Comparing languages. Examples [gothic-l]

[cstrohmier at YAHOO.COM]

Hi Francisc,
	Concerning the word "attila", if I remember correctly, it is 
unattested in Gothic:  In other words, we don't know for sure what 
the Goths called Attila the Hun.  Since the word Etzel (Attila) is 
attested in Middle High German, perhaps the word is of Old High 
German origin, or as I said before, a shared word.
	Your point about the preference of Bishop Wulfila for "atta" 
instead of "fadar" is correct, but does it reflect a true linguistic 
preference, or a theological preference?  The presence of both 
cremation and inhumation in ancient pagan Gothic cemeteries may point 
to different cults among the Goths:  a male god for one, and perhaps, 
an earth-mother type goddess for the other.  If this is so, it may 
have had profound effects on the approach used by early Christian 
missionaries, and on the rates and patterns of conversions of the 
Goths to orthodox Christianity and to Arianism.  With regard to 
Bishop Wulfila and his choice of "atta" over "fadar", he may have 
chosen "atta" to avoid any suggestion of "alls fadar" or "all-
father", a title of Wotan.  Similarly Bishop Wulfila may have 
chosen "aithei" instead of "modar" to describe the Blessed Virgin 
Mary and other mothers, so as to avoid any suggestion of an earth-
mother goddess, such as Nerthus.
	As far as we know, almost all of the Gothic texts we have 
came either from Ostrogothic Italy or southern Germany.  It seems 
likely to me that the scribe who wrote  "fadar" instead of "atta" may 
have accidentally substituted the normal Gothic word for father.  If 
so, then this single occurance may actually prove that the normal 
Gothic word for father was "fadar" and not "atta". 
	It is an unproven assumption that all of the words and 
structures common to Gothic and Old Bavarian are Gothic loans to Old 
Bavarian.  Old High German, especially Old Bavarian, and Gothic not 
only share a number of general vocabulary words, they also share some 
unique structure words, such as pronouns (which are rarely borrowed) 
and some inflectional endings; these unique sharings are connected to 
the very structure of the language, and are shared with no other 
Germanic language.  I would add that there are many other general 
vocabulary words, structure words, and inflections of Old High 
German, especially Old Bavarian, which are very near or identical to 
Gothic, but which are not considered as a sign of special 
relationship, since they are also shared with many other Germanic 
tongues.  This may be necessary from a scholarly point of view, but 
it is also misleading. 
	I hope to take up your other two points concerning the Gothic 
influx into Bavaria and the Gothic influence on Old Bavarian in a 
future posting.
Cory  



--- In gothic-l at y..., "Francisc Czobor" <czobor at c...> wrote:
> Hi Cory,
> 
> --- In gothic-l at y..., Cory B Strohmier <corystrohmier at j...> wrote:
> > ... for example, Gothic has two words 
> for
> > "father":  "atta" and "fadar"; Old High German has "fater."  
Bishop
> > Wulfila wrote:  "Atta unsar"; the Old High German scribes wrote:  
> "Fater
> > unser."  The texts seem far apart.  Yet Bishop Wulfila could have
> > written:  "Fadar unsar,"  and the presence in Middle High German 
of 
> the
> > word "Etzel" (from Gothic Attila, meaning "Little Father") may 
point 
> to
> > an Old High German form of "atta", which may have dropped out as 
a 
> result
> > of the scribes choosing "Fater."  In any case, a comparision of 
the
> > actual texts would make the two languages seem further apart than 
> what
> > they actually are.
> > ...
> 
> In fact, Wulfila uses mostly "atta", and "fadar" appears only once 
in 
> the whole Silver Bible. The fact that the Goths preferred "atta" 
> instead of "fadar" is proved also by the fact that they called the 
> Hunish king Attila "little father", and not *Fadrila.
> The presence of "Etzel" in the Niebelungenlied is due, in my 
opinion, 
> not to the existence of an OHG correspondent of Gothic atta, but to 
> the borrowing of the name from the Gothic saga, together with 
Dietrich 
> (< Theodoric/Þiudareiks) etc. The shift t>tz is due, I think, to 
the 
> fact that the word was borrowed into OHG at a time when the second 
> consonant shift was still active (around A.D. 500).
> Regarding the relationship of Gothic with OHG, especially Old 
> Bavarian, I wrote largerly in an earlier message to this list (no. 
> 2225). This relationship is however interpreted not through a 
Gothic 
> origin of OHG or Old Bavarian, but rather of a Gothic influence, 
that 
> was explained in two ways:
> 1. OHG owes a series of loanwords to Gothic, respectively to the
> Gothic mission and its influence on the High German, especially 
> Bavarian church language. 
> 2. According to other sources, since a Gothic mission in Bavaria is 
> not historically attested and few probable, having in view the 
> tolerance of the Arian-Gothic Christianity, 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. 
> Probably that 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).
> 
> With best regards,
> 
> Francisc


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