[gothic-l] EE Jews descend from Goths

jdm314 at AOL.COM jdm314 at AOL.COM
Wed May 9 04:55:40 UTC 2001


In a message dated 5/8/01 5:30:10 PM, you wrote:

<<I am sorry, Labovsky, but I feel these ideas are based upon

a lack of familiarity with Yiddish and German, and it would surprise

me if such an idea was actually found in Koestler's book.


The reason for my scepticism is that to me Yiddish appears

as much too closely related to normal German, for it to be

possible that it be in any way closer to Gothic than normal German

is. >>

    I have to agree here. For all I know my East European Jewish family comes
from prosylitized Gothic-Sarmatian hybrids. This I cannot disprove. But one
thing I can emphatically and categorically state is that Yiddish is not
Gothic. (It is a shame, because David Salo and I were working on a
Judeo-Gothic language based on Wulfila and Yiddish... but this was always
intended to be a JOKE. See
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gothic-l/message/2131  )
    People have repeatedly stated that Yiddish is a branch of High German,
and more broadly is a West Germanic language, whereas Gothic is an East
Germanic language. This might not mean much to a non-linguist, but these
categories are not arbitrary: they are based on genuine and easily
perceivible differences. To clarify this for non-linguists, here are some
illustrations using Standard High German, Standard Yiddish, and Wulfilan
Gothic. Crimean Gothic forms, where known, are given in parentheses.

    The most obvious difference between the three languages is that Yiddish
and German (and indeed all Germanic languages except Gothic!) change
proto-Germanic *z to r, whereas Gothic either preserves it or changes it to
s, e.g.

German:     mir     er
Yiddish:    mir     er
Gothic:     mis     is (ies)
(Meaning    for me  he)


    Another difference is that German and Yiddish turn voiceless stops (*p,
*t, *k) into fricatives or affricates in certain positions, whereas Gothic
keeps them:

German:     zwei      Salz        ich
Yiddish:    tsvey     zalts       ikh
Gothic:     twa (tua) salt (salt) ik (ich)
(Meaning    two       salt        I)


    Also, Yiddish and German turn *th into d, and *d into t

German:     du        drei          Tage
Yiddish:    du        dray          tog
Gothic:     thu (tzo) thrija (tria) dags (tag)
(Meaning    you       three         day)


    Yiddish and German both merge the *hw and *w sounds into [v] (but wtill
spelled witha <w> in German)

German:     Wer     will
Yiddish:    ver     vil
Gothic:     hwas    wilja
(Meaning    who     [I] want)


    In all the changes so far, German and Yiddish have been the innovators,
wheras Gothic has been conservative. One notable exception to Gothic's
conservative nature is that it changes *o to u and *e to i, whereas Yiddish
and German keep those soudns separate:

German:     Got     geben
Yiddish:    got     gebn
Gothic:     guth    giban
(Meaning    god     to give )

    Another nice excercize is to compare the conjugation of the verb "to be"
in the three languages:

German:     sein: ich bin, du bist, er ist, wir sind, ihr seid, sie sind.
Yiddish:    zaynen: ikh bin, du bist, er iz, mir zaynen, ir zayt, zey zaynen
Gothic:     wisan: ik im, thu is, is ist, weis sijum, jus sijuth, eis sind
(Meaning    to be: I am, you are, he is, we are, you are, they are)


    These simple examples are just a few. As you become more familiar with
these three languages you will see that Yiddish and German are really quite
close when compared to Gothic. As a final example, let's compare the Austrian
phrases Angelique recently posted:

Austrian:   Gotish was i net, ob i bin... oba bleib ma sche xund un lustig!
German:     Gotish weisz ich nicht, ob ich bin... aber bleib mir auch schoen
gesund und lustig
Yiddish:    Gotish veys ikh nit tsi bin ikh... ober blayb mir oykh gezunt un
(*lustik does not exist so far as I can tell)
Gothic: Gutiska ni wait ei sijau... ak bileiba mis haila jah swintha

    Someone correct any errors in my Gothic... I haven't composed in a while.
You can see that when put into sentences the three German-type languages are
much more similar to each other than the Gothic example is.

