Wanna share your ambitions and intenstions?

[Fredrik]

I think you're right when you say it is important to recunstruct 
those words which probably existed but ain't attested, before 
creating words for things that we know didn't exist at that time.

But for me it's equally important to cunstruct both kinda words.
To be able to use a language in daily speech today we must have all 
those words that existed at that time and the most of thw words of 
modern stuff.
So a neologism (according to me) could be both *lahs and e.g. 
fairrasiuns. Even though lahs might have been an existing word and 
fairrasiuns not.

Syntax is nothing I am that good at so I try to learn what you guys 
find out.

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "akoddsson" <konrad_oddsson at ...> 
wrote:
>
> > This had impications for anyone who wants to write or speak in a 
> reconstructed Gothic.  I think it would be good to establish all 
> that can be established about the historical language, otherwise 
any 
> reconstruction would tend to take the form of people expressing 
> their thoughts in modern ways but just using Gothic words, whereas 
a 
> language is more than just vocabulary. 
> 
> In my opinion, thou hast hit the nail on the head here. What is 
most 
> important is understanding and reconstructing the historical tongue 
> itself. Inventing new words for things non-existed in the 
historical 
> language may be fun, but reconstructing the historical vocabulary 
is 
> much more important. Essentially, learning an histrical tongue has 
a 
> lot to do with learning historical words ;) In the case of Gothic, 
> so much of the basic vocabulary has been lost (i.e. is unattested) 
> that in order for the language to be usable, vocabulary must be re-
> constructed. This is where prioritization needs to occur if Gothic 
> is to approach usablity in modern times, whether as a purley 
written 
> or spoken langauge. There is little talk or writing if no one knows 
> what words to use. Furthermore, a focus on historical vocabulary is 
> consistent with typical reasons why a person might choose to study 
> Gothic, such as understanding an early germanic tongue. Thus, words 
> like *grôneis (green) and *aihvs (horse) or much more important 
than 
> new words for democracy or the stock market, for example. Likewise, 
> historical syntax is what we should be after, rather than learning 
> how to use Gothic words with foreign syntax. These two points are 
> especially relevant in the case of Gothic, I think, as attestation 
> of syntax is through a translation of a foreign book (rather than 
> via the speech of a native speaker) and attestation of vocabulary 
> largely limited to words (some even foreign) needed to translated a 
> book containing culture, concepts, geograpy, history, etc. which 
> have no roots in native Gothic culture. Thus, the syntax and choice 
> of words may or may not closely reflect native speech. What is then 
> needed is a focus on native speech, in as much as this is possible 
> with a dead language - making a concerted effort to reconstuct 
what, 
> in all likelihood, was the vocabulary and manner of daily speech. 
> Now, if this sounds easy, try the following exercise and ask which 
> of the two you found easier:
> 
> Translate in Gothic:
> 1. Hello, John. It is good to see you. How have you been?
> 2. ME words 'casino' and 'telephone' (using Gothic roots)
> 
> Now, number 2 could prove a fun competition for those of us who 
> perhaps think we know what we are doing, but it is not likely going 
> to help get gothic back on its feet. Number one, on the other hand, 
> poses deeply challenging problems for us, as simply translating the 
> English words is out of the question. Simply put, we know that they 
> do not represent Gothic syntax or vocabulary.
> 
> Regards,
> Konrad
> 






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