[gothic-l] Re: Friedegern

[Francisc Czobor]

Hi, Le

Jordanes wrote only that Fritigern was one of "their princes and the 
leaders who ruled them [the Visigoths] in place of kings", but 
doesn't mention his ancestry.
The spelling "gg" for [ng] and gk for [nk] was borrowed by Wulfila 
from Greek, but it's only a matter of writing, not of pronounciation.
When spoken, Gothic didn't sound quite like German, because it had no 
Umlauts (ö, ü), no "sh" sound (German "sch"), but it had "th" like 
English (and not like German). However, taking into account the 
fairly conservative vocalism of German, many Gothic words sounded 
quite similar to their Modern German counterparts, for instance: 
ains compared to German eins, ein (pronounced [aints], [ain]), but 
English one, Danish, Swedish en, W.Frisian ien
twai compares to German zwei (pronounced [tsvai]), but English two, 
Danish to, Swedish två, W.Frisian twa
stains compared to German Stein (pronounced [shtain]), but English 
stone, Danish, Swedish sten
augo compared to German Auge, but English eye, Danish øje, Swedish 
öga, Frisian each.
I don't know how sounds Frisian, but from the few examples above it's 
not at all similar to Gothic.
Regarding "Saxon", I don't know what language do you understand under 
this name:
- the Old Saxon language of the "Heliand" Biblic poem (9-10th 
century)?
- the Anglo-Saxon (Old English) language?
- the Middle Low German language of the Hanseatic cities, called by 
it's speakers "Saxon"?
- the modern Upper Saxon (obersächsisch) dialect, a form of Modern 
High German?
- the modern Lower Saxon (niedersächsisch) dialect, a form of Modern 
Low German?
- the German dialects spoken by the Transylvanian Saxons?
or something else?

Francisc

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Le Bateman" <LeBateman at A...> wrote:
>  Can someone tell me who the parents of Friedegern the leader of 
the Goths
> at Adrianople. Were these Visigoths or Ostrogoths. Since some of 
the double
> consenants in their language made the ng sound like double g of 
even kn. Did
> they
> borrow these from Greek?  When spoken did iit sound like a form of 
German.
> Like Frisian, or Saxon?
> Le



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