Expressing age [Was: Hallo hallo!]

[Johann von Messer]

One thing I want to add that I found in my book by William H. Bennett
is "...du usqiman all barne und twa jere habando" from the Gospel of
Matthew I believe (having trouble finding it in any of my Gothic Bible
sites, yet here it is in my book...). To me this looks like "... to
kill all of children up to two of years having." This is why I asked
earlier if it was possible to express age with "I have X (of) years. 

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Rydwlf <mitsuhippon at ...> wrote:
>
> Dear Johann,
> 
> As far as I know the extant forms used to express age in Wulfila
bible follow these three structures:
> 
> - 'wisan' ("to be") + 'jere' + numeral (Genitive).
> As in Mark 5:42: 'was auk jere twalibe'.
> "for she was twelve years old".
> Or in Luke 3:23: 'jah silba was Iesus swe jere þrije tigiwe uf
gakunþai'.
> "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age".
> In this sentence 'þrije' is Masc. Gen. and 'tigiwe' is Gen. Pl.
> These sentences mean literally "for she was of twelve years" and
"and Jesus himself began to be about of thirty 
> 
> - haban ("to have") + numeral (Accusative) + 'jere'.
> As in John, 8:57: 'fimf tiguns jere nauh ni habais'.
> "you're not yet fifty years old" .
>  
> - wisan + numeral (Nom.) + 'wintrus' (Nominative, "winter").
> Luke 2:42: 'jah biþe warþ twalibwintrus'
> "and when he was twelve years old" (lit. "twelve winters").
> This is really a compound; instead of 'twalif', 'twalib' is used(cf.
'twalibim', Dative).
> 
> It is good to bear in mind the special rules that apply to the
declination of numerals. 1, 2 and 3 are declinable in all cases and
genders. 4 - 15 usually remain uninflected, but in some parts of the
text they appear inflected (following i-declension with Dat. in -im
and Gen. in -e). For tens, 20-90, the structure is 'numeral from 2 to
9' + 'tigjus' (which is Nom. Pl. of 'tigus', "decade"). If you have to
decline a ten, you decline 'tigus' in the needed case ('tuguns' is
Acc. Pl. and 'tigiwe' is Gen. Pl.) according to the verb (wisan or
haban).  The first numeral is declined in Masc. and the same case as
'tigus' (if 2 or 3, since 4 - 9 are undeclinable), as deducted from
Luke 3:23 (I don't know if other rules apply).
> 
> I've probably missed one or two things but I think this summary can
be helpful. Hope so!
> 
> Rydwlf   
> 
> 
> 
> --- On Sat, 12/20/08, Johann von Messer <furry_von_messer at ...> wrote:
> 
> > From: Johann von Messer <furry_von_messer at ...>
> > Subject: [gothic-l] Re: Hallo hallo!
> > To: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com
> > Date: Saturday, December 20, 2008, 5:58 PM
> > Wow... I didn't think the -lif suffix was used in other
> > numbers other 
> > than eleven and twelve (and maybe thirteen.)
> > 
> > And dative plural for jer? I thought it'd be some
> > really odd 
> > grammatical way of saying it. Something like 'I have X
> > years' or the 
> > like. But thank you for this! I've something to work
> > off of now. :D
> > 
> > How about the rest of the stuff?
> > 
> > --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, OSCAR HERRERA
> > <duke.co@> wrote:
> > >
> > > ik im ahtauliff jeram....i am 18 years.....ik im
> > niunliff jeram...i 
> > am nineteen years old...
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > ------------------------------------
> > 
> > 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
> > 
> > 
> >
>


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/gothic-l/attachments/20081222/985f62fa/attachment.htm>