Sino-nymic (was Re: Haiku & Toponymics)

Mon May 22 15:05:42 UTC 2006

ik niu wesith qath gutiska daup ist.....weis alls sind rodidand gut.......i would nt say gothic is a dead language...were all speaking it.......jah mith tho gaskeiran fram wulfila du ufraka tho andawairths......and with the translations of wulfila to reach the future....oscar

Fredrik <gadrauhts at hotmail.com> wrote:  Hi!

I enjoyed to read what you have written. Always fun to get to know 
what you others have in mind about gothic and the revival.

> - Well, that seems more to philosophy than to linguistix (the 
former being still less familiar field for me than the latter)... 
Just put in "languages" instead of "countries" and say isn't that the 
view that would kill the very idea of reconstructing a dead language.

Some times I might be a little philosophic, but I'll try not to.
About countries, I mean more exactly states. These can be created and 
we will see new ones in time. But if a language is gone it is gone 
and new ones doesnt appear in those places.

> "Why are you so much in for a language not spoken one and a half 
thousand of years?" shall we all be asked, "none of you being able to 
provide a Gothic pedigree, so that a comparison with modern language 
revivals (like that of Ireland or Israel) is definitely out of place 
in your case.

It might be a good idea to learn a language which was spoken 1000 
years ago or even more. If you wanna learn about ancient languages 
and the history of your own language. Thats why I also have tried to 
learn a little old english, and old swedish.
But old english and old swedish never died but became modern 
languaues.
Gothic was extinct and that's why I am more intressted in learning it 
and revive it.

> Learn languages people speak now and don't feel so helpless before 
the face of the all-devouring Time".

Actually, the people in my life (family and friends) have always 
asked me why I even bother to learn a language that nobody else uses. 
I won't have any use for it. And that's true. But ofcoz am I learning 
languages I can use in life and work etc.
Some of those are english, german, spanish and just a very little 
french. I have planes about japanese and perhaps russian and arabic.

> This could be really a discussion, and I'm almost sure this topic 
has been touched here more than once. What about names of countries – 
that's a question of methodology. Peru and Zimbabwe could become 
*Igkaland and *Rodisland (or whatever Germanic etymology of Rhodes' 
name can be) respectively, but it's not what I'd like to
point out now.

If you use igkaland you use none gothic words anyway so why not use a 
form of Peru, maybe Pairu. I recently read that the UN tries to make 
some kinda standard about toponymics. So why not follwo it, at least 
a little.

A thought about the names of some places used by the vikings. These 
are not used in the modern scandinavian languaues now.
E.g. a swedish name for Irak should have been Särkland in that case 
and maybe Algeria would have been Blåland. But it ain't so.
So what ever wulfila and his pals called the 
countries/states/provinces at their time, it wouldn't most likley bee 
so today if gothic never became extinct.

> Of course there will be much more countries with no hope to get 
a "true Gothic" name, but I think it can be a kind of fun to look 
into the country's history and try what we could invent about it.

Yes, why not. I won't say that any ideas of a name is right or wrong.
Igkaland could work as good as Pairu.

> When looking for a word not attested in the 4th century Bible, 
what's your way to create a neologism? I guess most often you look 
how it is called in today's Germanic languages and then you 
simply "play back" this form into Gothic, like *sahriballus (not 
**baskaitbaulls!). Or, if you feel discontent with it's present 
pattern, you just invent a new one bearing in mind that it should be 
at least roughly understandable, let it be ridiculous, for the 
imagined "native speaker", like wokrahansa "banking company" (not 
*bagkondei gamainduths and still less **bagkiggakumpanja).

Probably smth like that yes. If we can assume that a word existed I 
compare to pgmc but in other cases I like to create a similar word as 
in german or icelanic.

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