[gothic-l] Germanic mutual intelligibility, was: Yiddish ...

[Sollers]

----- Original Message -----
From: <dirk at smra.co.uk>
To: <gothic-l at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: 14 May 2001 12:31
Subject: [gothic-l] Germanic mutual intelligibility, was: Yiddish ...


> --- In gothic-l at y..., czobor at c... wrote:
> > --- In gothic-l at y..., dirk at s... wrote:
> > > --- In gothic-l at y..., czobor at c... wrote:
> > > > Hi Dirk,
> > > >
> > > > I said only "The failure of the Franks to be converted to
> Arianism
> > > is
> > > > explained, **among other reasons**, also by the fact that,
> > > Franconian
> > > > being a West-Germanic language  considerably different from
> > Gothic,
> > > > the Franks had difficulties in understanding the language of the
> > > > Gothic Bible." This is not my idea, I have read it somewhere,
> > > probably
> > > > in Wolfram's "Die Germanen". In any case, this was not presented
> > > > there as the principal reason for the Franks to prefer the
> > > > Catholicism, it was just "among other reasons". The idea was
> that
> > > > because of their West Germanic language the Franks had less
> > > linguistic
> > > > affinity to Wulfila's Bible than, let's say, the Vandals or the
> > > > Burgundians.
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi Francisc,
> > >
> > > that maybe right, but I still think that linguistic affinity
> played
> > > virtually no role in the decision to convert to Catholicism or
> > > Arianism. The Burgundians may be a good example, as they were East
> > > Germanics but switched very early (I think under King Sigismund)
> to
> > > Catholicism. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that some
> > > (West Germanic) Alamanni may have initially turned to Arianism.
> Many
> > > Alamanni fled under Ostrogothic protection after the battle of
> > > Zuelpich and the Ostrogothic kingdom included Alamannic areas like
> > the
> > > Vorarlberg at the Bodensee. Also, the use of so called gold leaf
> > > crosses in Alamannic graves has been interpreted as indication for
> > > Arian influence. Finally, a linguist on the Germanic-L has
> recently
> > > pointed out that by the 4th/5th century East and West-Germanic
> were
> > > likely still very close and mutually intelligible.
> > >
> > > cheers
> > > Dirk
> > >
> >
> > Hi Dirk,
> >
> > I am not a specialist in such matters, only quoted what I read.
> > Maybe the language was indeed not relevant for the decision for
> > Arianism or Catholicism (in fact, this is also my point of view, and
> I
> > found somehow surprisingly the assertion of Wolfram. See the case of
> > Serbians, Croatians and Bosniacs, who speak the same language, but
> are
> > Ortodox, Catholic, respectively Moslem; the Polish, Czech, Slovaks,
> > Slovenians and Croatians choose for Catholicism, despite their
> > language affinities with the Slavonic Orthodox Bible of Cyrill and
> > Methodius; on the other hand the Romanians choose the Orthodoxism,
> > despite their Romance language).
> > Regarding East and West-Germanic in 4/5th century (before the
> > occurence of the second consonnant shift in High German), I agree
> that
> > they could be, at least in part, mutually inteligible (maybe on the
> > border of the dialect/language distinction; very hard to make
> > presumptions, since we have very scarce attestations of West
> Germanic
> > of that time).
> >
> > Francisc
>
> Hi Francisc,
>
> I see we agree on this, but just to round this up. Apparently, early
> Runic inscriptions of the 2nd/3rd centuries AD, show that at this time
> all Germanic dialects were still very close to common Germanic as it
> has been reconstructed by linguists. Anecdotal evidence could be added
>  from the possible ease with which a Marcomannic noble like Catualda
> seemed to have communicated with the Goth/Gutones, while Arminius the
> Cheruscan seems to have been able to talk to the Marcomannic king
> Marbod (around 20AD), thus implying some sort of mutual
> intelligibility across the whole Germania between Rhine, Vistula and
> Danube.
>
> Anyway, if mutual intelligibility was still high among the various
> Germanic dialects in the 2nd and 3rd century AD, I suppose Germanic
> people would still have been able to communicate with some ease a
> hundred years later when Wulfila (or people in his environment)
> translated the bible into Gothic.

I shall now proceed to totally muddy the water!

Coming at it from the linguistics side of things, _all_ the surviving early
material shows strong signs of creolisation (particularly the Germanic as
opposed to the Gothic groups), quite probably as the result of a mixing of
Celtic and something else.  There is also strong linguistic evidence to
suggest that what Tacitus called "Germani" were actually Celts.

Secondly, with regard to the Franks:  people are now arguing that Clovis did
actually convert to Arianism before he became Catholic; certainly one of his
sisters was Arian.  The chief force that pushed him towards Catholicism was
not Remigius, who from his own letters comes over as not terribly interested
in converting him, but his wife - some of whose family (e.g. her sister)
were Catholic, but others (e.g. her uncle) were Arian.  Consequently
language doesn't seem to have had much to do with it.


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