[gothic-l] Old Gutnish/closeness of languages

[Bertil Häggman]

Keth,

There is, I am afraid, no etymological
dictionary of Old Gutnish of recent date
but some earlier material of interest,
'Gautaminning', for instance. 

For the comparative study of languages
I can recommend Zeitschrift fuer Vergleichende
Sprachforschung, now named Historische
Sprachforschung (Historical Linguistics).
published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in
Goettingen now in its 110th volume.
There is a _Register zur Zeitschrift
fuer Vergleichende Sprachforschung 
Band 1-100_ (1851-1987) 324 pages
and published in 1997.

A today somewhat outdated, I suspect,
but still useful book is the Aschehoug _La
méthode comparative en linguistice historique_,
Oslo 1925 by A. Meillet.

The question of the origin of language
is highly debated. The notion of a complete
language springing forth fully armed, grammatical
structure and all, before human reason had
developed to a relevant degree of sophistication,
is highly controversial. Language could not
be a fully shaped instrument that one fine
day fell into the lap of an astonished and
ovjerjoyed human being like a delightful,
precious and unexpected gift.

The R.C. Boer handbook seems interesting
and it would be valuable to know if he mentions
Old Gutnish. The Routledge Encyclopedia
just mentions that Old Danish, Old Swedish and
Old Gutnish (what is called "the written language 
of the island of Gotland"´) were split 1050-1340.
Also stating that only Danish and Swedish
"survived the later processes of political 
centralization and linguistic standardization",
which is hardly correct as Gutnish exists to this
day, although spoken by a minority on Gutland.

If one wants to reconstruct Proto-Germanic it seems
Gothic is a good base and chief source. Many phonological
and morphological changes of other Germanic languages
are not found in Gothic. Unfortunately the Bible
translations in Gothic are very literal, so
not much is supplied on syntax.

Gothically

Bertil


>But you have to remember that a language is not
> merely its vocabulary. Language means communication by
> means of speech. And any element of a language that
> carries information, is as important as all the other
> information carrying elements. Thus, you are looking at
> too small a subset of all the information-carrying elements
> if you only look at the stems of the words.
> English for example has very many imported words.
> (50%?) But since the grammar is more similar to Anglo-Saxon
> than to French grammar, that counts for something too.
> 
> I saw that the Dutch linguist R.C.Boer published something
> he called "Oergermaans handboek". In it he looks at all
> Germanic languages, and tries to go as far back as he can.
> He has a lot about phonology. But also a lot about grammar.
> In a particular spot he looks as the flexion of nouns,
> and is thus able to set up 4 or 5 "stages" of development
> from "Oergermaans". He is then saying that the West Germanic
> languages left the others during the second stage,
> whereas East and North Germanic stayed together somewhat longer,
> and split up only at the 3rd or 4th stage.
> 
> Boer is in other words using a "tree-model" for his analysis
> of how close the languages are. In a tree-model it is important
> what "branch" you are on. And the points where new branches
> come into existence are the essential points. In such
> a model "distance" would be defined by how many branches
> you are removed from each other. Perhaps this can be called
> the genetic approach, since in genetics similar considerations
> are important.



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