[gothic-l] Translating the New Testament into Gothic

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

Dear Basti, 

 Your correction is correct. Koebler's dictionary (and other works) misleadingly give a 'seins' (nom. sg.), which is wrong, since 'sein-' ('one's own') does not exist in the nominative; it is only ever used in oblique cases (see Braune/Heidermanns 2004, section 152, no. 2).
 

 As to the digraph 'ei': it was an adoption from Greek orthography, wherein by the fourth-century it represented a long 'i' (=/i:/), not a diphthong /ei/. The original Germanic diphthong /ei/ had been monothongized apparently some time in the first couple of centuries AD. That the digraph in Gothic did NOT represent /ei/ but /i:/ is shown by the fact that it appears in places where historically no /ei/ had been present in the earlier Proto-Germanic form: e.g. 'eisarn' (from Proto-Germanic *'isarnan'), hairdeis (from Proto-Germanic *'herdijaz'), gultheins (from Proto-Germanic *'gulthinaz'). (See further Braune / Heidermanns 2004, sections 16-17.) So no, the Scanian pronunciation of the digraph 'ei' is not an instance of an ancient diphthong being preserved.
 

 Edmund
 

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

 Your confusion about the cases of the first verse may have been caused by the use of a possessive pronoun - "seina". It is used when the subject of the clause possesses. Here, the disciples are approaching so they are the subject. In this case, we use a personal pronoun in genitive case - "ïs".
 

 Jah gasitands, atiddjedun du imma siponjos is.  (or something like that)
 
Fun fact: In Scanian, we pronounce "ei" in "sein/seina" with a diphthong of [ ḙɪ ] - short e gliding into a long i. I didn't find time to comment on the sound file of Alice in Wonderland before it was removed but I think it was well done, agreeing with how grammars say it may have been pronounced. And I don't think there is any particular reason to think Scanian preserves the original pronunciation, but it agrees with Gothic spelling so you can pick it up if you like to.  B)
 

 /Basti
 

 


 















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