History of the Gothic Language

[llama_nom]

On the other hand, here's one archaic feature of Gothic that seems to
have disappeared from NWG quite early. Biblical Gothic usually keeps
the full stem of the first element of compound words when the root is
short, thus 'wilja-halþei' "favouritism", 'midja-sweipains' "the
Flood", 'niuja-satiþs' "novice" (beside 'þiu-magus' "(male) servant",
and the term 'thiu-fadus', an official rank, = Biblical Gothis
*þiu-faþs, recorded in Latin in the Laws of the Visigoths). By
contrast, Ancient Nordic drops the 'a' in the name Kuni-munduz,
attested in the dative 'Kunimundiu' on the Tjurkö 1 bracteate. Old
English 'Cynemund' also descends from a form without any medial 'a'
(otherwise there would have been gemination of 'n' > 'nn', as in the
noun 'cynne' "kin"). As I mentioned, evidence for gemination in WG
goes back to about 400 AD. Gothic personal names recorded in Latin
show a variety of forms: Cuniefredus = regular Biblical Gothic
*Kunja-friþus, but also Cunigastus, Culiuldus. Likewise with names
beginning in 'sunja' "truth": Suniagissius, Sunjafredus (recorded in
Gothic as Sunjaifriþas), Suniemirus, Sunieredo, Suniericus, beside
Suniulfus.

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