[gothic-l] Re: The Goths, Gutland (Gutones) and the Guta Saga

[Tore Gannholm]

Hi Dirk,
I don't know what you mean with modern linguists at the University of
Stockholm. Have you any names. I talk about now living professors in Nordic
languages. (Ingemar Olsson just passed away as earlier mentioned)

If you talk about the Swedish government I can understand it. They don't
accept any minority language without pressure from abroad. They first
refused to sign the EU convention for minority languages.
When they were forced by the EU to do something the matter was given to the
minister of Agriculture.
She formed a committee to investigate what had to be done.
The committee only included languages with high pressure from outside and
considered the Gutnish language as a dead language and accoringly
disqualified it. We took for granted that the Gutnish language should be
included and did not put enough pressure on the Swedish government.

The idea with minority languages within the EU is to conserve the old
languages, but that is not accepted by the Swedish government. They don't
understandd it.
Probably, the only way out for the Gutnish language is to file a law suite
on the Swedish government with the EU court for contravening the minority
language convention.

On top of this the Swedish government formed a council of  the minority
languages approved by the Swedish government. Only these languages are
allowed to be members.
This is what Anders is referring to.

When representatives from the Society of the Gutnish language enlisted in a
government sponsored seminar on Swedish dialects they were not allowed to
take part and were told that Gotlandish is not a dialect but an old
language.

I have never maintained that Gotic and Gutnisch is the same language, only
that some renown professors say so and it is worth investigating. I have
with the professor in Nordic languages at the University of Uppsala Lennart
Elmevik initiated a comparason between the Guta lagh and Codex Argentus. I
don't know if that project has started.
Tore



>Hi Tore,
>
>if the first written records of Old Gutnish are from the 13th instead
>of the 14th century, that is fine. It does not change the fact that
>Gutnish is an East Scandinavian/North Germanic language. If that
>linguist who you mention, Ingemar Olson, told you otherwise, that is
>inexplicable. I can only say that I have heard from a linguist at
>Stockholm University that modern Gutnish is usually classified as a
>dialect of Swedish. Whether this is rightly done or not or a
>Stockholm-conspiracy (as Bertil suggested) I don't know.
>
>Also, you imply that Elias Wessen and Bugge are still 'cutting edge'
>as Wessen's quote that 'Gutnish and Gothic are basically the same' was
>published in 1969. However, I maintain that this assertation is
>nowadays condidered to be completely wrong.
>
>I suspect that there is not much that could make you change your
>mind, if you dismiss the opinion of modern linguists and the result of
>the simple comparison done here on the list, which already made it
>bluntly clear that Old Gutnish and Gothic are not the same. What is
>required on your part is real linguistis evidence that Old Gutnish and
>Gothic are indeed the same or at least very closely related.
>Quotes from Wessen or Bugge are of no help.
>
>I cannot say on what sort of observation or study Wessen based his
>findings, but wishful thinking seemed to have had more to do with it
>than honest analysis. Here is the link to the article about Swedish
>Gothicism again, which did not copy properly the first time. I suppose
>from this article it becomes very clear what motivated people like
>Wessen in his time.
>
>http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/gemenskap/inhalt/publikationen/arbeitspapi
>ere/ahe_07.html
>


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