Meaning of "Goth"

[David L. White]

> It was the Cimbri, I believe, who explained their invasions into Roman
> territory in the late BC as the result of a flood that overcame their dikes
> and forced them to leave home.  Perhaps there is some relation.

    There was, I believe, more than one group that suffered some such fate.
The AS conquest may have been motivated by the same sort of thing.  Actually
the Baltic (like part of the North) is not a stable sea.  It is recent, and
unstable.  Maybe someone out there can fill us in on its recent history.

> The original meaning of the word "Goth" is confused by many factors, not the
> least by the assumption that the word is Germanic.  The common names for many
> groups is in fact the ones applied by outsiders (e.g., "Greek", "Apache",
> "Basque"), so it is never clear with names of obscure origins whether the
> name was in fact indigenous.

> There is a weak verb <us-gutan> recorded in Ulfila that means 'pour out' and
> would appear to have some connection with such words as 'gutter'.  But in the
> earliest attested writings, we already see <Gu<thorn>> as 'God'; plural,
> <guda>.

        That (the final thorn) is from final devoicing.  It is not original,
as the plural shows.  If the word "Goth" is from "God-folk" (thiuda), the
final thorn would have to be a secondary development, from later redivision.
But since the "pour" word and the "god" word seem to be different extentsion
of the same root, it is difficult to tell.  I myself think that most
polytheistic people are not so (self)-righteous, for lack of a better word,
as to name themselves "God-folk".

> So the idea that the 'pour' reference may be to religious libations rather
> than floods or waterways is there from the start, if the name has its roots
> in Gothic.

> In a message dated 12/14/2000 3:18:28 AM, mcv at wxs.nl wrote: <<The only
> attested Gothic form is <Gut-Tiuda> "Gothia".>> I can't for the life of me
> find the source for this attestation though it is often mentioned.  However,
> it's worth noting that in Ulfila, <<thorn>iuda> is often used to refer to
> "heathens" or "Gentiles" and has a load of similar terms in Greek that refer
> to certain kinds of non-Christian religious worship (e.g., <Thuiades>,
> whorshippers at the Dionysian festival of <Thuia>).  On its face, however,
> <Gut-Tiuda> appears to mean "God-people", certainly not an unusual
> self-appelation for people in history who have felt a certain special
> connection to the Deity, be they Israelites or Mormons.  But I do not know if
> this attested form referred to pre-Christian or Christian Goths.

        Since there are so many "got-" place-names back in Scandinavia, it
would seem that the name must be pre-Christian (assuming that "Gotland" and
"Goeteburg" are to be related to "Goth", which may not be true.)

> One question that all of this raises is how this word "Goth" works with a
> regular <PIE development?  If the word were <gut> in east Germanic, than
> what transformations should it have gone through.

       In other Germanic, you mean?  Not much, apart from the OHG examples.

> I have for example this from Lehrman:  "Initial position: Gk anser (for
> hanser) Goth. gans, OHG kans --- Gk khéoth (fundo), Gk khutós (fusus)
> Goth. giutan, OHG kiozan --- Gk khol*, ON gall, OHG kalla --- Gk khthés,
> heri, hesternus, Goth. gistra, OHG këstar --- Gk khórtos, hortus, gards,
> OHG karto --- hostis (peregrinus) gasts, kast --- homo, Goth. guma, OHG komo
> --- Gk khth*n like khthés for khés for khóm, cf. khamái, humi, humus;
> to be compared with Goth. gauï, OHG kouwi, kou--- "

>  Note in the above that the <g-> is consistently unique to Gothic.

        No it isn't.  /g/ appears in Norse, as it should in all Germanic
apart from Old High.  Note as well that English, of all periods, being
fairly typical in this regard, has /g-/ in its 'god' word.
        By the way (displaying my ignorance here), how does OHG "kans"
appear as modern German "gans"?  Did only the /d/ -> /t/ part of this shift
get fully established in standard German?

Dr. David L. White