New to the List, Learning Gothic

[Francisc Czobor]

Hi Michael,

welcome to the Gothic List!
Here you will find for sure people sharing your interest, even 
fascination, for the Gothic language.
Regarding the things that you find "confusing", they are confusing 
you just because you expect the Gothic to be a sort of English in a 
little bit different phonetic clothing. But no, Gothic is not 
English. It is a Germanic language indeed, but structurally it stays 
closer (from the modern Germanic languages) to German and Icelandic 
than to English.
So, for instance, Modern English uses a single form of the definite 
artice: "the", regardless gender, number and case, unlike Old English 
and the other Germanic languages, including Gothic. "Sa" is the 
Gothic definite article for masculine, singular, nominative, 
whereas "thai" is the definite article for masculine, plural, 
nominative.
"Do not" or "does not" are typical English expressions, you won't 
find anything similar in any other Germanic language, including 
Gothic. Thus, "the hound doesn't bite" is in Gothic "The hound not 
bite" (Sa hunds ni beitith). In German there is still another 
construction: "The hound bites not" (Der Hund beisst nicht).
Regarding verb endings, Gothic has a conjugation with different 
endings for different persons and numbers; thus, "to bite" in 
indicative present is:
ik beita "I bite"
thu beitis "thou bite"
is/si/ita beitith "he/she/it bites"
wit beitos "we two bite"
jut beitats "you two bite"
weis beitan "we bite"
jus beitith "you bite"
eis/ijos/ija beitand "they bite".

beitan is the infinitive form of the verb (like in German beissen, 
for instance, corresponding to the English "to bite"); "beit" is just 
a word root, it never occurs independently (i.e. without any ending) 
in Gothic.

Good luck with your Gothic studies!

Francisc

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Mike" <raging_viking at y...> wrote:
>
> Greetings!
> 
>  I am new to the list and I joined because of my research into the
> Gothic language. I think that it is a very beautiful, fascinating, 
and
> complex language and I am having alot of fun learning it. 
> 
>  I am amazed by how many modern english words can be transmuted into
> Gothic with a high degree of accuracy, and I am even taking some
> amusing liberties with it, for an example I turned the word "jive"
> into a gothic equivalant: jeivan just by following the rules of the
> ablaut (i turns into ei and the e at the end is dropped and is
> replaced with -an).
> 
>  This is the very first language that I have ever attempted outside 
of
> English. Some of it is a bit confusing, for an example, they use the
> word "the" in two different contextes, for an example:
> 
> Example of Sa used:
> Sa hunds ni beitith
> The hound [do]not bite.
> 
> Example of Thai used:
> Thai wulfos beitand
> The wolves bite
> 
> And if you look above, "ni" means "do not" or "does not", yet the 
word
> "does" is not in front of "ni"! Why is this? 
> 
> And for some reason, if the noun is singular, the verb ends with -
ith,
> but if the noun being referred to is plural, the verb ends with -
and.
> I am also wondering why the present singular strong verb "beitan" 
ends
> with -an, why not just "beit"? 
> 
>  Just so many questions....I'm hoping that there will be someone who
> will be willing to answer some of my questions.
> 
> Salutations!
> Michael
>






------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
1.2 million kids a year are victims of human trafficking. Stop slavery.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/WpTY2A/izNLAA/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/