Reconstructing Gothic

Tue May 27 18:01:12 UTC 2014

Yet they don't. Our rather, didn't.
On May 27, 2014 1:14 AM, "OSCAR HERRE duke.co at sbcglobal.net [gothic-l]" <
gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>
>
> just like father...they would say fadar.....
>
>
>   On Tuesday, May 27, 2014 1:07 AM, "OSCAR HERRE duke.co at sbcglobal.net[gothic-l]" <
> gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
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>
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>  I think modar fer mother sounds right....
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>   On Tuesday, May 27, 2014 1:05 AM, "OSCAR HERRE duke.co at sbcglobal.net[gothic-l]" <
> gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
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>
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>  I haf reconstructed a few words to be....nail is nagla....ive
> reconstructed mail to magla......another is like....you are able or ept to
> do this....ju maganaida du tawei sah......side is
> seiden.....swe....so.....to hide...du heiden.....sindama alga
> waurdam....there are other words.....niu mag gamunna em......can not
> remember them......seinama wilja campt afta dumis....they will come back to
> me....god adaugai mith sah...awuilidon frijondam....
>
>
>   On Monday, May 26, 2014 7:43 PM, "Edmund Fairfax edmundfairfax at yahoo.ca[gothic-l]" <
> gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
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>
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>  A few observations in connection with the last contributions:
>
> 1) Gothic *fadar *is indeed extant only once (Gal.4,6):
>
>  insandida guth ahman sunaus seinis in hairtona izwara hropjandan 'Abba!
> Fadar!'
> *"God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying 'Abba!
> Father!'*
>
> It is used here to gloss the -- in the context of the Greek original --
> exotic Aramaic word 'abba', which is perhaps an indication that the word
> *fadar* itself was perhaps felt to be exotic as well, either an archaic
> word or a borrowing from another Germanic dialect. Of course, the root
> *fadr-* is also found in the Gothic word *fadreins*, glossing Greek/Latin
> *patria*, but this could possibly be an instance of a "cranberry"
> morpheme in Gothic (cf. Mod. English *were-* in *werewolf*).
>
> 2) Even with the knowledge of OHG *eide*, the cognates OE *athum*, OFris
> *athom*, OHG *eidum* 'son-in-law' complicate matters. According to
> Lehmann, *aithei* is a derivative, like the other forms given here, from
> Pre-Germanic **oit-*, the source also of *aiths* 'oath'. Lehmann (1986:
> 20) suggests that *aithei* was originally "a Germanic word for woman
> given by legal process to a man; carries implication that children of
> *aithei* would inherit in contrast with those of concubine". Given the
> foregoing forms, reconstructing a Gothic *aithei* (were the noun not
> extant) would still be far from obvious.
>
> 3) As to Icelandic language purism, there is an official governmental
> organization called the -- sorry no accents -- *Islensk Malnefnd* ('Icelandic
> Language Commission'), not to mention many professional societies which
> have their own language committees, that meet regularly to discuss proposed
> neologisms especially in the fields of science and technology. Modern
> Icelandic *simi* 'telephone', to give an example of their work, is simply
> an Old Norse word revived ('rope') with a new meaning. But these
> organizations, of course, are not attempting to reconstruct earlier forms
> of non-extant Norse lexical items and so have unlimited freedom in the
> invention of words. Alas! Something lacking in the English-speaking world,
> thanks to its fixation on the Graeco-Latin!
>
> Edmund
>
>
>   On Monday, May 26, 2014 4:31:23 PM, "David Connolly
> dec.phd at sbcglobal.net [gothic-l]" <gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
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>
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>  Dirk and everybody,
>
> All of Edmund's points are well taken indeed.  The Gothic corpus that we
> have preserves 45 instances of 'aithei', including Nom., Acc., Dat., Gen.
> forms in the singular, and Acc. plural.  The number of occurrences of
> *modar is *zero*.
>
> Our best bet for deciding which form "the Goths" would have used is to
> query Gothic as it is actually preserved (i.e., Wulfila's Bible).  Even if
> some Goths (some sub-dialects, some regions?) had a word like *modar, what
> we have attested is 'aithei'.  If we are so attracted to 'modar' due to its
> similarity to our modern cognates, then it seems that we are embarking on
> something other than recovering/reestablishing Gothic; rather, we are
> making up sort of a pan-Germanic lingo that might be fun but shouldn't be
> called Gothic.  (Similar sentiments apply to recent comments about
> 'wreitan' (sp?) for 'write' versus [attested] meljan.)
>
> It is interesting that there are a couple hundred (I believe) examples of
> 'atta' as father;  but in keeping perhaps with Dirk's suggestion, there is
> indeed *one* example of 'fadar' in Wulfila.  The Gothic word for father
> seems to have been 'atta', but with the lexical item of 'fadar' lurking in
> the recesses of at least some Goths' minds - ?
>
> I appreciated the point a few messages ago about the
> restoration/enhancement of Hebrew in the 20th century in Israel; it is
> true, an ancient language was revamped and modernized to become a major
> world vernacular.  But of course, the Hebrew example had a large worldwide
> population of (mostly) Jews, coming together as a group with a shared
> identity in a specific region (Palestine); in other words, all the makings
> for a major linguistic coup, combining a traditional holy tongue with
> modernity.  We Gothic fans, however, alas, are quite a ways from anything
> like that.  We are reveling in the fact that there are a few like-minded
> individuals out there at least in the world of the internet.  I am
> wondering how familiar any of y'all are with the process by which Modern
> Icelandic has dealt with new words (including technological, scientific,
> etc.)--I understand that they have a process of creating "natively"
> Icelandic versions of said new words.
>
> Comments offered in all good fun and best wishes -
> David
>
>    *From:* "d.faltin at hispeed.ch [gothic-l]" <gothic-l at yahoogroups.com>
> *To:* gothic-l at yahoogroups.com
> *Sent:* Monday, May 26, 2014 3:48 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [gothic-l] Reconstructing Gothic
>
>
>  Hi Edmund,
>
> your point regarding Gothic aithei (mother) is well taken and valid.
> However, just to add Old High German also preserved this form as "eide"
> meaning mother (in a certain legal context) and "fotar eidi" meaning nurse,
> i.e. woman nursing a child.
> The problem would have been to decide which form the Goths would have
> used. My guess is that they also had a world like *modar, but it was simply
> not recorded.
>
> Best
> Dirk
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