New file uploaded to gothic-l (Christmas and Yule)

llama_nom 600cell at OE.ECLIPSE.CO.UK
Sun Apr 29 22:50:17 UTC 2007



Or is the nominative actually 'joulu' and 'juhla' in Finnish: the
former from Proto Nordic, the latter from East Germanic?  Unless the
cases were reinterpreted in the process of borrowing...

http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joulu




--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> Many thanks for this Arthur.  I read it ages ago, but had completely
> forgotten that detail about the phantom status of *Naubaimbair!
> 
> http://www.modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~david/index.html
> http://www.modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~david/report.pdf
> 
> The relevant section is on p. 54.  Which leaves us with just 'fruma
> jiuleis' as the name of the month, and no way of knowing whether the
> illegible word was a synonym (*Naubaimbair or otherwise) or something
> else entirely.
> 
> Re. alternative names, I just came across the following Old West Norse
> and Old Swedish proposals: Dróttins burðar tíð; gudz födzlo hötidh [
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julfest ], neither of which caught on. 
> So maybe we could have: 'fraujins mel gabaurþais', or similar.  Bit of
> a mouthful, I know...  Thinks: does the final vowel in Finnish 'juhla'
> and 'joula' imply a specifically East Germanic origin for the
> loanword, as opposed to Proto Germanic -o or Proto Nordic -u?  If so,
> we have a nice piece of evidence for the survival of both versions in
> East Germanic: *jaihvla and *jiula.
> 
> 
> 
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Arthur Jones <arthurobin2002@> wrote:
> >
> > Hello again!
> >    
> >   Sorry, a Druckfehler crept into the URL citation in my previous
> missive. It should read
> >    
> >   http://www.modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~david.report.pdf
> >    
> >   Hope it works this time. If not, try googling David Landau +
> Digital Technology + Gothic manuscripts.
> >    
> >   Ave atque valium.
> >    
> >   Aizamunds
> >   
> > 
> > Arthur Jones <arthurobin2002@> wrote:
> >           Hails frijandeis meinai,
> > 
> > Llama Nom has made a number of very salient points regarding the
> calendar. The only problem I see today with any of it is that
> legitimate doubts have recently arisen about the word "Naubaimbair" on
> a palimpsest calendar.
> > 
> > Dr. David Landau, of the Tampere (Finland) University of Technology,
> Institute of Software Systems, has written "The Study of Old Texts
> with the Aid of Digital Technology: The Gothic Manuscripts" (a
> dissertation plus subsequent reports), in which he has solved many
> ambiguities arising from unclear, smudged, obscured, torn or missing,
> and other words and phrases in the Codex Argenteus, the Codex
> Ambrosianus, the Salzburg Calendar, Skeireins, and Ravenna Deed. 
> > 
> > After applying state-of-the-art digital scanning and clarifying
> techniques, Dr. Landau has concluded that, where experts heretofore
> thought they saw the word "Naubaimbair" that had been scratched off
> and over-written by Latin characters, they were apparently mistaken.
> His wave-length printouts indeed reveal that the letters removed in
> the palimpsest process did not spell out "November" in Gothic at all.
> > 
> > How much doubt does this development cast upon the Gothic calendar
> and its remnants from pre-Christian usage? I have no idea. However, I
> would suggest that we take full account of Dr. Landau's findings
> (completed, incidentally, in cooperation with Dr. Lars Munkhammar,
> University of Uppsala, who is both custodian of, and authority on, the
> Codex Argenteus, and who has been a key figure in the emerging
> "mini-Renaissance" of Gothic history and culture in Bulgaria in the
> past several years).
> > 
> > You can find the digital scanning results here:
> > 
> > http://www.modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~david.report.pdf
> > 
> > The section on "Deciphering the Palimpsests" appears on pages 60-61.
> > 
> > Thuk golja,
> > 
> > Aizamunds
> > 
> > 
> > llama_nom <600cell@> wrote:
> > 
> > Probably the native months, as elsewhere in Germania, didn't
> > originally match up perfectly with the Roman months. The two Yule
> > months would have originally marked, more or less, one month's length
> > of time before yule (the midwinter feast) and one month's length of
> > time after, as defined according to native tradition. The Icelandic
> > 'ýlir', for example, begins on the second day of the week falling
> > within November 10-17. From the Calendar, it seems that the Goths, by
> > the time it was written, had altered this system to bring their native
> > month names into line with the Roman months, so that 'fruma jiuleis'
> > became a synonym for November. The choice of November or December may
> > have been a bit arbitrary when this process of co-ordinating calendars
> > was first undertaken. Since the original month would have overlapped
> > with part of December, it could just as easily have come to be the
> > name for that month, as did its Old English equivalent 'se æ´rra
> > jéola'. If they called the second yule month 'anþar jiuleis' and
> > co-ordinated it with December, at least it wouldn't sound as anomalous
> > as doing this would with the Old English 'se æftera jéola' which
> > instead was naturally seen as the nearest equivalent to January. But
> > I suppose, for all we know, the Goths might have inserted some other
> > name as the native synonym for December, or else used no native
> > synonym at all. Or maybe the tradition that the two yule-months were
> > consecutive was too strong.
> > 
> > LN
> > 
> > --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "ualarauans" <ualarauans@> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > The month name 'fruma jiuleis' which appears in the Calendar as a
> > > > synonym for 'Naubaimbair' is masculine singular, as shown by the
> > > > adjective: a long ja-stem like hairdeis. It corresponds to ON ýlir
> > > > (masculine singular) and Anglian OE giuli (mentioned by Bede:
> > > > Primusque eorum mensis, quem Latini Januarium vocant, dicitur
> > > > Giuli...December Giuli, eodem quo Januarius nomine, vocatur... 
> > > Menses
> > > > Giuli a conversione solis in auctum diei, quia unus eorum
præcedit,
> > > > alius subsequitur, nomina accipiunt (cited in the OED)) -- in
later
> > > > West Saxon OE the months before and after the feast are called 'se
> > > > æ´rra géola' and 'se æftera géola', with a change of declension to
> > > > masculine n-stems.
> > > 
> > > It would be nice if we could call December fruma jiuleis and 
> > > January – anþar jiuleis. But why November in the Calender?
> > > 
> > > > The midwinter feast itself -- the 12 days of Christmas -- is
neuter
> > > > plural in ON and Icelandic (jól), and sometimes in Old English
(æ´r
> > > > géolum = advent). Maybe the tendency to make it singular came as 
> > > the
> > > > word's meaning changed to apply to the Christian festival. In 
> > > view of
> > > > which, maybe it is worth having a more specific word after all
for 
> > > the
> > > > day itself when Christ's birth is commemorated, and keep the old
> > > > grammar for the festive 12 days as a whole.
> > > 
> > > I support the idea of having separate terms for the pagan and the 
> > > Christian festival. For the latter maybe smth like Xristujiul in 
> > > singular?
> > > 
> > > Ualarauans
> > >
> > 
> > ARTHUR A. JONES
> > 
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >          
> > 
> > 
> > ARTHUR A. JONES
> > 
> > 
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>


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