Gothic word for "girl"...?

[Edmund]

Dear Justine,

I have gone through all the biblical passages wherein 'frijonds/frijondi' occur and can say that none of the contexts suggests anything more intimate than what is connoted by ModE 'friend'. Given the absence of any known (known to me leastways) Gothic word for 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend', the best bet is to use the adjective 'liufs' ('dear, beloved'): e.g. 'meina liub(ist)o' (fem. 'my (most) beloved') or 'meins liub(ist)a' (masc. ditto).

The Crimean Gothic 'schnos' ('schuos' is a misprint for the former), mentioned in another e-mail, would be *'snuzo' or *'snuzus' in Wulfilian Gothic, according to Lehmann's etymological dictionary (cf. ON 'snor', OE 'snoru', OHG 'snur(a)') and is glossed as 'daughter-in-law'. Given that the Crimean form postdates Biblical Gothic by over a millennium and has been subjected to considerable formal alteration, and likely semantic as well, I would not recommend using it.

As to using 'hails' in the sense of 'goodbye', I have found no example in the Bosworth-Toller Old English dictionary that shows such a use of the OE cognate, but the cognate in Old Norse could in fact be used thus: one could say 'ver heill' ('be whole'), 'sit heill' ('sit whole'), 'kom heill' ('come whole') and, clearly with the sense of 'goodbye', 'far heill' ('go whole'), all taken from Cleasby's ON dictionary. The use of the reflex of Germanic '*hailaz' in salutations broadly is extant then for Old English, Old Saxon, and Old Norse (I do not have an OHG dictionary here, and so I cannot say anything about usage there). The idiom 'good day/night/evening' etc. appears to be a Medieval innovation: for English at least, the first attestations of this formula date from around 1400. Thus, saying 'godana dag' would be rather anachronistic. Given at least one clear example of a reflex of Germ. *'hailaz' used to bid farewell, I think 'hails' is likely the best option for 'goodbye'. If one's taste inclines to the religious, one might opt for some form of 'may God bless you' or 'may God bless your going' or the like, but then this is unlikely to be idiomatic in third-century Gothic.

You inquired about the neologism *'fraujo' for 'lady' in your first post. I have looked at the cognates of Gothic 'frauja' and the entry in Lehmann's dictionary, and it appears that there were a couple of alternate forms in early Germanic:

Germ. *frauja(z) (i.e. either a ja-stem or n-stem), the reflexes of which are ON 'freyjr', OS 'froio', and OE 'friega'.

Germ. *'frawa' (n-stem), cf. OHG 'fro', OS 'frao' and OE 'frea'.

For the corresponding fem. form:

Germ. *'fraujon (on-stem), cf. ON 'freyja'

Germ. *'frowon (on-stem), cf. OS frua

Thus, given the forms above, one could expect a Gothic *'fraujo' or *'frowo', although there is never any certainty that a form reconstructed using the comparative method actually existed. So if you need a word for 'lady', the two reconstructed forms are your best bets.

Edmund



--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "underwoodjustine" <underwoodjustine at ...> wrote:
>
> Edmund,
> 
> Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply!  My concern with frijonds/frijondi is the obvious ambiguity this creates, particularly wherein context is not clear (such as in introducing someone) as a friend who happens to be male/female is not introduced as one's boyfriend/girlfriend in English, and a neuter form of the noun would not do as no one likes to be assumed inanimate.  ;)
> 
> I never mind being corrected, though the "all" was intended to be in English (pardon the mixture of the two languages) I should have used "everyone" to be clearer :)
> 
> Does one use "hails" as a goodbye as well?  I feel like I see many "farewell" patterns in modern Germanic languages and can see hails working in this context but I am conditioned as a modern Westerner to expect a distinction between the two ;)  
> 
> Þankja indeed for the response, and especially for the Mac- congnate, I never would have made that connection!  What a fun and helpful cognate that is :)
> 
> Justine
> 
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Edmund" <edmundfairfax@> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Justine,
> > 
> > The Gothic word for girl is 'mawi' (fem. ja-stem). There is also one instance of the diminutive 'mawilo' (fem. n-stem) 'little girl'. The latter is kin to Old English 'meowle' ('little girl'). According to Lehmann's etymological dictionary, 'mawi' appears to descend from an earlier unattested *'magwi', a derivative of 'magus' ('boy'), with the loss of the 'g'. You may find it interesting to know that the onomastic prefix 'Mac' in such Scottish names as MacDonald, MacDougal, which means 'son of', is cognate with the Gothic word.
> > 
> > The Gothic words 'frijonds" (masc.) and 'frijondi (fem.) could likely serve as translations for 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' respectively; I have not gone through all the attestations of these to determine whether they are in fact used in this sense. There is also the adjective 'liufs' ('beloved, dear'), which one could substantivize (cf. ModE 'my beloved', ModGerman 'meine Geliebte'). Again, I have not gone through all the extant examples, but I will try to do so in the next day or so.
> > 
> > The usual way to greet in Old English was to wish someone health, to wit 'wes hal' or 'wes thu hal' (both singular here, lit. 'be (thou) whole!'), whence comes the expression 'wassail'. Greeting by wishing someone good health is attested in other IE languages as well, e.g. Latin 'salve', and Russian 'zdravstuj'. The cognate of 'hal' in Gothic is of course 'hails'. I would suggest using it to fill the lacuna.
> > 
> > And by the way, 'thagkjan' is a weak verb, so 'I thank' should be 'thagkja', and 'all-' in your opening and closing needs an inflection, if you do not mind my saying so.
> > 
> > Hope this was of some help. If I find anything further apropos, I will pass it on.
> > 
> > Yours truly,
> > 
> > Edmund
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "underwoodjustine" <underwoodjustine@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Haila all,
> > > 
> > > I hate to post only when I am inquiring or needing something, I hope to someday be able to contribute rather than only posing questions and "taking" however I am quite at a loss here as I have scoured every neologism list and lexicon I can find and came up empty.
> > > 
> > > As a girl, I would quite like to know the Gothic word for "girl" and yet the word does occur quite commonly in the New Testament as there are many 'girls' healed and exorcised though any account of the miracles is either a lost translation or the manuscript exists and I have simply failed to come across it.  (I suppose it should be noted at times a 'girl' is healed though scripture may refer to her as someone's 'daughter' and not as a 'girl'.)  Please let me know if I'm quite insane.
> > > 
> > > It seems boy is "magus"?  I have found that "friend" is "frijonds" though I wonder (and hope) that there would be a term equivalent to today's "boyfriend" that is not a simple compounding of the two as the English term itself makes much less since than "lover" as the terms "boy" and "girl" mostly refer to children in other contexts.
> > > 
> > > I have also found on this group's neologism list the terms "Fráuja" and "Fráujo" proposed as abbreviations "Fr." and "Fro." respectively for Mr., and Ms./Mrs.  I wonder what everyone's thoughts are on this proposal and if these terms double as "Gentelman" and "Lady"?
> > > 
> > > I would love to end my post with "Goodbye" however I am afraid I have not discovered that phrase either.  One would barely guess I have spent a great deal of time studying this language since my last post... ;)
> > > 
> > > Þagka all!
> > > 
> > > Justine
> > >
> >
>


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