Warrior Class

[llama_nom]

The West Germanic forms point to Proto-Germanic *knehtaz, which would
give Gothic *knaíhts.  Icelandic uses a different word, 'riddari', a
loan from North German (cognate with Modern High German 'Ritter'
"knight", literally "rider").  The word is said to have been
introduced into Norway as a title in 1277, but Einarr Skúlason's poem
Geisli from the middle of the 12th century contains a related
loanword, 'ríðari' "knight" (cognate with English 'rider' and Modern
High German 'Reiter' "rider").  This could be back-engineered into
Gothic as *reidareis.

I haven't read all of this discussion, so appologies if I'm repeating
what's already been suggested, but a more ancient alternative with
similar connotations of warriorhood and service is Proto-Germanic
*þegnaz (with cognates attested in Old Norse, Old English, Old Saxon
and Old High German alliterative poetry), whence English 'thane'. 
This would give Gothic 'þigns'.

Lama Nom


--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Justïn <justinelf at ...> wrote:
>
> So, where does Knight and Knecht come from?  Can you trace those 
> sources and backwords construct it using Proto-Germanic and predicting 
> what the change would have been, if the Goths followed the same 
> etymological patterns....etc.?  Does Icelandic use a "knight" cognate 
> or another word/compound word altogether?
> 
> Granted, there's no way of assuming that had the Goths survived to 
> establish feudalism; they would have used a word that remotely related 
> to "Knight," but hypothetically speaking...
> 
> After all, it really depends on how much the person asking really wants 
> to honour chronology.  If it were up to me Gothic would be 
> reconstructed in its entirety and there'd be neologisms for SUVs and 
> iPods.
>


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