    Now of course you mention Busbecq's account of Crimean Gothic. Crimean
Gothic does indeed seem to be much more similar to German than "Classical"
Gothic, whether by convergent evolution, by borrowing, or simply by
contamination (as I recall Busbecq had two sources of which one was a Goth
and one was a German... and it was the German who spoke better Gothic!) ...
an excellent source on this topic is David Salo's post to this in some of the
Crimean forms actually being closer to Yiddish than one might expect, such as
"ich" and "tag," but for the most part Crimean does conform to Gothic ("ies",
"tua", "trija", "salt"... note also "ada" below, which is especially cogent.)
    Just for fun I have taken all the useful words out of Mr. Salo's post and
added Yiddish to them. I will leave the analysis up to you, but it certainly
seems to me that Crimean Gothic (while definitely of East Germanic origin) is
much farther from Classical Wulfilan Gothic than Yiddish is from Standard
German. Despite some superficial simlarities, I don't think it's possible to
derive Yiddish from Gothic, even the Crimean variety.



Crimean Gothic  Wulfilan Gothic High German     Yiddish         English
ada             *addi           Ei              ey              egg
alt             altheis         alt             alt             old
ano             *hanjo          Henne           hun             hen
apel            *apals, *aplus? Apfel           epl             apple
athe            ahtau           acht            akht            eight
bars            *bards          Bart            bord            beard
boga            *buga           Bogen           boygn           bow
broe            *brauth, -d-    Brot            broyt           bread
bruder          brothar         Bruder          bruder          brother
brunna          brunna          Brunnen         brunem          well
fisct (*fisch)  fisks           Fisch           fish            fish
furdeithien     fidwortaihun    vierzig         fertsik         forty
fyder           fidwor          vier            fir             four
fyuf (*fynf)    fimf            fuenf           finf            five
geen            [gaggan]        gehen           geyn            go
goltz (*golth)  gulth           Gold            gold            gold
handa           *handus         Hand            hant            hand
hoef(*t)        haubith, -d-    Haupt           hoypt           head
hus             -hus            Haus            hoyz            house
ich             ik              ich             ikh             I
ies             is              er              er              he
ita             ainata, ita?    ein             eyn             one
kommen          qiman           kommen          kumen           come
kop             *kuppa [stikls, aurkeis] (kopf) (kop)           cup
lachen          hlahjan         lachen          lakhn           laugh
nyne            niun            neun            nayn            nine
oegene          augona          Augen           oygn            eyes
plut            bloth, -d-      Blut            blut            blood
reghen          rign            Regen           rain
rinck, ringo    *hriggs         Ring            ring            ring
salt            salt            Salz            zalts           salt
schieten        *skiutan        schiessen       shisn           shoot
schlipen        slepan          schlafen        shlufn          sleep
schwester       swistar         Schwester       shvester        sister
seis            saihs           sechs           zeks            six
sevene          sibun           sieben          zibn            seven
silvir          silubr          Silber          zilber          silver
singhen         siggwan         singen          zingen          sing
stein (*stern)  stairno         Stern           shtern          star
sune            sunna, sunno    Sonne           zun             sun
tag             dags            Tag             tog             day
the             sa, *tha        der             der             the
tho             so, *tho        die             di              the
thiine          taihun          zehn            tseyn           ten
thurn           daur, dauro     Tor, Tuer       tir             door
tria            thrija          drei            dray            three
tua             twa             zwei            tsvey           two
tzo (*tho)      thu             du              du              thou
waghen          *wagns          Wagen           vogn            wagon
wingart         weinagards?     Weingarten?     vayngortn       [grapevine]
wintch          winds           Wind            vint            wind


Hope you've enjoyed this screed.

-Iusteinus

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