Comparing languages. Examples [gothic-l]

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Hello Cory!
How would you be able to determine from a given grave whether
it was a mother or a father cult? 
We have the same thing today, where cremation seems the most
common, whereas some generations ago it was the opposite.
But can you conclude from that, that we now have a cult of
the opposite gender ?

The Basks also say "aita" for father, and the Turks "ata".
Maybe this form is so common because it it an easy word to say
for small childeren, whereas (presumably) an "f" would be
more difficult. Old Frisian also has "aththa" for father,
and so does Old Norse (atti). Also in ON "Atli" was a name
of Þórr.

Best regards
Keth




>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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