[gothic-l] Re: Vandal (was: Goths of North Africa)

[llama_nom]

Hi Francisc,

> It is true that at that time Latin showed the palatalization (or 
> affrication) of t before j, but I don't see why a Latin author 
should 
> apply this also in transcribing non-Latin words.

Maybe barbarian words and names often reached the ears of educated 
writers via not-co-educated soldiers, etc., who might have 
assimilated them to their own speech.

Alternatively, since [tj] and [tsj] don't comprise distinct phonemes 
in Latin at this time, just more or less educated ways of talking, it 
could be that with the best will in the world, a Latin speaker would 
miss the difference.  I've noticed that sometimes when people write 
non-standard English they use more phonetic, or more 'barbarous' 
spellings, even when the word in questions is no different from the 
standard word.  The author of De Conviviis Barbaris clearly didn't 
care much for Vandal culture; maybe he deliberately or unconsciously 
included features of Vulgar Latin phonology to add to the impression 
of the uncouth, and - well - vulgar.

On the other hand, maybe features of Latin pronunciation did cross 
the language barrier to Vandal.  A similar phenomenon has happened in 
more recent times with the spread of uvular /r/ from Parisian French 
to parts of Germany, the Netherlands & Scandinavia.  Or maybe some 
genuine spontaneous independent changes are recorded here.  Until 
more evidence turns up, we might be stuck...


> Regarding the tendency to diphtong assimilation, I had in view not 
> only the Salzburg manuscript, but also the Crimean Gothic (which 
> indeed is rendered very corrupted by Busbecq and/or his editors).


On the face of it, Busbecq's list is a strange mish-mash of High & 
Low German forms.  I've even heard the idea that it's not Gothic at 
all, but the speech of later German settlers.  Personally, I do think 
it is genuine late Gothic (the forms of the numbers are particularly 
telling) but the spellings are probably confused with languages more 
familiar to the transcriber.  That's not to say it couldn't contain 
information, from its much later date, about the development of 
Gothic diphthongs.



JB Bury: History of the Later Roman Empire • Vol. II Chap. XVII
www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Roman/Texts/secondar
y/BURLAT/17*.html

Sepeculations on De conviviis barbaris (David Salo)
http://tolklang.quettar.org/elfling-mirror/017nn/01791

De conviviis barbaris
http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/quellentexte.cgi?5



Bury has some intersting details about the ultimate fate of the 
Vandals, by the way - some captured warriors served as defenders of 
the Persian border, apparently.  Also, another Vandal phrase 
arguably  occurs in Florentinus's panegyric on Hilderic (the second 
to last of the Vandal kings) - "Vandalirice potens", which could be 
read as Gothic *WANDILE REIK 'king of the Vandals' + the Latin 2nd 
decl. vocative ending.  And he tells a good story.


> Regarding FROJA ARMES: you're right, in classical Gothic it's 
FRAUJA 
> ARMAIS (not "frauja armeis", as I wrote, since the verb is arman, 
not 
> *armjan, as I thought).



The equivalent 2nd subj. inflection for a Class 1 weak verb would be -
jais.



> indeed Vandalic! (in the 11th century, the freshly christianized 
> Hungarians used as war slogan: "Kyrie eleison!"; if "froja armes" 
is 
> Vandalic, than we could also consider that "kyrie eleison" is 
> Hungarian)


Good point.  With so little evidence about Vandal, we can't take 
anything for granted.  But still, a Vandal FROJA ARMES or FRAUJA 
ARMAIS isn't so far fetched, considering the examples of the Gothic-
like personal names.


Llama Nom



--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Francisc Czobor" <fericzobor at y...> 
wrote:
> Hi, Llama Nom,
> 
> In my previous message, the quotation from Reikahardus' message is 
> that between quotation marks. The considerations regarding phonetic 
> evolutions are my own speculations...
> Regarding the tendency to diphtong assimilation, I had in view not 
> only the Salzburg manuscript, but also the Crimean Gothic (which 
> indeed is rendered very corrupted by Busbecq and/or his editors).
> It is true that at that time Latin showed the palatalization (or 
> affrication) of t before j, but I don't see why a Latin author 
should 
> apply this also in transcribing non-Latin words.
> Regarding FROJA ARMES: you're right, in classical Gothic it's 
FRAUJA 
> ARMAIS (not "frauja armeis", as I wrote, since the verb is arman, 
not 
> *armjan, as I thought).
> In any case, these allegedly Vandalic short sentences are in fact 
> purely Gothic, thus either they are indeed Gothic (and used as such 
> by Vandalic priests, in case of FROJA ARMES), or Vandalic was 
> virtually identical to Gothic (as sugested by classical authors).
> Regarding Vandalic words, Koebler, in Appendix 4 to his "Gotisches 
> Woerterbuch", entitled "Woerter sonstiger ostgermanischer Sprachen" 
> ("Words in other East-Germanic languages")
> 
(http://www.koeblergerhard.de/germanistischewoerterbuecher/gotischeswo
> erterbuch/Ostgermanisch.pdf)
> gives only the following Vandalic words:
> 
> Wandalisch
> armen, wand., sw. V.: nhd. erbarmen --- sich erbarmen; ne. 
merciful --
> - be merciful
> froja, wand., M.: nhd. Herr; ne. lord
> gardingus, M., lat.-wand.: nhd. Hofmann; ne. paladin
> 
> thus Koebler (or his source) considers that the famous FROJA ARMES 
is 
> indeed Vandalic! (in the 11th century, the freshly christianized 
> Hungarians used as war slogan: "Kyrie eleison!"; if "froja armes" 
is 
> Vandalic, than we could also consider that "kyrie eleison" is 
> Hungarian)
> 
> Francisc



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