*gutiska vs.*gutisko - gotlanders, visi- austro- and vistula-goths

[akoddsson]

Hails Tore.

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Tore Gannholm <tore at g...> wrote:
>
> Hi,
> This is the old confusion. Never mix Gotland with Sweden. It was 
two different countries until Sweden incorporated Gotland in 1679. 
The languages are different. The Gotlandic words are Guta lagh, 
Gutland, gutniscr mathr, ogutnjscr mathr,

True, indeed. One thing I think we need to keep in mind, however, is 
that gutniska is a scandinavian tongue. Aside from the phonological 
rules, and occasional differences in the meanings or declensions of 
individual words, gutniska declines like norse, is structured like 
norse, forms sentences like norse, and is, essentially, the same 
tongue. Thus, Aleifr hinn helgi would have experienced few, if any, 
communication problems during his stay in gotland, aside from having 
to deal with a somewhat different vowel system and hearing things 
like 'gutland, thiaud, stainn, droymdi' instead of the more familiar 
'gotland, thiod, steinn, dreymdi'. Thus, not surprisingly, swedish, 
and I mean only native old swedish, loanwords excluded, is actually 
highly relevant when it comes to reconstructing words for gutniska 
that are not otherwise attested. 

As a side note, I will mention that I do believe that the gotlanders 
once spoke an east germanic tongue, rather than a north germanic. I 
see evidence for this is the phonology of gutniska, as well as in a 
few words, which have reminded many scholars of gotish and point to 
a very strong connection with continental goths in the past, during 
the migration age. The key word here is phonology. Also, the name 
gutland is a fatal blow to any theory that would hold that goths and 
gotlanders are unrelated. What might have happened here, I think, is 
that a branch of germanics living in the eastern part of the north, 
on both sides of the baltic (gotland and modern poland), and who 
spoke essentially the same tongue as their neighbors, participated 
in some slightly earlier linguistic changes, and slightly later, a 
lack of them, for geographical reasons. During approximately the 
same time, some of these east germanics began to draw south in the 
conquest of new lands, riches and a better climate, while others 
remained 'home' in gotland and the vistula-region in modern poland. 
They probably remained in close contact with each other, however, 
liguistically and culturally. Then came the huns. War, conflict, 
internal strife followed. Among those who had moved furthest south, 
some kind of internal conflict divided the group into what moderns 
call visi- and austrogoths, probably immeadiately before the visi 
group crossed the river to roman territory. During the marginally 
attested, but apparently large and famous, war on the katalonian 
fields, the descendants of the visi and ausro gothic divisions could 
be seen butchering each other to the last man. Not much later, the 
goths begin to disappear into the folk of the regions where they now 
lived, losing their tongue and most of their cultural identity. They 
could simply have lived too far apart from one another, or had too 
many internal conflicts, to continue to look upon themselves as a 
single folk. Consider, for instance, what happened to the goths who 
remained 'home' in the vistula region or along the baltic coast - 
for us, at least, there is little to consider, as we have no sources 
about them whatsoever. Our dating of their demise, or emigration, 
can vary by hundreds of years. Simply put, no one knows just what 
happened or when it happened. Clearly, the huns and other parties 
with whom the goths, probably over-stretched, fought had something 
to do with their demise, as did internal conflicts. Now consider, 
finally, what happened to the goths who remained 'home' in gotland, 
on the other side of the baltic - ah, alas, here we know something, 
at least. Numerically insignificant compared to their scandinavian 
brethren, they simply participated in the general linguistic, and 
cultural, changes current at the time. Whether independent from the 
gauts, swedes, danes or whomever, or in some kind of political 
alliance or other, the gotlanders adapted and, apparently, they did 
so on their own - at least, many of the changes from gotish to old 
gutnish must have occured long before gotland was party to any kind 
of political agreements making the island, at least formally, a part 
of the grand swedish, gautish and gutnish territory called sweden. 
Of course, I am now in the realm of theory, not observable fact. Let 
me make this clear, so as to avoid the confrontations and endless 
debates that arise around ideas about the goths' origins, demise, 
culture, etc.. Thus, lastly, I do think that the gotlanders, in so 
far as they actually descend from ancient gotlanders, and not from 
immigrants from who knows where, unless they were goths who moved 
home from the the other side of the baltic after destruction became 
apparent from some unknown historical event, or from further south, 
are genetic goths - real goths from real gothic ancestors. Also, I 
think, their are probably some cultural things specific to gotland, 
now, but even more so in the past, which are culturally unique to 
the islanders and which, no doubt, would be gothic cultural things. 

> What they call it in Sweden I don't know. Gothic is the latin word 
which the Germans adopted and spread to the Swedish language in the  
Middle Ages.

No doubt. In general, loanwords into scandinavian tongues are not to 
be trusted as valid sources for reconstucting earlier stages of the 
language. Scandinavians simply adopted words as they were, often 
further changing them to fit their own phonology or grammatical 
habits, just like in modern english, for example. In reconstructing 
proto-norse, for example, only native norse words are used, or words 
native to other germanic languages that can reasonably be assumed to 
have beem lost in norse, and then reconstructed on the basis of what 
we know, or can reasonably assume, about linguistic change. 

Regards,
Konrad

> Tore
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 3, 2006, at 3:19 AM, llama_nom wrote:
> 
> >
> >>> The oldest form that was used was indeed Gutones (Plinius:
> > Gudones)
> >> and  when talking of later gutniska (gotländska) it seems rather
> >> fitting also for general Gothic like the Ic. gotneska. I think
> >> 'gutiska' is less convincing and besides in normal Swedish it is
> >> called 'gotiska' nowadays!
> >>
> >> Without linguistic merits!
> >> Ingemar
> >>
> >
> >
> > Hails, Iggwimer!
> >
> > Ah, so I see [ http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotiska ].  Thanks 
for
> > the correction!  Was 'gutiska' ever used of "Gothic" in Swedish 
in
> > the past, or is that just my misunderstanding?  Are there any
> > references to the Goths in Old Swedish, besides the Rök stone?
> >
> > I should clarify that by "uncontracted plural" I meant gen. 
*gutane,
> > dat. *gutanam.  The alternative would be a noun with contracted
> > forms here: *gutne, *gutnam (cf. Go. auhsne, abne, abnam).
> >
> > Llama Nom
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Ingemar Nordgren" 
<ingemar at n...>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell at o...> 
wrote:
> >>
> >>> 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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>






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