[gothic-l] Re: Gothic and Old Bavarian

[cstrohmier at YAHOO.COM]

Hi Francisc,
	Below you mentioned the Gothic word "mota," meaning "tax."  
In the book "A History of the German Language" by John T. Waterman 
there is some interesting information about this word in footnote #12 
on page 61:

	"The OHG (Bavarian-Austrian) word mauta, Modern German 
Maut "tax, revenue," offers evidence of a possible exception to this 
statement.  A loanword from Gothic (compare biblical Gothic 
mota "tax"), mauta would seem to point to an unshifted dental stop 
rather than to the affricate which we have suggested.   Now, it is 
usually assumed that the Ostrogoths in Italy --- keeping much of the 
Roman system of government after their own rise to power --- had 
borrowed the term mota (and the practice for which it stood) from the 
Late Latin muta "tax."  But the word need not necessarily be a 
borrowing from the Latin, for there is reason to believe that its 
occurrence in Gothic was not limited to Italy.  Etymologists point 
out that the Old Slavic word myto "customs, duty" (the word is still 
used in Modern Russian) was most likely borrowed from a Germanic 
language, probably from one of the eastern dialects bordering on 
Slavic territory.  The fact that OHG mauta first occurs in the 
Bavarian-Austrian dialect may point toward contact with, not the 
Italian Goths, but another of the Gothic tribes, situated nearer the 
Balkan homeland, whose language showed no trace of the consonantal 
changes that had affected the Italian branch."

Sincerely yours,
Cory

P.S.
	I think your English is very good.  I would imagine that the 
majority of the world's native English speakers don't speak Oxford 
English either, and I don't know if any native speaker of English 
speaks it perfectly, so I wouldn't give the matter another 
thought.    


