[gothic-l] Re: Gothic words in Bavarian

Mon Aug 16 10:16:52 UTC 2004

Hi LLama Nom,

I posted many years ago (message 2225 of June 21, 2000) all I found 
in several sources about Gothic influence on OHG in general and 
especially on Old Bavarian. 
In order to save your efforts (to find that message), I put it again:

Francisc

"... In fact, there are some words borrowed from Gothic by the Old 
Bavarian
dialect of Old High German; some of them are attested only in this old
dialect, others survive in the modern Bavarian (and Austrian) 
dialects,
and there are also some that became common in (High) German.
The main sources that I used are:
[1] Stefan Sonderegger: Althochdeutsche Sprache und Literatur, de
Gruyter, Berlin - New York, 1987
[2] Werner König: DTV-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache, Deutscher 
Taschenbuch
Verlag, München, 1996
[3] Günther Drosdowski: DUDEN Etymologie - Herkunftswörterbuch der
deutschen Sprache, Duden Verlag, Mannheim - Leipzig - Wien - Zürich,
1989
[4] Virgil Stefanescu-Draganesti: Introduction to the Comparative
Grammar of the Germanic Languages, University of Bucharest, 1971
[5] Johann Wolf: Banater deutsche Mundartenkunde, Kriterion Verlag,
Bukarest, 1987
The abbreviations that I will use are:
Go. = Gothic
OHG = Old High German
O. Bav. = Old Bavarian (a dialect of OHG)
MHG = Middle High German
Ger. = Modern (High) German
Mod. Bav. = Modern Bavarian dialects (including Austrian)
Gk. = Greek
Lat. = Latin
So, what's about this Gothic influence on OHG?
[1] says: OHG owes a series of loanwords to Gothic, respectively to 
the
Gothic mission and its influence on the High German, especially 
Bavarian
church language (page 259). [3] tells us also about a Gothic-Arian
mission that reached the Germans (page 524 etc.). A similar point of
view I have found further in [5] (page 117). But in [2] is written 
that
a Gothic mission in Bavaria is not historically attested and few
probable, having in view the tolerance of the Arian-Gothic 
Christianity.
According to this source, the relations between Gothic and southern 
OHG
(especially O. Bav.) are more probably due to the influence of
Gothic-Christian population groups on the mixed people of the 
Bavarians,
that appeared suddenly about A.D. 500 (page 69). In another source, 
but
I can not remember now where, I have read something similar: after the
defeat of the Ostrogoths in Italy, some of their remnants migrated
northwards and participated in the ethnogenesis of the Bavarian 
people,
giving them some words and the legend of Theodoric the Great (which
became Dietrich von Bern in the German mediaeval epic).
And now, about the Gothic influence on OHG and especially on O. Bav.:
According to [1] (pages 259-260) and [2] (pages 69, 187 ,189) the
following words are for sure of Gothic origin:
OHG pfaffo (Ger. Pfaffe) "priest" < Go. papa < Gk. papas;
OHG (O. Bav.) múta "custom, duty" (Mod. Bav. Maut) < Go. móta;
O. Bav. pferintag "Friday" < Go. paraskaíwé < Gk. paraskeue:
"preparation (for the Sabbath)";
O. Bav. erintag (Mod. Bav. Ergetag, Erchtag, Ertag) "Tuesday" < OHG
*Ariótag < Go. *Arjaus dags < Gk. Areo:s (he:mera) "day of Ares"
(interpreted by the Arians as "day of Arius");
Mod. Bav. Pfinztag "Thursday" < Go. *pintadags < Gk. pempte: (he:mera)
"the fifth day";
[3] (page 340) gives us also:
OHG kúski (MHG kiusche, Ger. keusch) "virtuous, chaste" < Go. *kuskeis
"conscious (of the Christian teaching)" < Lat. conscius.
As of probable Gothic origin are given also (in the same sources):
OHG dult (Mod. Bav. Dult) "feast, holiday" < Go. dulths;
OHG (Dat. pl.) fim(f)chustim (Ger. Pfingsten) "Whitsuntide" < Go.
paíntékusté < Gk. pente:koste: (he:mera) "the 50th day" (this word can
be found also in other Germanic languages, e.g. Old Frisian pinkostra,
Old Norse pikkisdagar, Old English pentecosten, Dutch Pinkster[en]);
OHG sambaztag (Ger. Samstag) "Saturday" < Go. *sambató < Vulgar Gk.
sambaton.
Of possible Gothic origin are considered also other words, which can 
be
explained also otherwise.
Some of them can be regarded either as Gothic loanwords or as cognate
Germanic words:
OHG obasa, obisa "hall, vestibule" = Go. ubizwa [1, p. 260];
OHG pfeit (Mod. Bav. Pfait) "shirt" = Go. paida (cf. O. Eng. péda, Gk.
baite:) [5, p. 110].
Others are word of Greek origin, for which the intermediate to German
could be either Gothic or (Vulgar) Latin:
OHG engil (Ger. Engel) "angel" from Gk. aggelos through Go. aggilus or
Lat. angelus [2, p.69] [3, p. 156];
OHG tiufal (Ger. Teufel) "devil" from Gk. diabolos through Go.
diabaúlus, diabulus or lat. diabolus, diabulus [2, p. 69] [3, p. 742];
OHG biscop (Ger. Bischof) "bishop" from Gk. episkopos through. Go.
aípiskaúpus or (rather, I think) from Vulgar Gk. ebiskopos through
Vulgar Lat. *piscopus, *biscopu- [1, p. 260] [3, p. 84].
Another interesting think is the fact that the dual forms of the
personal pronouns were lost in OHG (excepting the isolated "unker 
zweio"
in Otfrid), but the Mod. Bav. has for the 2nd person pl. old dual 
forms
with plural meaning (like in modern Icelandic!!):
Nom. es (= Go. jut), Ac. enk (= Go. igqis), Gen. enker (= Go. igqar)
They can be regarded either as a result of Gothic influence on O. Bav.
or as relict forms, lost in OHG but preserved in Bavarian [4, p. 116]
[5, p. 110] [2, p. 157].

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Yahoo! Domains - Claim yours for only $14.70
http://us.click.yahoo.com/Z1wmxD/DREIAA/yQLSAA/wWMplB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>. 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gothic-l/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    gothic-l-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/