[gothic-l] problems with evolution of Gothic vowel system

[Philip Rusche]

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On Thu, 31 Aug 2000, Vito Evola wrote:
>>
>> 2)  Would there be anyone willing to put on the list the evolution of the
>> vowel system IE < *germ. < goth.  ?

>If I recall correctly (IIRC), indoeuropean (which modern Lituanian
>and Sanskrit are their purest examples ??) did have a relative
>simple system of vowels , maybe 8-10.

>Skandinavian languages were rather innovative and they invented
>a lots of sounds.

>German was more conservative but even so it has too much vowels,
>they have three "e" while Spanish/Latin has only one.

from what I understand, IE had a very simple system of vowels, perhaps just
"e"/"long-e" and it wasn't until later IE that "o" and "a" developed from
the laryngeals.   And as was pointed out in another post, it is not really
correct to speak of some languages as purer than others.  Sanskrit is very
conservative in preserving Indo-European consonants, but Latin, Greek and
the Germanic languages are more conservative in preserving Indo-European
vowels.

>>
>>           *germ. herdijaz < goth. haìrdeis
>
>The difference between ai-e is that ai tends to be more vocalic.
>herdijaz is closer to hrdijaz that hairdeis. Consider vocalic
>as that the ratio vowel/consonants tends to get higher.

I do not think this is right either.  This <ai> is just a spelling
convention for what in English is the short "e" sound.  It represents the
same basically sound as in Gmc *herdijaz.


>Now, the -ijaz , -eis . I suspect that both endings are different.
>I'd bet for hairde -is. The man of the hairde , being -is a genitive.
>While -ijaz could be -ija-z . -z for genitive and -ija a suffix
>for creating jobs, like justit-ia, vig-ia (Spanish) , milit-ia
>or a class for jobs. That -ija (indoeuropean ) ending was lost in
>German while kept in Latin.

The -is here has nothing to do with the genitive.  The Gmc. ending is
*-ij-a-z, with the -j- suffix being an agent noun suffix, the -a- being the
thematic vowel and the -z being the regular nominative ending.  The reason
it shows up in Gothic as -eis is because the "a" vowel was regularly lost in
nominative singular masculine nouns (cf. Go. dags instead of Gmc. *dagaz),
and then the resulting -ij- between to consonants becoming a long "i", which
in Gothic is written "ei".

This is my first posting to this list and it's been a while since I've taken
any gothic so please correct me if I am wrong.

Philip Rusche



>I remind you, to take this with a grain of salt.. As I'm an
>aficionado not a proffesional :)
>
>Anyway, don't be too hard, I don't use books and I take all this
>from my head so I can do some big mistakes. :)
>
>> vito.evola at libero.it
>
>Well, being Italian you have Latin+Italian+English to compare :)
>
>BTW, I've always thought that the "anomalities" in Italian
>(suppousedly, closer to Latin than Spanish) came from Goths or
>Lombards (which one ). I mean thing like:
>gli <-- the
>
>Regards/Saludos
>Manolo
>www.ctv.es/USERS/irmina    /TeEncontreX.html   /texpython.htm
>/pyttex.htm /cruo/cruolinux.htm ICQ:77697936 (sirve el ICQ para algo?)
>
>  QOTD: "I used to be lost in the shuffle, now I just shuffle along with
the lost."



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