[gothic-l] Re: Translating creeds?

[edmundfairfax@yahoo.ca [gothic-l]]

Presumably the neologism "godans jiulans" is supposed to mean 'Merry Christmas.' The creator of the neologism evidently decided on a masculine rather than neuter noun, used here in the plural (presumably after the Old Norse 'jol,' which was typically used in the plural). Following the formula '(I wish you / may you have) a good X,' in imitation of the much later idiom, one still found today in Modern German 'guten Tag,' he put the noun phrase into the accusative ('-ans' is the acc. pl. ending for both masc. a-stems and an-stems). 

 Edmund
 
 

---In Gothic-L at yahoogroups.com, <write2andy at ...> wrote :

 Okay. But I'm still wondering why the plural for the month name is an -stem when the singular is an a-stem?



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/gothic-l/attachments/20150103/40d951fd/attachment.htm>