[gothic-l] Gaut/Gapt

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Bertil wrote:

>All manuscripts except one provide gapt.

That is what I have been telling you for almost
a week !  There are 12 manuscripts, and all have Gapt
except one, which has Capit.

Didn't you believe me ?


>All other readings
>concerning other Germanic royal genealogies (Gausus,
>Geat) point to Gaut.

What do you mean by "point to Gaut"?
Do you mean that Gaut is the listed as the very first
of all royal germanic genealogies?

In my opinion that is a great oversimplification.
Ynglingatal for example (did you just leave that out when
you said "other Germanic royal genealogies"?), does not
mention any Gaut at all. In particular, its first
strophe begins by mentioning someone called "Fjolnir".
(who the Ynglingasaga elaborates as the son of Frey)

So, we do have a god as first ancestor, but it isn't
"Gaut"  (and not "Gapt" either). But that is exactly the
point I tried to communicate to you earlier, the phenomenon
of  v a r i a t i o n : i.e. that you see all kinds of "royal
germanic "genealogies, and that they quite often point back to
some god or some hero or other. . .  but that the names differ!

I also elaborated on the Vandal genealogy after Dirk mentioned
Raus and Rapt. And I quoted Cassius Dio as the source for this
story . . .  but there was no "Gaut". The Vandal genealogy
begins with Ambri and Assi (not Gaut) - which is what Dirk said.

Then I looked at the Langobard story, and there I found the
ancestors Ibor and Agio, but again there wasn't a trace of
"Gaut".




>Old Greek au was early monophthongized (in German
>monophthongiert). Especially in foreign words the writing au was not
>practical. Instead before t "ap" was used - a rather questionable
>escape as p in pt stands for approximately the same sound
>as f. This mode of writing was copied in Latin texts and
>could have been used in the chancellery of the Amals.

This is the first attempt at explanation that I have seen.
So it is not impossible that it *may* have said Gaut.
But the principle of variation that we have seen exemplified
for the other early Germanic peoples, tell us that it is
unlikely that you will find the same ancestor in the legends
of different peoples. And also, we do have the name "Gepids"
which seems to lie very close to "Gapt", hence making
"Gapt" extremely likely.


Gaptically
Keth




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