[gothic-l] Re: The Language of the Goths

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at y..., Stephen Mark Carey <smcarey at a...> wrote:
>
> > not even pre-Germanic. Germanic emerged only during the middle of
the
> > last millennium BC when the first Germanic soundshift separated it
> > from other Indo-European languages.
>
> All this is correct, so you can understand why one might find it
strange
> to be looking for Goths where there is no Gothic -- or a least
that's
> what it seemed like -- now I've learned that there are "other'
Goths that
> do not speak Gothic -- perhaps what (as I suspected) are dealing
with
> here is that term "Gothic" is of limited scholarly use and only
makes
> good copy for T.V. programs.


Hi Stephen,

I don't share this view that there were Goths who did not speak
Germanic. I think what George meant is that parts of the Oksywie
culture may not have been Germanic speaking initially or that the
carriers of the culture completed the Germanic soundshift only later.
No doubt in my mind, Goths are essentially Germanic speakers. Yet,
Visigoths of the 7th century probably spoke mostly Romanic, leading
to them beeing called Valagoths in the tabula gentis.

I wonder how the Goths comunicated with their later masters and
allies the Huns. Could it be that Gothic was the lingua franca of the
Hunnic empire?

cheers,
Dirk






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