The Gothic Language of the Codex Argentus

[llama_nom]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "aldhissla" <joakim_Tho at h...> wrote:

> That makes we wonder, does the language of Wulfila differ much from
> the 
> language used by the Goths in the 6th century? Are there any texts 
> reflecting the language of a 6th century Goth left? I can believe 
the 
> vocabulary must have been coloured by Vulgar Latin, and perhaps a 
> decline of grammatical inflections, also I read something about a 
> posssible loss of diphtongs.

If you find out any good arguments relating to diphthongs, let me 
know!  There are some deeds from 6th c. Italy which show loss of the 
nominative ending -s after in several male personal names: Gudilub, 
Ufitahari, Wiljariþ.  Note also the parasitic vowel -i- in UFITA-
hari.  Sunjaifriþas keeps it´s ending, but seems to show a loss in 
distinction of unstressed vowels.  In classical Gothic, we´d expect 
*Sunjafriþus.  Similarly with a name in the calendar fragment, spelt 
bizarrely Friþareikeikeis (probably an extra -kei- due to a scribal 
slip).  A such a name would normally be reconstructed *Friþureiks.

But apart from this, the language of the deeds looks very much like 
Biblical Gothic.  The masculine noun BOKAREIS "scribe" keeps its 
nominative singular ending.  The dative plural of *gahlaibam appears 
in the Naples deed four times as <gahlaibaim> and once as 
<gahlaibim>.

The following comments refer to the various bible manuscripts, 
including the Codex Argenteus.

Probably the most obvious change after Wulfila's time is the loss in 
destinction between the mid-high front vowel /e:/ and the high front 
vowel /i:/, so that there is a lot of confusion between the 
spellings <ei> and <e>.  More so in in certain sections of the Bible 
than others.  But such confusion appears earlier in Latin 
transcriptions of Gothic names, and it's not clear whether this 
represents a general change since Wulfila's time, or a dialectal 
difference.

The spelling of the biblical name Mambres as <Mamres> implies that 
the sequence <mr> had become /mbr/ in native words, as do a few 
instances of <timbrjan> in place of the usual <timrjan>.

Final -f and -þ are occasionally spelt -b and -d in words where -b 
and -d would regularly appear with the addition of inflections.  
This is more prevelant in some parts of the Bible than others.  
There have been theories about the phonetic grounds for this, e.g. 
more likely after an unstressed syllable, or a long stressed one.  
I´m not sure if the statistics are significant, or whether this 
could be due to analogical spellings.  The sequence -bs or -þs at 
the end of words might suggest that it´s just orthographical.  Don´t 
know.

The ending -ands often loses its -d- in Codex Ambrosianus B.  
Sometimes hypercorrect spellings of <ands> for historical -ans 
appear, suggesting that this was a genuine phonetic development.  
The -d- is only lost once in Codex Ambrosianus A.

The confusing of inflections I can think of is the mixing up of -au 
and -u sometimes in the dative and accusative singular of u-stem 
nouns.  And the plural verb endings are sometimes used in place of 
the dual.

Since the texts are mostly copies of an earlier bible translation, 
it's impossible to say much about changes in vocabulary.  There are 
a handful of marginal glosses, presumably of words that had become 
obscure.  But these gloss one native Gothic word or expression with 
another.  I'm not aware of any Latin borrowings in the glosses.  The 
Gothic sections of deeds of Naples and Arezzo contain respectively: 
<kawstjon>, and <unkjane> respectively.  Naples also has the title 
<diakona> or <diakuna> (dative sg.) "deacon".

Llama Nom





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