*gutiska vs.*gutisko

[llama_nom]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "akoddsson" <konrad_oddsson at y...> 
wrote:
>
> One issue which puzzles me is the reconstruction of the goths' 
name 
> for their own tongue, *gutiska. On the face of it, this adjectival 
> form would seem inappropriate when compared with other germanic 
> tongues, where a fem. on-stem is prefered (nominal). Would not the 
> form *gutisko (oblique -on) make more sense? 


Hails sijais, Konireþ!

That makes a lot of sense, and certainly agrees with Norse, although 
curiously OE has 'on englisc' "in English"; 'on wilisc' "in Welsh".  
These are listed under the heading of the adjective in Bosworth and 
Toller, although they seem to behave more like a noun.  Can anyone 
with more OE expertise clarify the grammar of these constructions?

'on engliscum gereorde' "in the English language"; 'to 
norþhymbriscum gereorde'; 'ge on Ledenisc gereorde ge on 
Grecisc' "in both the Latin and Greek languages" -- the adjective 
strong in these examples even applied to a specific 
language.  'gereord', n. "language".  But then there are also what 
seem like compounds: 'þæt is on englisc gereorde...' "in the English 
language, that is..."

Supposing the Goths' name for their own language was a feminine on-
stem noun though, can you think of any way of chosing between: 
*gutisko (Swedish 'gutiska' "Gothic"), or *gutanisko, or *gutnisko 
(Icelandic 'gotneska' "Gothic", Swedish 'gutniska' "Gotlandish")?  I 
don't know how much we can read into the Latin form 'gothones', 
whether this shows that *guta had an uncontracted plural *gutans, or 
if it's just the Latin ending -ones added to the root 'goth'.  But 
if the plural was *gutans, maybe *gutanisko is preferable.  Does 
continental West Germanic offer any clues here?

Llama Nom





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