SV: [gothic-l] Gothic

[Bertil Häggman]

Keth,

BTW, thank you for your lengthy evaluation
of Lehmann (very useful).

Gothically

Bertil

> I asked the same question on this list when I first
> obtained it last fall. But the answers I received did
> not go either way. (neither positive nor negative)
> My own opinion: The meagre language material we have of
> Gothic (mainly Wulfila) precludes the possibility of
> creating a dictionary comparable to Jan de Vries' "Alt-
> nordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch." But, having a
> copy of Lehmann is definitely better than not having one.
> The tables at the back of the book, that list words
> from other languages that are etymologically linked to
> (known) Gothic words, is nice.
> 
> The only thing I can say, is that I have a feeling
> it would be possible to expand Lehmann's work somewhat.
> At first I thought that he has not sufficiently included
> the proper names found in Latin and Greek source. But when
> I just tried to check, I did find Ermanaric and Ostrogotha.
> But Theoderic I did not find; though that may be because
> I wasn't looking under the right letter. Sunilda I couldn't
> find either (just randomly picking some Gothic PN's that
> I know are in the Getica). I therefore think an additional
> section about Gothic PN's as well as place names (geographic
> termini) would have been a most wellcome addition to Lehmann's
> book. Esapecially also an index where the names could be
> looked up in their Latin (or Greek) forms, as they have come
> down to us in the manuscripts, and then etymological
> pointers to what Gothic words they are linked to.
> 
> The bibliography section is, however, very extensive. (119 pages)
> There you can see, for example, that Sigmund Feist began in
> 1888 with "Grundriß der Gotischen Etymologie".
> And Leo Meyer 1869: "Die gotische Sprache."
> The great majority of references are later than this. But I
> cannot say off-hand if Meyer is the earliest linguist who
> wrote specifically about the Gothic language (and not just
> generally on the Germanic languages). For that I'd have to
> go through all of the 119 pages!



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