[gothic-l] Re: Critique wanted on Gothic pronunciation

[llama_nom]

> Also, short "i" should probably sound less fronted (imma vs.
eima), more like MnE "it" or
> Fin. "sinulla". I'll keep listening to it for anything else. Very
nice work all in all.


Matthew,

Ah, this was something I noticed on your own reading of Bagme
Bloma.  What is the evidence regarding short "i"?  I've been
imagining it as a tense vowel, as such seems to have been the case
in the earliest stages of other early Germanic languages, but I
don't really have any firm evidence.  True, short "i" and "e" are
often mixed up in Gothic names transcribed into Latin, but this is
explainable in terms of developments in the Latin vowel system:

[i] > [I] > [e], [e:]

[i:] > [i], [i:]

...with length determined by stress.  Gothic "i" and "ei" are both
used for Greek "i", which I presume was a tense vowel then as now.
Do you know of any examples of Gothic names with this vowel recorded
by Greek authors?

Llama Nom





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