> --- In gothic-l at y..., Francisc Czobor <czobor at c...> wrote:
> Subject: Gothic and Old Bavarian
> 
> Hails!
> 
> First of all, I have to apologize for my imperfect English (some 
> members
> of this list seem not to tolerate else but Oxford English), but 
> English
> is not my mother tongue, not even my second language (these are 
> Romanian
> and German, respectively). Maybe I should not dare to write to this 
> list
> as long as my English is not perfect, but I promised to give more
> details about the influence of Gothic on Old Bavarian.
> In fact, there are some words borrowed from Gothic by the Old 
> Bavarian
> dialect of Old High German; some of them are attested only in this 
> old
> dialect, others survive in the modern Bavarian (and Austrian) 
> dialects,
> and there are also some that became common in (High) German.
> The main sources that I used are:
> [1] Stefan Sonderegger: Althochdeutsche Sprache und Literatur, de
> Gruyter, Berlin - New York, 1987
> [2] Werner König: DTV-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache, Deutscher 
> Taschenbuch
> Verlag, München, 1996
> [3] Günther Drosdowski: DUDEN Etymologie - He
rkunftswörterbuch der
> deutschen Sprache, Duden Verlag, Mannheim - Leipzig - Wien -
Zürich,
> 1989
> [4] Virgil Stefanescu-Draganesti: Introduction to the Comparative
> Grammar of the Germanic Languages, University of Bucharest, 1971
> [5] Johann Wolf: Banater deutsche Mundartenkunde, Kriterion Verlag,
> Bukarest, 1987
> The abbreviations that I will use are:
> Go. = Gothic
> OHG = Old High German
> O. Bav. = Old Bavarian (a dialect of OHG)
> MHG = Middle High German
> Ger. = Modern (High) German
> Mod. Bav. = Modern Bavarian dialects (including Austrian)
> Gk. = Greek
> Lat. = Latin
> So, what's about this Gothic influence on OHG?
> [1] says: OHG owes a series of loanwords to Gothic, respectively to 
> the
> Gothic mission and its influence on the High German, especially 
> Bavarian
> church language (page 259). [3] tells us also about a Gothic-Arian
> mission that reached the Germans (page 524 etc.). A similar point of
> view I have found further in [5] (page 117). But in [2] is written 
> that
> a Gothic mission in Bavaria is not historically attested and few
> probable, having in view the tolerance of the Arian-Gothic 
> Christianity.
> According to this source, the relations between Gothic and southern 
> OHG
> (especially O. Bav.) are more probably due to the influence of
> Gothic-Christian population groups on the mixed people of the 
> Bavarians,
> that appeared suddenly about A.D. 500 (page 69). In another source, 
> but
> I can not remember now where, I have read something similar: after 
> the
> defeat of the Ostrogoths in Italy, some of their remnants migrated
> northwards and participated in the ethnogenesis of the Bavarian 
> people,
> giving them some words and the legend of Theodoric the Great (which
> became Dietrich von Bern in the German mediaeval epic).
> And now, about the Gothic influence on OHG and especially on O. 
> Bav.:
> According to [1] (pages 259-260) and [2] (pages 69, 187 ,189) the
> following words are for sure of Gothic origin:
> OHG pfaffo (Ger. Pfaffe) "priest" < Go. papa < Gk. papas;
> OHG (O. Bav.) múta "custom, duty" (Mod. Bav. Maut) < Go. móta;
> O. Bav. pferintag "Friday" < Go. paraskaíwé < Gk. paraskeue:
> "preparation (for the Sabbath)";
> O. Bav. erintag (Mod. Bav. Ergetag, Erchtag, Ertag) "Tuesday" < OHG
> *Ariótag < Go. *Arjaus dags < Gk. Areo:s (he:mera) "day of Ares"
> (interpreted by the Arians as "day of Arius");
> Mod. Bav. Pfinztag "Thursday" < Go. *pintadags < Gk. pempte: 
> (he:mera)
> "the fifth day";
> [3] (page 340) gives us also:
> OHG kúski (MHG kiusche, Ger. keusch) "virtuous, chaste" < Go. 
> *kuskeis
> "conscious (of the Christian teaching)" < Lat. conscius.
> As of probable Gothic origin are given also (in the same sources):
> OHG dult (Mod. Bav. Dult) "feast, holiday" < Go. dulths;
> OHG (Dat. pl.) fim(f)chustim (Ger. Pfingsten) "Whitsuntide" < Go.
> paíntékusté < Gk. pente:koste: (he:mera) "the 50th day"
(this word 
> can
> be found also in other Germanic languages, e.g. Old Frisian 
> pinkostra,
> Old Norse pikkisdagar, Old English pentecosten, Dutch Pinkster[en]);
> OHG sambaztag (Ger. Samstag) "Saturday" < Go. *sambató < Vulgar
Gk.
> sambaton.
> Of possible Gothic origin  are considered also other words, which 
> can 
> be
> explained also otherwise.
> Some of them can be regarded either as Gothic loanwords or as 
> cognate
> Germanic words:
> OHG obasa, obisa "hall, vestibule" = Go. ubizwa [1, p. 260];
> OHG pfeit (Mod. Bav. Pfait) "shirt" = Go. paida (cf. O. Eng.
péda, 
> Gk.
> baite:) [5, p. 110].
> Others are word of Greek origin, for which the intermediate to 
> German
> could be either Gothic or (Vulgar) Latin:
> OHG engil (Ger. Engel) "angel" from Gk. aggelos through Go. aggilus 
> or
> Lat. angelus [2, p.69] [3, p. 156];
> OHG tiufal (Ger. Teufel) "devil" from Gk. diabolos through Go.
> diabaúlus, diabulus or lat. diabolus, diabulus [2, p. 69] [3, p. 
> 742];
> OHG biscop (Ger. Bischof) "bishop" from Gk. episkopos through. Go.
> aípiskaúpus or (rather, I think) from Vulgar Gk. ebiskopos
through
> Vulgar Lat. *piscopus, *biscopu- [1, p. 260] [3, p. 84].
> Another interesting think is the fact that the dual forms of the
> personal pronouns were lost in OHG (excepting the isolated "unker 
> zweio"
> in Otfrid), but the Mod. Bav. has for the 2nd person pl. old dual 
> forms
> with plural meaning (like in modern Icelandic!!):
> Nom. es (= Go. jut), Ac. enk (= Go. igqis), Gen. enker (= Go. igqar)
> They can be regarded either as a result of Gothic influence on O. 
> Bav.
> or as relict forms, lost in OHG but preserved in Bavarian [4, p. 
> 116]
> [5, p. 110] [2, p. 157].
> 
> Francisc
> 
> GUTANI WIHAILAG
> --- End forwarded message ---
> 
> 



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