Goths, Naming and Ablaut

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

I wrote:
<In later inscriptions the Goths appear to be calling themselves "Gothi" --
apparently using the Latin name.>

In a message dated 2/24/2001 4:35:59 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com asks:
<Latin inscriptions, I presume?>

Actually, I believe these late inscriptions are from the Visigoths in Spain
and are cited by Peter Heather as examples of Goths referring to themselves
because the inscriptions also contain other Germanic names and words and were
apparently authored or "voiced" by Visigothic leaders.  I will find out and
let you know.

hwhatting at hotmail.com also writes:
<< I would expect _gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE form. We have
the ablaut row PIE *eu-ou-u, which gives Gothic iu-au-u, and we would expect
zero degree in the participle. If this were the past participle, we would,
of course, expect some passive meaning from a transitive verb like _giutan_. >>

Yes, my copy of Wright's (O. L. Sayce, ed., OUP 1954) says that Gothic
<giutan> is a "class 5" strong verb but plainly it is an -iu- form, whatever
class 5 might mean.  It seems as you say pp <gutans> would be expected from
<giutan>.  A passive in Gothic is also found in <us-gutnan> (to be poured,
flow away) which is given as a "class 4" weak verb.

With regard to OE, you write, "_gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE
form."  I have for OE, <ge:otan (inf), ge:at (p sing), guton (p plu), goten
(pp)>.  (And for OHG, <gioz:an>.)  If we have the ablaut set PIE *eu-ou-u >
Gothic iu-au-u, then it is at least possible that the name Goth never took
the form <Gutan>.  Perhaps it was a name given by other Germanic speakers and
therefore had the -o- from the start -- e.g., OE, <Gotan> 'Goth', <goten> pp
'poured'.  Once again we have no good reason to be sure Goth was first a
self-name (cf., "Germans", "Apaches", "Basques").  And I believe we have no
record of the Goths ever using the form "Gut-".   (With the possible
exception of <gudekunds> which apparently meant high-born and could have
originally referred to Gothic aristocracy.)

<< I think we simply should not separate the name of the _Geats_, Götland,
etc., which occur in the area the Goths claimed as their ancestral homelands,
from the other attested forms.>>

That points I think to another question.  If "Goth" had an original meaning
in an IE language, why would that word be used exclusively to refer to the
Goths?  Weren't there other places where water, river or people "poured"
forth, where toponym or fecundity could lend its name to other people or
places?  And even if 'Goth' did not derive from something like the name of a
river or such, why would we expect that its occurrence would only refer to a
particular people and nothing else?  And even if "Goth" represents some form
of non-IE Germanic, wouldn't we expect that its use would not be limited to
one particular sense and that being a particular tribe of people?

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote earlier I think that the Goths should be
distinguished from the Scandinavian Gauts and the Getae of the Classic
Greeks.  But can the name itself be separated from any and all words that
have a similar form?  Isn't there something or someone else that derived a
name from the same original source word?

The examples I gave in past posts from Greek of very similar words (all of
them seemingly coming from the same "pour" or "poured" concept) might suggest
that various forms of "Goth" might have been a common thing for various
peoples back then to call themselves or be called by others.  At least some
(e.g., <chuton>) might suggest that "Goth" could even have started as a Greek
word.

There are some things that might suggest more of the same that you mention
and that I'll try to get to in a later post.

Regards,
Steve Long