[gothic-l] Re: Goths of North Africa

[Francisc Czobor]

Hi, Dirk and Llama Nom

In the Gothic-l message no. 1389 of December 18, 1999, Ryszard 
Derdzinski ("Reikahardus") wrote:

"...we have only one or two attested Vandalic sentences coming from 
North Africa.
They should be known to all the East Germanic linguists. I met them 
in J. Strzelczyk's "Wandalowie i ich afrykanskie panstwo" (in 
Polish). The first sentence can be treated as Vandalic without doubt -
 in Florentinus' poem we read: _Frója armés!_ translated in Latin 
as 'Domine miserere' - it was called from the Arian altars in North 
Africa.
The second sentence is usualy treated as Gothic text (and should find
interest in the list), but can be Vandalic as well. It comes from a 
North African poem entitled "De conviviis barbaris". We read there: 
_Inter eils goticum skapjamatzjajadrincan_ / Non audet quisquam 
dignos edicere versus_. The Gothic (or Vandalic) sentence is here: 
_Eils! Scapjam matzja(n) ja drincan_.
In pure Gothic it could be: _Heils! Scapjam matjan jah drigkan_..."

In fact, in classical (Wulfilan) Gothic these sentences would be:
'Frauja armeis'
and respectively:
'Hails! Skapjam matjan jah drigkan'
These sentences could be Gothic, not Vandalic (even the first one 
could be a Gothic formula used by the Arian Vandalic priests, taking 
into consideration that for the Germanic Arians, Gothic played the 
same role as Latin for Catholics or Arabic for Moslems). If they are 
Vandalic, than we have to consider that Vandalic was very close to 
Gothic (or that it was just a Gothic dialect). They differ from 
classical Gothic in the following respects:
assimilation of diphtongs: ai > ei, au > o
the opening  ei > e
the palatalization tj > tzj
But these tendencies of evolution are observed also in post-Wulfilan 
Gothic, so they can not be considered as characteristic for Vandalic.

Francisc


--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "faltin2001" <dirk at s...> wrote:
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <penterakt at f...> wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Dirk,
> > 
> > > In fact, only a handful of Vandalic words have been recorded 
> > > on artefacts in North Africa.
> > > 
> > 
> > I'm intrigued.  Apart possibly from the Codex Gissensis, which 
was 
> > discovered in Egypt, I didn't know there were *any* Vandal words 
> > recorded on artefacts in North Africa (or elsewhere).  Do you 
have 
> > any more information about this?  As far as I was aware, Vandalic 
> is 
> > only attested through personal names and the two more or less 
> garbled 
> > quotes in Latin texts.
> > 
> > Llama Nom
> 
> 
> 
> Hi Llama Nom,
> 
> you are right most of the Vandalic words are in fact names, but a 
> couple of inscriptions have been found in Tunesia, I think. I 
> remember the word 'frauja' as address to 'The Lord' on a stone, 
> perhaps somebody else can list a few more examples.
> 
> Cheers
> Dirk



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