New file uploaded to gothic-l (Christmas and Yule)

[llama_nom]

Probably the native months, as elsewhere in Germania, didn't
originally match up perfectly with the Roman months.  The two Yule
months would have originally marked, more or less, one month's length
of time before yule (the midwinter feast) and one month's length of
time after, as defined according to native tradition.  The Icelandic
'ýlir', for example, begins on the second day of the week falling
within November 10-17.  From the Calendar, it seems that the Goths, by
the time it was written, had altered this system to bring their native
month names into line with the Roman months, so that 'fruma jiuleis'
became a synonym for November.  The choice of November or December may
have been a bit arbitrary when this process of co-ordinating calendars
was first undertaken.  Since the original month would have overlapped
with part of December, it could just as easily have come to be the
name for that month, as did its Old English equivalent 'se æ´rra
jéola'.  If they called the second yule month 'anþar jiuleis' and
co-ordinated it with December, at least it wouldn't sound as anomalous
as doing this would with the Old English 'se æftera jéola' which
instead was naturally seen as the nearest equivalent to January.  But
I suppose, for all we know, the Goths might have inserted some other
name as the native synonym for December, or else used no native
synonym at all.  Or maybe the tradition that the two yule-months were
consecutive was too strong.

LN


--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "ualarauans" <ualarauans at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell@> wrote:
> >
> > The month name 'fruma jiuleis' which appears in the Calendar as a
> > synonym for 'Naubaimbair' is masculine singular, as shown by the
> > adjective: a long ja-stem like hairdeis.  It corresponds to ON ýlir
> > (masculine singular) and Anglian OE giuli (mentioned by Bede:
> > Primusque eorum mensis, quem Latini Januarium vocant, dicitur
> > Giuli...December Giuli, eodem quo Januarius nomine, vocatur... 
> Menses
> > Giuli a conversione solis in auctum diei, quia unus eorum præcedit,
> > alius subsequitur, nomina accipiunt (cited in the OED)) -- in later
> > West Saxon OE the months before and after the feast are called 'se
> > æ´rra géola' and 'se æftera géola', with a change of declension to
> > masculine n-stems.
> 
> It would be nice if we could call December fruma jiuleis and 
> January – anþar jiuleis. But why November in the Calender?
> 
> > The midwinter feast itself -- the 12 days of Christmas -- is neuter
> > plural in ON and Icelandic (jól), and sometimes in Old English (æ´r
> > géolum = advent).  Maybe the tendency to make it singular came as 
> the
> > word's meaning changed to apply to the Christian festival.  In 
> view of
> > which, maybe it is worth having a more specific word after all for 
> the
> > day itself when Christ's birth is commemorated, and keep the old
> > grammar for the festive 12 days as a whole.
> 
> I support the idea of having separate terms for the pagan and the 
> Christian festival. For the latter maybe smth like Xristujiul in 
> singular?
> 
> Ualarauans
>


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