News website in Gothic, it's here

edmundfairfax@yahoo.ca [gothic-l] gothic-l at YAHOOGROUPS.COM
Mon Sep 1 18:12:07 UTC 2014


 Dear Dirk,
 

 Your suggestions are spot-on.
 

 Having only today looked at this Gothic news website, I would add a further remark: all entries need to be proofread by a group of editors with a thorough grasp of the language to avoid the grammatical and lexical errors which abound.
 

 The headline of the most recent posting reads: "Palaistina fraihnith dags Israelis gaskaidan sik"
 

 What the intended meaning of this was escapes me. As it stands, it would seem to mean literarlly: "Palestine asks, day of Israel to separate itself'. "Fraihnith" can mean 'asks' only in the sense of 'poses a question,' which makes no sense here at all. I assume that 'requests' was the intended meaning, in which case the irregular verb 'bidjan' (Nom-Acc.-Gen.) must be used. The same semantic distinction is still preserved in Modern German: 'fragen' (to pose a question) and 'bitten' (to make a request). Cf.
 

 frah ina sa kindins, qithands, "thu is thiudans Judaie?" (Mat 27,11) 'the governor asked him, saying, "are YOU the king of the Jews?'
 

 bath this leikis Jesuis (Mat 27,58) 'he asked for Jesus's body'
 

 How "dags," the nominative singular here, relates to 'fraihnith' is unclear. If it was intended as an object of a verb meaning 'request,' then the genitive form would be needed in the case that 'bidjan' was employed. As it stands, nominative 'dags' can be construed only as the subject of a following elliptical clause. Was 'himma daga' ('today') meant?
 

 It would be helpful if the site provided English translations to avoid such impenetrability.
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