[gothic-l] Re: Intelligibility

[llama_nom]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, macmaster at r... wrote:

> Speaking of intelligibility, does anyone have an idea of how easy 
it would
> have been for a monoglot Visigoth in c.500 to understand a 
monoglot Frank,
> Saxon, or Vandal?
> Also, would the Wulfilan Bible have been readily understood by
> contemporary non-Goths (again, Vandals, Burgundians, Lombards, 
Franks,
> Saxons, etc)?
> 
> Or were the differences between the Germanic dialects already a 
barrier to
> ready communication?

This is an interesting question, but hard to answer because of the 
scantness of evidence.  One test might be to compare the Old High 
German translation of Tatien's Gospel Harmony (East Franconian, 
early 9th c.) with the various Gothic remains 4th-6th c.  Another 
point of comparison is the early continental Germanic runic 
inscriptions, contemporary with the Gothic manuscripts.

http://users.belgacom.net/chardic/html/tatien.html
http://www.ub.rug.nl/eldoc/dis/arts/j.h.looijenga/
(see ch. 7)

In the case of Franks and Saxons, my feeling is that there would 
have been some barrier c. 500, but a rather flexible one.  I 
wouldn't like to quantify that because i just don't know enough, but 
the situation may have been similar to that between Old English and 
Old Norse in Viking times, as imagined by Þórhallur Eyþórsson.

http://malfridur.ismennt.is/vor2002/vol-18-1-21-26-thorhallur-eyj.htm

He describes a situation where two people speaking carefully to each 
other in their respective dialects, trying to make things clear, 
could have understood each other fairly well.  I suspect that even a 
little familiarity with the strange accent would have gone a long 
way to clarifying things, as the grammar was so similar and much of 
the vocabulary.  What to a stay-at-home Goth might sound at first 
quite incomprehensible could quickly morph into merely very broad 
dialect in the ears of the traveller.

Even where the OHG and Gothic versions of the gospels differ in 
vocabulary they would sometimes still have been comprehensible, e.g. 
where OHG has 'mittilgart' "world" for Got. 'manaseþs', Goths would 
have recognised their own word 'midjungards' with a similar 
synonymous(?) meaning.  On the other hand it's possible that our 
hypothetical Goth overhearing a conversation between two Franks 
could miss a great deal.  Bits would be perfectly clear, but if 
enough unfamilar words chanced to appear, or even just one or two in 
crucial places, a lot of meaning could get lost.

Actually even a stay-at-home resident of the Dark Ages may have 
gained experience of the Germanic world at large through the mass 
medium of travelling poets, and travelling poems.  The Old English 
poem Widsith is narrated by a fictional 'scop' (professional poet) 
who tells of his journey to see the Gothic king Eormanric, and of 
his meetings with just about every other famous ruler in legendary 
history along the way.  We also know that many stories passed from 
one end of Germania to the other in those days.  In this way Gothic 
legends may have survived the extinction of the Goths.  There is an 
OE poem--Genesis A--known to have been composed originally in Old 
Saxon (the language of Northern Germany), and some early Norse 
poetry recorded in the Middle Ages--Hlöðskviða in Hervarar saga--
shows evidence of continental Germanic style and language.  Poets 
and connoisseurs of poetry, the nobility and people associated with 
them, ambassadors, merchants, missionaries, soldiers, etc. would all 
have had more oportunity to come into contect with the major 
Germanic dialects and gain familiarity with them.

The Burgundians and Vandals are though to have spoken East Germanic 
dialects much like the the Goths.  In fact a Latin epigram from 
North Africa mocks Vandal lack of (Latin) culture, describing their 
language as Gothic.

http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/quellentexte.cgi?5
http://online.mq.edu.au/pub/AHST233/home.htm
http://tolklang.quettar.org/elfling-mirror/017nn/01791

But this isn't very much evidence to go on.  The Arian Christians of 
North Africa are said in another Latin source to pray "Lord have 
mercy".  The presumably Vandal phrase is garbled in the various 
maniscripts as Sihora armen, Shroia armen, Kuroia armes, 
Fhrota/Froti armes (Streitberg "Gotisches Elemantarbuch" §15.5b), 
reconstructed in Gothic spelling as * frauja armais.  But we can't 
tell much from that.  A page of the Gothic bible was found in 
Egypt.  Was this as relic of the Vandal kingdom?  Of course, using 
the Gothic bible doesn't prove that the Vandal's own speech was 
identical.

Does anyone know of classical sources that mention language 
difficulties or lack of them among the Germanic tribes?  Didn't 
Priscus say something about languages spoken in the empire of Attila?

Llama Nom




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