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<p>Excellent, Llama! Can we save it as a FAQ, somehow?<br>
<br>
--- In <a href="mailto:gothic-l%40yahoogroups.com">gothic-l@yahoogroup<wbr>s.com</a>, "llama_nom" <600cell@...<wbr>> wrote:<br>
><br>
> --- In <a href="mailto:gothic-l%40yahoogroups.com">gothic-l@yahoogroup<wbr>s.com</a>, Justïn <justinelf@> wrote:<br>
> ><br>
> > That was an awesome answer Lama, I actually have an obnoxious <br>
question <br>
> > the likes of which you would expect from an amateur Gothic <br>
enthusiast <br>
> > who's only had one 4000 level course in linguistics:<br>
> > <br>
> > How can I learn to do that? I want to be able to derive my own <br>
> > reconstructions from Proto-Germanic and back engineer my own <br>
words. If <br>
> > I could do that, I would post list after list of neologisms for <br>
> > scholarly criticisms until we had a veritable dictionary of <br>
Gothic <br>
> > words and phrases. Granted, this may be coming out of young-<br>
blood <br>
> > fervour but I am certainly interested in the back-engineering.<br>
> > <br>
> > Are there any pre-established guides and resources to these <br>
Gothic <br>
> > patterns, and which Proto-Germanic source are you using and <br>
where can I <br>
> > get one?<br>
> > <br>
> > Are we all using the same source for Proto-Germanic or is this <br>
in and <br>
> > of itself a highly debated issue of favouring this or that <br>
resource?<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> There are plenty of uncertainties in Proto-Germanic vocabulary! <br>
> Generally speaking, the sound change rules are regular, but <br>
language<br>
> being a human thing, quirks creep in. For example, a word which is<br>
> attested in more than one branch of Germanic may follow different<br>
> declensions in the different dialects, so you could reconstruct the<br>
> same Proto-Germanic root from each, but different endings. <br>
There's a<br>
> lot of that sort of thing. Even if we knew everything about the<br>
> history of the language, we probably still wouldn't be able to <br>
point<br>
> to a single community of Proto-Germanic speakers speaking a <br>
perfectly<br>
> uniform language; it's a scholarly idealisation.<br>
> <br>
> To reconstruct a Proto-Germanic word from a Gothic one, or the <br>
other<br>
> way around, you need to know all the relevant sound changes that <br>
might<br>
> affect the sounds in the word between Gothic and PG. There's a <br>
lot od<br>
> useful stuff about this in the early chapters of Wright's Gothic<br>
> Grammar [ <br>
<a href="http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/texts/goth_wright_about.html">http://lexicon.<wbr>ff.cuni.cz/<wbr>texts/goth_<wbr>wright_about.<wbr>html</a> ]. <br>
> Gerhard Köbler's Gothic dictionary has etymologies, but often <br>
gives a<br>
> few options for possible PG reconstructions, so you might need to <br>
know<br>
> a bit in advance to come to any conclusion about which is more <br>
likel <br>
> Gerhard Köbler has a Proto-Germanic dictionary too along with<br>
> dictionaries of the earliest attested stages of the main branches <br>
of<br>
> Germanic [ <a href="http://www.koeblergerhard.de/publikat.html">http://www.koeblerg<wbr>erhard.de/<wbr>publikat.<wbr>html</a> ]. There's<br>
> another important etymological dictionary of Proto-Germanic at Sean<br>
> Christ's site: Falk, Fick, Torp: Wörterbuch der Indogermanischen<br>
> Sprachen: Dritter Teil: Wortschatz der Germanischen Spracheinheit [<br>
> <a href="http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/etc/aa_texts.html">http://lexicon.<wbr>ff.cuni.cz/<wbr>etc/aa_texts.<wbr>html</a> ].<br>
> <br>
> Another handy link: Lorenz Diefenbach: Vergleichendes Wörterbuch <br>
der<br>
> gotischen Sprache [<br>
