Wanna share your ambitions and intenstions?

[llama_nom]

> like *grí±ºíµ©s (green) and *aihvs (horse)

I think we're safe with *aihvs, but "green" could be either a ja-
stem (*groneis) or an i-stem (grons).  The etymological dictionaries 
I've seen tend to reconstrcut a ja-stem, perhaps because that's the 
more common declension and without evidence from Gothic or early 
runic inscriptions, there's no indication of whether it was even an 
i-stem.



> Translate in Gothic:
> 1. Hello, John. It is good to see you. How have you been?
> 2. ME words 'casino' and 'telephone' (using Gothic roots)


Ah, maybe one day all our fancy learning will help us to solve this 
embarrassingly simple, but very difficult problem.  This goes beyond 
just the 'easy' problem of vocabulary, and the nightmarishly tricky 
business of syntax, and gets us into the outright fiendish realm of 
idioms and usage and how the language actually behave when it was 
alive an on its feet in a real functioning society about which we 
still have so much to learn.  The Gothic Bible isn't much help here; 
we could hunt for situations in the literature of the other early 
germanic languages, especially Old English and Old Norse, where 
people meet who already know each other, and what they say.  Of 
course, the style of speech there might be rather formal, or even in 
poetry, so we'd have to take that into account.  But if we found 
enough examples we could maybe begin to get a feel for the sort of 
conventional exchange that might be expected to take place.  I think 
the sagas might call this a 'fagnaðarfundr' "joyful meeting", 
sometimes with heart-melting understatement.  A quick rumage on 
Google turns up a few happy moments, although not much non-context-
specific small talk...  Oh well, a good excuse for more reading.  In 
Old English, Ælfric's Colloquy has some interesting informal 
conversation, but limited in topic.

As for the easy question, I'm sure suggestions have already been 
made for telephone, so I'll propose 'hlaut-hus' "casino", by analogy 
with 'gudhus' and 'faurhah'.  On the ommission of the stem vowel in 
these compounds, Bennett suggested that the 'h' may have been 
dropped, causing the vowel to go too, to avoid hiatus (cf. also the 
spelling 'freijhals').

Anyway, important is what we chose to be important, so I won't say 
the things that most interest me are more important than what 
interests someone else, just what most occupies the Gothic sections 
of my brain tonight.  I think there's a lot still to be learnt from 
the surviving evidence for Gothic which can make our imaginative 
reconstructions more accurate.  Basic stuff like: what exactly is 
the status of 'aspect' in Gothic verbs?  What word orders were most 
likely?  What word orders were permitted in natural speech?  What 
constraints were placed in freedom of word order?  What rhetorical 
and emphatic effects were gained from particular changes in the 
unmarked word order?  What are the differences between the rules or 
tendencies affecting the placement of nouns from those affecting 
pronouns?  What contexts triggered V2 (verb second word order); was 
it always triggered in such contexts; which contexts was it optional 
in; how did Gothic resemble Old English was it in this respect, and 
how did it differ?  How do main clauses differ from subordinate 
clauses, for example in permitting V2, and in the placement of 
adverbs, etc.?  What rules govern the use of reflexives?  What rules 
govern the placement of pronouns?  Does it make sense to talk about 
oblique subjects in Gothic?  What is the full story about case 
attraction of relative pronouns?  What is the full story with 
passives of verbs that govern oblique cases; why are they sometimes 
oblique with impersonal verbs as in other Germanic languages, but 
othertimes nominative with the verb inflected for number?  Can all 
such instances be attributed to a middle, rather than a strictly 
passive meaning?  Or is this a piece of Gothic 'nominative 
sickness'?  And such, and such, and such.





--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "akoddsson" <konrad_oddsson at ...> 
wrote:
>
> > This had impications for anyone who wants to write or speak in a 
> reconstructed Gothic.  I think it would be good to establish all 
> that can be established about the historical language, otherwise 
any 
> reconstruction would tend to take the form of people expressing 
> their thoughts in modern ways but just using Gothic words, whereas 
a 
> language is more than just vocabulary. 
> 
> In my opinion, thou hast hit the nail on the head here. What is 
most 
> important is understanding and reconstructing the historical 
tongue 
> itself. Inventing new words for things non-existed in the 
historical 
> language may be fun, but reconstructing the historical vocabulary 
is 
> much more important. Essentially, learning an histrical tongue has 
a 
> lot to do with learning historical words ;) In the case of Gothic, 
> so much of the basic vocabulary has been lost (i.e. is unattested) 
> that in order for the language to be usable, vocabulary must be re-
> constructed. This is where prioritization needs to occur if Gothic 
> is to approach usablity in modern times, whether as a purley 
written 
> or spoken langauge. There is little talk or writing if no one 
knows 
> what words to use. Furthermore, a focus on historical vocabulary 
is 
> consistent with typical reasons why a person might choose to study 
> Gothic, such as understanding an early germanic tongue. Thus, 
words 
> like *grí±ºíµ©s (green) and *aihvs (horse) or much more important than 
> new words for democracy or the stock market, for example. 
Likewise, 
> historical syntax is what we should be after, rather than learning 
> how to use Gothic words with foreign syntax. These two points are 
> especially relevant in the case of Gothic, I think, as attestation 
> of syntax is through a translation of a foreign book (rather than 
> via the speech of a native speaker) and attestation of vocabulary 
> largely limited to words (some even foreign) needed to translated 
a 
> book containing culture, concepts, geograpy, history, etc. which 
> have no roots in native Gothic culture. Thus, the syntax and 
choice 
> of words may or may not closely reflect native speech. What is 
then 
> needed is a focus on native speech, in as much as this is possible 
> with a dead language - making a concerted effort to reconstuct 
what, 
> in all likelihood, was the vocabulary and manner of daily speech. 
> Now, if this sounds easy, try the following exercise and ask which 
> of the two you found easier:
> 
> Translate in Gothic:
> 1. Hello, John. It is good to see you. How have you been?
> 2. ME words 'casino' and 'telephone' (using Gothic roots)
> 
> Now, number 2 could prove a fun competition for those of us who 
> perhaps think we know what we are doing, but it is not likely 
going 
> to help get gothic back on its feet. Number one, on the other 
hand, 
> poses deeply challenging problems for us, as simply translating 
the 
> English words is out of the question. Simply put, we know that 
they 
> do not represent Gothic syntax or vocabulary.
> 
> Regards,
> Konrad





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