[gothic-l] Goths in India, again.

[Brian Gendler]

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   Hallo folks,
  I few days back, I wrote asking about an article on the Goths possibly
being mentioned in India. (Sten Konow, "The Goths in Ancient India,"
JRAS 1912, pp.379-385) It was great to see it spark a discussion, even
if it did go a bit off track, but my main query is still left untouched.
The main thing that I wanted to know was if anybody, after 1912, had
looked at the evidence presented in the article in the light of more
modern research. I assume that the main reason that that aspect of my
question went untouched is because most of you don't have easy access to
the 1912 edition of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society to know
what I am talking about. I decided the best thing to do then is to copy
the relevant parts and put them up for discussion. 
  The main point of the article is that two people mentioned in a 2nd
century inscription from India, namely Irila of the Gatas and Cita of
the Gatas, are most likely Gothic. The Gatas, of course, would then be
the Goths. The following is Konow's analysis of the names Irila and
Cita. I will put up the part of the Gatas in another message. I might
want to paraphrase that bit. I will have to take a better look at it.
For now, here goes...
   "Irila is the regular Gothic form of a well-known Germanic name. It
is found in Runic inscriptions from By and Veblunganes in Norway,
Kragehul in Denmark, and Lindholm and Varnum in Sweden as Erila, Eirila,
The word is essentially identical with Anglo-Saxon eorl, English earl,
Old Norse jarl, Old Saxon erl, and it is further connected with the
ethnic name eruli, heruli. There are also several names in Germanic
languages which contain the base erla." 
   This all seems well and good, but does anyone know where we can find
Irila as a Gothic name? I'm no expert here, but I can't find it. 
   "The name Cita (w/ a dot under the t, . hereafter) of the gata of the
Junnar inscription No. 33 can also be explained as a Gothic name. In an
old Runic inscription from Tjurkö in Sweden occurs a name Helda. The
Gothic form of this word would be Hild-. The initial h must have had a
sound similar to the modern German ch in the Gothic language of the
second century, and it is quite conceivable that an Indain would have
tried to mark this sound by the palatal c. An ld would probably become
lt, lt (.), as is commonly the case in modern vernaculars. Dr. Grierson
has been good enough to inform me that, at the present day, the English
ld becomes, in some mouths lt (.) and in some mouths l-d (dot under d).
in the latter case the two letters are separated as if in different
syllables. If a Gothic name Hilda were adopted in the form Cilta or
Cilta (.), the result in a Prakrit dialect would be Cita (.) or Citta
(..), both of which would be written Cita (.). It is therefore quite
possible that Cita (.) is an attempt at reproducing the sounds of a
Gothic name Hild-." 
   Not being a linguist, I can't really comment on this. It sounds good,
but I don't have the background to run a comparison from Gothic to
Prakrit. I will be eagerly awaiting your comments. 
            Thanks in advance, 
                 Gendler.

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