[gothic-l] Re: Pronunciation questions

Thu Jun 9 16:57:07 UTC 2005

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Fredrik" <gadrauhts at h...> wrote:
> Hi all!
> 
> I'd like to know how words ending in -jus in singular would be in 
> plural.
> Like waddjus. How to say walls?

Hi Fredrik,

Nominative plural not attested for such words, as far as I can 
think.  I checked: waddjus, assarjus, stubjus, drunjus.  Are there 
any others?  I can only imagine that it was the same as the 
nominative singular.  *wajj- > waddj.  *–iwiz > *-iuz > -jus.  waddj 
+ jus = waddjus (the combination -jjus is impossible after a 
consonant).  See Wright §150.

> 
> Is there any rule when gg is pronounced as ng and when as gg?
> Like siggwan, that is like singwan, right? But triggws like ggw?

No rule.  That's right in both cases.  Usually the only way to tell 
is by the etymology, that is by comparing cognates in other 
languages.  There are occasions where /Ng/ is spelt <ng> instead of 
<gg> (bringiþ, bringandans), but otherwise you have to look outside 
of Gothic.  Luckily there aren't that many where the spelling <gg> 
= /gg/, so not much to remember: bliggwan, usbliggwan (OHG bliuwan); 
glaggwo, glaggwaba, glaggwuba, *glaggwus (ON glöggr, OE gleaw, OHG 
glau); skuggwa (ON skuggi "shadow", skugg-sjá "mirror", OE scúwa, 
OHG scûwo "shadow"); triggws, triggwaba, triggwa (ON tryggr, OE 
tríewe, OHG triuwi).  See Wright §151.

> Also wanna know if there's any evidence about letter x, how it 
should 
> be pronounced, or if not, what you think about it.
> I've been told that it should be as k, but couldn't it be possible 
> that it was as a german ach-sound?

The evidence points rather to the pronunciation /k/.  The ach-sound, 
[x], is not thought to have occurred initially in Gothic, except 
perhaps as an allophone of /h/ before /l/, /n/ and /r/.  Greek <x> 
is usually represented by Gothic <k> (e.g. Col 4,7: Twkeikus (A), 
Twkekus (B) = TUXIKOS), except in Xristus and aiwxaristia, and three 
other names where Gothic <x> alternates with <k>.  Twice a 
hypercorrection occurs: 2Tim 4,10 Xreskus = KRHSKHS; Zaxxaiaus = 
ZAKXAIOU Neh 7,14.  Most likely the unusual spelling Xristus is for 
symbolic reasons, as with the special abbreviations for frauja & 
guþ.  See Streitberg §20.4.  It's quite possible that the Goths were 
already familiar with the name Christ in its Latin form before they 
became Christians.

http://www.wulfila.be/lib/streitberg/1920/#REF-toc

> I have also thought about another thing. The letter w is sometimes 
> pronounced as y, and then, sometimes, it is written as y when 
using 
> roman letters.

My current guess is that when <w> is used as vowel in Greek 
loanwords (representing Greek upsilon), it was pronounced as a high 
front vowel = Gothic /i/.

(1) In Modern Greek, upsilon has become [i].  Note the spellings 
Lwstrws = LUSTROIS (2Tim 3,11 AB); Fwnikiska (FOINIKISSA).

(2) Codex Segonensis/Parisina, late 9th c. has <Simaion> which the 
Codex Arg. spells <Swmaions>.  In this same manuscript, a list of 
equivalent letters in Roman and Gothic script matches Roman <i> to 
Gothic <w>.

http://www.gotica.de/

(3) West Germanic *kîrikôn (attested in English, German, Dutch, 
Frisian, and as a loan word from English in Old Norse), whence 
English church, probably came from Greek kurikon (<kuriakon) via 
Gothic.  The Oxford English Dictionary: "...a word adopted in 
Germanic as *kîrjak- would phonetically become *kîrjik-, and this 
normally in WGer kîrik-. Possibly also *kîrjika might, by 
metathesis, give the *kîrikja app. required for OE. ciricean; but 
the OE. palatalization might simply be due to the prec. i as in ic, 
ME. ich, I pron."  Re. OE forms like cyrce (beside cirice), the OED 
says: "The form cyrice, often erroneously assumed as the original, 
is only a later variant of cirice (with y from i before r, as in 
cyrs-, fyren, etc.); c before original OE. y (umlaut of u) could not 
give modern ch-, but only k-"  In this case it's not umlaut of u, 
but presumably the point is that it wasn't interpreted as such 
either.

The OED goes on: "There are points of difficulty in the form of 
kirika and its gender. Its identification with KURIAKON assumes the 
representation of Gr. U by i in Teutonic. Ulphilas did not so 
represent U; nor did he use u, but retained the Gothic letter 
corresponding in alphabetic place and form to Gr.U, which he 
otherwise used for v or w. But, before the development of umlaut, 
and consequent evolution of y as a Teutonic sound, i was really the 
nearest Teutonic sound to U, and in point of fact is its usual 
representative."

Re. the long vowel, the OED prints a plural KURIAKA, with long U, 
stress on final syllable.  But Streitberg says that length in Greek 
at this time was only a function of stress.  The sequence /ir/ is 
unusual in Gothic, possibly encouraging lengthening (but maybe not: 
cf. hiri, hirjats, hirjiþ).  Or could it be due to the shift of 
stress to the initial syllable as normal in Germanic.  But the OED 
also prints reconstructed forms with a short vowel *kirik-.  "The 
continental German forms point to *kirika, *kîrika."  Could the –
jako have been reinterpreted as the Gothic diminutive –iko?

> But if that's so, why not write v 
> instead of b is those cases when the letter b was used for a v-
sound?
> E.g. naubaimbair is spelled with b, coz they had no v but when 
using 
> roman letters it could be written as nauvaimbair. Or what do you 
> think about that???

There are a lot of unknowns regarding Gothic pronunciation, so 
radical changes in orthography would sometimes involve an 
interpretation, which could prove incorrect and have to be revised.  
Medial /b/ after a vowel is usually considered to have been a 
bilabial fricative, as in modern Spanish, where the letters <v> and 
<b> are interchangeable from a phonetic point of view, their use 
only fixed by convention or for historical reasons.  But there are 
disagreements about how to interpret the meagre evidence for Gothic 
pronunciation, so a modified orthography could be controversial.  If 
some people are reading a particular sound as bilabial [B], others 
as or [v] or [b], it's nice to have a logical orthography that 
caters for all tastes.  Importantly, there is no ambiguity with 
Gothic <b>, since the presumed differences in pronunciation are 
allophonic (entirely predictable by position) not phonemic.  But the 
sequence <air> is ambiguous, as it could, just going by the 
spelling, be /áir/ or, as it is, /aír/.  So if you wanted to make a 
modified orthography for Gothic, that might be the place to start.  
Although again, that could involve making decisions about the value 
of certain letters that might have to be revised in the light of new 
information.  Adopting the spelling <ng> where appropriate would be 
a logical and unproblematic step, and has manuscript authority, 
although such spellings are very much in the minority.  I have seen 
some academic papers that do this, and also use the spellings <e> 
and <o> for <aí> and <aú>, for convenience when discussing sound 
changes or comparing Gothic forms with cognates.

Llama Nom

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