Gothic, Yiddish and High German

[yeah96704]

The following quote from Priscus the Byzantine ambassador to the Hunnic Empire is very suggestive concerning the "Gothic" origin of yiddish:

 "I was surprised at a Scythian speaking Greek. For the subjects of the Huns swept together from various lands, speak, besides their own barbarous tongues, either Hunnic or Gothic, or as many have commercial dealings with the western Romans, Latin, but none of them easily speak Greek." 

With the addition of a few other facts we can derive the following from this passage:

1. "Scythian" is the Greek derived word for the term Askenaz or Ashkenazi in the Hebrew Bible. Not only the verses of the Bible point to this, but the derivation from Assyrian "Askuza" Scythian is highly likely. The later Rabbinic identification of Askenaz with Germany is certainly a folk etymology. 

2. The Hunnic Empire was a near predecessor of the Khazar empire. It was the grandfather of the Khazar empire and ruled the same area of the Russian steppes as the Khazars, which that the Greeks called Scythia. 

3. The Hunnic empire used Gothic as a lingua franca. Notice that the Scythians (Askenaz) used Gothic as a second language in addition to their many native languages. The native languages are likely the source of the (10%) Slavic vocabulary in Yiddish. 

4. Yiddish has about 80% Germanic vocabulary, 10% Slavic, 10% medieval Hebrew Aramaic, and some Latin loanwords, but few if any Greek loanwords. Notice from Priscus that the Scythians (Askenaz) spoke native languages (10% Slavic), but used Gothic as a lingua franca (80% Germanic), knew some Latin (Latin loanwords), but knew little Greek (0% Greek loan words). Later with the conversion of Ashkenaz (Scythia) to Judaism during the early medieval period this Gothic would gain 10% Hebrew Aramaic. Still later the Germanic Gothic vocabulary of this protoyiddish would be progressively changed, reconciled, made consistent with the neighboring vocabulary of medieval High German. No doubt this last was facilitated by the higher culture of the medieval High German, but also by the Rabbis folk etymology that Askenaz = German. 

5. Now the Goths were the rulers of Scythia prior to the Huns. The Greeks often referred to the Goths as Scythians. But notice that the citation from Priscus says that the Scythians were the subjects of the Huns. The later Khazars when they converted to Judaism and adopted Hebrew mythology stated that they were descended not from Shem, but from Togormah. Who is Togormah in the Hebrew Bible? Togormah is the brother of Ashkenaz. Hence, the Rabbis that converted the Khazar rulers of Scythia (Askenaz) taught them that they were the brothers of their subjects. 

6. You will hear statements that the archeology and historical documents support the idea that only a few Khazars converted to Judaism. These statements are not true. In fact, the archeology supports a change in burial practice consistent Judaism. And the historical records of the few visitors to Khazaria sometimes but not all the time support the idea that all the people of Khazaria had converted to Judaism. It should be noted that the conversion to Judaism appears to have occurred in stages and was not all at once. Thus, accounting for the differences in historical accounts.

I expect that the recently discovered Khazar capital at Itil will reveal a text in protoyiddish. And when it does we will no doubt have a new document in ancient Gothic. Great discoveries have yet to be uncovered.


--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Yair Davidiy <britam at n...> wrote:
> > At 11:49 AM 4/30/2005, you wrote:
> > >Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 11:49:48 +0200
> > >From: Tore Gannholm <tore at g...>
> > >Subject: Re: [gothic-l] Gothic, Yiddish and High German
> > 
> > Avraham Polok, "Khuzaria", (Hebrew) Tel Aviv, 5711 (1950?) published 
> an 
> > important
> > study on the Khazars that researchers still refer to.
> > He quotes from different sources claiming that Yiddish derives from 
> Gothish
> > and himself suggests that the Khazars were a kind of Gothic offshoot.
> >
> 
> Hi Yair,
> 
> Have you seen the book?  I'd be curious to know what linguistic 
> evidence Avraham Polok used to relate Yiddish and Gothic.
> 
> Llama Nom
>


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/gothic-l/attachments/20110327/a148b7c2/attachment.htm>