> <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ZqAFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP13#PPR1,M1">http://books.<wbr>google.com/<wbr>books?id=<wbr>ZqAFAAAAQAAJ&<wbr>pg=PP13#PPR1,<wbr>M1</a> ].<br>
> <br>
> If you have a word in say Old Norse and you want to reconstruct a<br>
> Gothic cognate, you need to know all the relavant sound changes <br>
that<br>
> would have affected the sounds in the word in its evolution from <br>
PG to<br>
> ON, as well as the Gothic sound changes. For this, a good starting<br>
> point in English is Gordon's Introduction to Old Norse. In German,<br>
> there's Adolf Noreen's Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik <br>
[<br>
> <a href="http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/texts/oi_noreen_about.html">http://lexicon.<wbr>ff.cuni.cz/<wbr>texts/oi_<wbr>noreen_about.<wbr>html</a> ]; this has <br>
more<br>
> detail than Gordon. Other grammars on Sean Christ's site have<br>
> informations about Old Saxon, etc. For Old English sound changes,<br>
> Campbell's Old English Grammar is very good.<br>
> <br>
> Very often, distinctions of sounds in PG have been lost in later<br>
> Germanic languages, so it's not always clear how to reconstruct a <br>
word<br>
> that's only recorded in one or two dialects. For example, /e/ in <br>
Old<br>
> English sometimes comes from PG /e/, sometimes /i/, sometimes /a/. <br>
> Which it was in PG depends on what vowel came in the following<br>
> syllable; but often this vowel will have been lost or reduced in <br>
Old<br>
> English, in which case you need to find cognates in other Germanic<br>
> languages to triangulate by. Likewise /o:/ in Old Norse might be <br>
from<br>
> PG /o:/ (fór) or /ah/ (nótt) or /unh/ (þótti), etc. So again, you <br>
can<br>
> only tell which if the same word is recorded in a dialect that did<br>
> keep the distinction that Old Norse lost. Sometimes the<br>
> Proto-Germanic form, supposing the word really is from PG, is clear<br>
> from just one dialect; sometimes you need two or more to calibrate,<br>
> using each to make up for the deficiencies of the others. <br>
Sometimes<br>
> you even need to look further afield at cognates in other<br>
> Indo-European languages.<br>
> <br>
> It can also help to know a bit about the grammar of the various <br>
early<br>
> Germanic languages. Sometimes it's possible to deduce what<br>
> inflectional vowels would have probably been in PG from the way a <br>
word<br>
> is declined in one of the later languages, even if the vowel itself<br>
> has been lost; e.g. you can tell from the way Old Norse 'staðr'<br>
> "place" (cognate with Modern Endlish 'stead') is declined that<br>
> (barring quirks) it would have come from PG *stadiz rather than<br>
> *stadaz or something else. Luckily with this one, there are <br>
cognates<br>
> elsewhere in Germanic which confirm this.<br>
> <br>
> If the word survives in Modern English, there are lots of <br>
etymological<br>
> dictionaries available which will help you find cognates, including<br>
> some free online [ <a href="http://www.etymonline.com/">http://www.etymonli<wbr>ne.com/</a> ]. As far as I know,<br>
> teh most comprehensive English etymological dictionary is the <br>
Oxford<br>
> English Dictionary [ <a href="http://www.oed.com/">http://www.oed.<wbr>com/</a> ], which can be found in<br>
> libraries or consulted online if you have a subscription, or via a<br>
> library or college or university that has a subscription. There <br>
are<br>
> various more or less abbridged versions available at more <br>
affordable<br>
> prices which are very useful. Some German dictionaries including <br>
the<br>
> Grimms' Deutsches Wörterbuch [<br>
> <a href="http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/">http://germazope.<wbr>uni-trier.<wbr>de/Projects/<wbr>WBB/woerterbuech<wbr>er/</a> ].<br>
> <br>
> Good luck!<br>
> <br>
> LN<br>
><br>
<br>
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