[gothic-l] Re: Goths, Gepids, Gaut

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Hi Francisc,
and thank you for your reply!
>
>Now I try for the third time to replay your message of yesterday.
>
>--- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
>> 

>> There is an interesting passage in Paulus Diaconus, where he
>> tells about the Langobards' old god Wotan. The interesting
>> thing is that the name is not written as "Wodan", there, but
>> rather as "Godan". Perhaps there is a relationship to the question
>> that is asked here ?   I though't I'd mention this, since it
>> seems to fit well together with the question that is asked.
>>
>
>I think that "Godan" is probably a contamination (possibly due to
>Paulus Diaconus himself) between "God" (meaning God, Germ. Gott) and
>"Wodan". Such a contamination is palusible, since God and Wodan are
>semantically related.
>As far as I know, Langobardic underwent the second Germanic consonant
>shift, but in different conditions as High German. In this case, if
>[d] is preserved in Wodan (OHG Wotan), then it could be preserved also
>in God (Germ. Gott).

Your explanation is certainly plausible.
I think I saw that there even was a spelling "Gwodan".
(maybe < Ga-wodan?)

In Scandinavia as well as North of the Benrather Linie (I think)
they say "God" and not "Gott". Since the Langobards came from
the Hamburg area, they came from outside the area where they say
"Gott". But I have no idea how early these changes took place.
How long do you think they kept speaking Langobard in Italy btw?
Charlemagne took over at the end of the 8th century. But perhaps
they continued speaking Langobard longer than that. What do you think?

Best regards
Keth



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