[gothic-l] Newbie: textbooks; Gothic separating from Common Germanic

[David Salo]

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I'll touch this one, even though, as Justin remarks, it's a can of worms
(kas waurme?):

>(2) If the Goths are the Scandinavian Gautar and Beowulf's Geats,
>which of the characteristic features in Gothic are likely to have
>been there when they still lived in Scandinavia?

    Regardless of what you think the connection between the Gautar
(*Gautos) and Goths (*Gutans) was -- and I myself do not believe that there
was any closer connection between them than between the Goths and any other
non-East Germanic grouping -- you certainly cannot identify the Goths with
"Beowulf's Geats".
    Beowulf was said, in the poem which has been given his name, to be the
nephew of Hygelac the Geat.  Hygelac (ON Hugleikr; *Hugilaiks) was a
historical figure, whose death is recorded as occurring c. 521.  The first
half of Beowulf, Beowulf's killing of Grendel and Grendel's mother, takes
place not long before this date, when Hygelac is still king of the Geats;
the second half, Beowulf's fight with the dragon, takes place many decades
after Hygelac's death.
    In 521, Amalaric (Amalareiks) was ruling the Visigoths of Spain, and
Theodoric (Thiudareiks) ruled the Ostrogoths of Italy.  Both tribes were
fully differentiated in cultural, linguistic, and religious terms from
their Scandinavian cousins (the Goths were Arian Christians; the Geats and
other Scandinavian tribes were pagan, and would remain so for centuries).
They were also, if it is necessary to stress the point, separated by
hundreds of miles from Scandinavia and surrounded by quite different
cultures.  While the Geats at this time were still in a "heroic age" so
remote from the historical record that it was capable of passing into myth,
the Goths were busily assimilating the far more ancient Greco-Roman culture
into which they had stumbled, and creating artifacts like the Silver Bible
which are as artistically and technically superb as they are linguistically
significant.  That the Gothic renaissance would be cut short in its prime
should not obscure the enormous cultural gap that existed between the Goths
and their supposed Scandinavian progenitors at this time.

/\     WISTR LAG WIGS RAIHTS
\/            WRAIQS NU IST                               <> David Salo
<dsalo at softhome.net> <>



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