[gothic-l] addendum to and

Wed Mar 18 22:42:40 UTC 2015

Dear Basti, 

 1) I know of no "OHG-looking language." The writer here has simply attempted to provide phonetic transcriptions meant to show Gothic pronunciation. Thus Gothic "waurthun" is explained in terms of OHG orthography as "uuorthun." 'Ther' is not an OHG word but an attempt to show how Gothic "thairh" was to be pronounced: the OHG equivalent has a zero-grade here ('durh, durah, duruh'), while Gothic has an e-grade ('thairh'). Similarly, the OHG equivalent of Gothic "libaida" is 'lebeta.' "Gah libeda" is likewise an attempt at phonetic transcription: Alcuin was an Anglo-Saxon monk, and the use of 'g' with the value of [j] is an Anglo-Saxonism here, cf. OE 'ge' = [je(:)].

 2) The last two lines mean "they put [i.e. use] a dipthong [i.e. digraph] for long 'e' and for 'ch' [=kw] a 'q.' Even in Modern English, 'diphthong' can be used in the sense of 'digraph.' The strict distinction between letter and sound-value is often passed over outside the modern science of linguistics.

 3) "long 'e'" here does not necessarily mean [e:] rather than [ɛ:]. It is in fact the latter that is usually posited as the value of the vowel represented by Wulfilian <ai> AND descending from Proto-Germanic /ai/. That is, the diphthong was reduced to a monothong accompanied by compensatory lengthening. This Proto-Germanic diphthong was particularly "unstable" and shifted in all of the Germanic languages: to /a:/ in OE, to /e:/ in OS, to /ei/ in OHG, and to /ei/ in ON. In the case of OE and OS, monothongization was similarly accompanied by compensatory lengthening and thus are similarly long but with a different vocalic quality. Compensatory lengthening is a "linguistically natural" accompaniment to monothongization, and examples of it can be found in the histories of other languages as well.

 4) The entries from folio 71v of the Paris Manuscript also provide phonetic transcriptions, this time transcriptions into Gothic orthography in order to show the pronunciation of Latin names. And here as well, the digraph <ai> corresponds to a Latin <e> in each case (with <au> for Latin <o> as well):

 "Laiueis pro Leuis, Mailkeis pro Melcis, Zauraubabelis pro Zorobabelis, Airmodamis pro Ermodamis, Simaion pro Simeon, Aileiaizeris pro Eliezer, Paitrus Petrus."

 If <ai> and <au> did in fact represent [ai] and [au], then why would a scribe have transcribed these Latin names in this way?

 Ultimately there is no real proof to support the notion that Wulfilian <ai> and <au> meant anything other than [ɛ(:)] and [ɔ(:)].

 Edmund

---In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, <setiez at ...> wrote :

 uuorthun. otan. auar
 waurþun-uþ þan. afar
 euangeliu ther lucan
 aiwaggeljo þairh Lokan
 uuorthun auar thuo
 waurþun afar þo
 ia chuedant ia chuatun.
 jah qeþun

 ubi dicit/. genuit .j. ponitur
 ubi gabriel .g. ponunt & alia his sim.
 ubi aspiratione 〈dicunt h〉. ut dicitur
 gah libeda. jah libaida
 diptongon .ai. p(ro) e. longa
 p(ro) ch .q. ponunt.

 Source: http://www.gotica.de/vindobonensis.html

 Out of this longer quote, isn't "gah libeda" some OHG-looking language that Alcuin compares the Gothic to? Doesn't this mean Gothic uses "diptongon .ai." where that other language uses long e? And why would "diptongon" mean digraph rather than diphthong? Couldn't a pronunciation /aɪ/ > /ɛ/ directly in unstressed positions, without passing /eː/?

 /Basti

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