[gothic-l] Re: Germanic mutual intelligibility

Wed May 16 07:48:39 UTC 2001

--- In gothic-l at y..., "Frank Kermes" <gevurah at h...> wrote:
> Hi Dirk and 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.
> >
> >
> >
> >Hi, that is interesting, but not at all unexpected. However, I
would
> >expect an even stronger Celtic influence on the Gutones/Goths. As
> >Wolfram (and others) have shown, the early Goths were dominated by
a
> >Celtic tribal group, i.e. the socalled Hisarna-layer. At this time
> >Celtic words like reiks could have entered the Gothic-Germanic
> >language. The same is true for the Vandals, in fact, Walter Pohl
and
> >Wolfram argue that they emerged from a Celtic-Lugian group. As a
> >linguist, could you provide some examples of Celtic borrowings into
> >Germanic please?
>
> Just thought I'd jump in here, since I'm reading a book that has
some
> bearing on this particular question.  In the chapter "Contact with
the
> Celts" in _Language and History in the Early Germanic World_, D H
Green
> deals with linguistic borrowings in both directions.  He suggests
that
> Celtic "Bracae" and the word for "mare" are derived from Germanic
(pp.
> 149-150), but (more importantly for this discussion), the majority
of loan
> words seem to be from Celtic to Germanic.

Hello Frank,

great stuff! I suppose on the face of it, a higher share of loan words
from Celtic to Germanic rather than vice versa, could reflect the
fact that Celts were relatively more advanced in social
organisation, technology and culture.

>
> Gothic Ambrahtos, OHG Ambaht, corresponds to "ambactus" used by
Caesar
> regarding Gaulish "servants."  "Reiks" is interesting, because he
notes
> Gaulic personal names with <-rix> as the second element, and they
correspond
> also to known personal names in Germanic: Celtic "Clutorix," and W.
Frankish
> "Chlodericus" (p. 150).

I suppose the fact that the Celtic word 'reiks' rather than kunnig (or
so) was used mainly by East Germanics like the Goths and Vandals would
underscore the argument made by Wolfram et al. that Goths and Vandals
were once dominated by Celtic tribal groups like the Lugii. Note also,
that the name of the Vandalic king Hilderic is actually written
HILDERIX on his coins (half-siliquae and nummi).

>
> "Lead" is another word that appears to derive pretty clearly from
Celtic; OE
> <lead>, MHG <lot>, Old Irish <luaide> (p. 152).
>
> Just to summarize the main thrust of his argument, the influence of
Celtic
> on Germanic seems to be in the area of social organization (<reiks>
and
> <ambrahtos>, being social classes), and technology and armament
(<Hisarnes>,
> "lead," <brunja>).  That would make sense if there had been Germanic
groups
> as "subtribes" under a largely Celtic confederation, ie. the Lugii.
>

Yes, the loan seem to reflect the areas of Celtic dominance, i.e.
social organisation, technology etc. ...

> I'm kind of surprised that no one has brought up multi-lingualism
yet.

If I remember correctly, Caesar reports that the Suevian chieftan
Ariovist spoke not only Germanic but also Celtic. In fact, we only
know that he was a Suevian -despite of his rather Celtic sounding
name- indirectly, when Caesar tells us that his wife, who he brought
from his own homeland was a Suevian German. However, we don't know if
this was a widespread phenomenon that Germanic people were able to
speak Celtic in the border region or whether Ariovist was an
exception.

 In
> areas where groups speaking similar (but still distinctive)
languages come
> into contact with each other with high frequency, as in the case of
> Arminius' Cherusci and Maroboduus' Marcomanni, it wouldn't be
unusual for
> individuals to develop different discourse "catalogs."  To use
myself as an
> example, when speaking to colleagues and faculty at the University
here, I
> consciously choose words and syntactic structures to match they way
they
> speak.  However, when speaking with friends I've known outside the
> University for years, I switch my discourse strategies (and my
speech
> becomes peppered with things like "dude," and "like," and
"y'know?"--hey,
> I'm a long-haired weirdo).
>
> If you intensify the distinctions between these different discourse
methods,
> you may end up with a situation resembling that of the various
Germanic
> peoples; just to make things _more_ confusing, the earliest Runic
> inscriptions with their "creolized" (to pillage Francisc's term!)
vocabulary
> may be a sort of "public" discourse, ie. a typical modern local
newspaper in
> the U.S. is written at a fairly low primary-school language level so
that it
> is comprehesible to the widest audience.

Presumably, the runic
inscriptions
> were _intended_ for public display, and were likely to be read by
people
> speaking a great number of different Germanic dialects.

I guess that is possible, but these earliest Germanic inscriptions are
in fact not on 'public' stones, but on rather private movable objects,
it I am not mistaken.

>
> The differences between the languages of different Germanic groups
might
> have been more perceived than actual (here I'm entering into more
> speculative speculation) . . .  An acquaintence of mine was on the
phone
> with a Norwegian relative, but my acquaintence speaks Swedish; they
were
> conversing along quite happily, my acquaintence in Swedish, her
relative in
> Norwegian, when her relative complimented my acquaintence on her
Norwegian,
> to which she replied that it was Swedish.  Her relative instantly
insisted
> that they switch to English; Swedish is a foreign language and she
might not
> understand it.
>
> I propose that situation might have been common (or at least
possible, once
> you get rid of the phones), for example, in Cheruscan, Marcomannic,
and
> Gothic (ie. a Marcomannus thinking "right, in Gothic you have to
make all
> the terminal /z/'s into /s/).

That is very interesting. An other possible example is the relation
between modern High German and various German dialects like Bavarian
or Suevian/Alamannic. Thus,when Swiss-Germans speak among each other,
a High German speaker can hardly understand a word and definitely not
follow the conversation. But as soon as a Swiss German speaks to a
high German speaker he switches to a more intelligible level of
language. Perhaps it was similar with the ancient Germans.

cheers
Dirk

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