
> 1) ik jah atta meins ain siju. nemun aftra stainans þai Iudaieis,
> ei 
> waurpeina ana ina (Jn 10:31).
> "'I and my father are one.' The jews again took stones, so they 
[the 
> stones] would be thrown at Him"
> 
> 2) jah dugunnun sumai speiwan ana wlit is jah huljan andwairþi
> isjah 
> kaupatjan ina [...](Mk 14:65).
> "And some started to spit on His face and hid His face and beat 
Him 
> [...]"
> 
> 3) [...] jah gasmait imma ana augona þata fani þamma blindin
> (Jn 
> 9:6). 
> [...] and He smeared him, the blind one, on the eyes that mud." 
> 
> "ana" in these instances involves an object moving towards and 
making 
> contact with another object. That contact usually is unpleasant 
> (throwing stones, spitting at someone -- perhaps even smearing 
saliva 
> and sand on someone's face, before you know it's beneficial). As 
far 
> as I know, there is no single verb in the Gothic Bible for the 
> (jewish?) custom of stoning someone; rather, it is translated 
> by "trowing stones *ana* someone". I think the difference 
> between "ana" here and regular Gothic prepositions expressing the 
> notion "towards" ("du" and "at") is that "du" and "at" do not 
involve 
> contact. 
> 
> As for the dative case: "ana" can take both the accusative and the 
> dative case, and it is one of the few prepositions (four?) where 
an 
> opposition accusative-dative corresponds to an opposition dynamic-
> static (as is the case on a much larger scale in present-day 
German). 
> 
> So, my guess is that "usfilhan ana gastim" means: "to be buried 
> towards/near/at the foreigners", expressing negative connotations 
of 
> the burial location (perhaps something like "they threw his body 
in 
> the ground where they bury the foreigners, a grave unfit for a 
jew"). 
> I like to think this instance of "ana" is similar to English "at", 
as 
> in "bark/yell/spit at someone" (all unpleasant actions), which can 
be 
> extended to "she'll sing at me", or "she'll read poetry at me". 
> 
> Is this any help?
> 
> Sigi Vandewinkel

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