Assimil-like course to learn modern Gothic (not finished yet)

Thu May 29 21:42:35 UTC 2014

Edmund, the Gothic font which I used is the official Gothic unicode. I also
don't like the way it looks like, but on the Gothic wikipedia it is used
too and in several other sources. If I want to teach people to read Gothic,
it's best to teach them to read it with the most used Gothic font, not a
Gothic font which is easy to read, but not used by the majority of people
which make us of the Gothic language.

2014-05-29 23:15 GMT+02:00 Edmund Fairfax edmundfairfax at yahoo.ca [gothic-l]
<gothic-l at yahoogroups.com>:

>
>
>
> I'm not surprised that you have found little useful on websites dealing
> with Gothic. You could try "Gothic Online" hosted by the Linguistic
> Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. I have not looked
> very carefully through this site, but my impression is that it does seem to
> be reliable, showing academic rigour. Nothing, however, beats reputable
> studies in print by recognized scholars, and I would recommend the
> following:
>
> - Thomas Lambdin's *An Introduction to the Gothic Language* (2006); this
> is a very user-friendly graded introduction to the language written by a
> linguist qualified to do so and includes exercises to work through, plus
> texts, glossary and a historical grammar, ideal for those studying on their
> own.
>
> - Wilhelm Braune & Frank Heidermann's *Gotische Grammatik* (2004); this
> is the best descriptive grammar available and is indispensable for any
> serious study of the language, although it focuses almost exclusively on
> phonology and morphology.
>
> - Gerhard Koebler's *Gotische Woerterbuch* (1989); not without errors,
> but still a very useful dictionary and concordance.
>
> - Winfred Lehmann's *A Gothic Etymological Dictionary* (1986).
>
> These four works are still in print and can be bought through
> amazon.com/.de., and I would strongly recommend the Lambdin book to any
> neophyte. Unfortunately, a comprehensive reference grammar is yet to be
> written, and a good deal of information concerning the language is to be
> found only in scholarly articles.
>
> I also found the Gothic font that you used rather quirky and not the
> easiest to decipher. I have a much nicer one on my computer, which I
> downloaded a number of years ago from the internet; the characters in this
> version were modelled directly on those found in the *Codex Argenteus*. I
> will see if I can hunt down the link for you. I will give you some feedback
> on the remaining lessons, on the weekend.
>
> Edmund
>
>
>   On Thursday, May 29, 2014 3:50:12 PM, "Dicentis a roellingua at gmail.com[gothic-l]" <
> gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>  Hello Edmund,
>
> Do I have to use the subjunctive for every verb for which I want to use:
> 'can you'?
>
> I 'm thankful for your reply, you point out some things which I suspected,
> like the personal pronouns, and some which I didn't know, like the use of
> Gutisks.
>
> The problem is that I can't really find good websites with extended
> explanations of the grammar, so I use books right now, but it's hard to
> find specific information in them. That's why I didn't really know how to
> use 'Gutisks'.
>
> I have already started with writing the course but don't master the
> grammar fully yet, but I have already started with the reason that I just
> need to correct a few things once I know well how to use Gothic, and I
> don't need to start with writing the whole conversation course.
>
> I will correct the awiliudo part. If you want to correct more, that only
> helps me, so don't feel like not doing it.
>
> Roel
>
>
>
>
>
> 2014-05-29 4:49 GMT+02:00 Edmund Fairfax edmundfairfax at yahoo.ca[gothic-l]
> <gothic-l at yahoogroups.com>:
>
>
>  You invited corrections and comments, so here are some:
>
> Lesson 1:
>
> 1) I think it would be preferable to use Gothic names -- Why not use
> *Wulfila* or **Airmanareiks* or the like*? O*r at least Gothic versions
> of the names chosen: Roderick, for example, would be **Hrothareiks.*
>
>  2) Gothic is a pro-drop language; that is, subject pronouns are not
> normally expressed, unless the subject is contrastive or emphatic. Thus, *magt
> rodjan?* is then to be expected rather than *magt thu rodjan?*
>
> 3) I have misgivings about using the neologism **gutisks* to render
> '(the) Gothic (language)'. Given *gutthiuda* '(the) Gothic people', I
> would suggest using **gutrazda* (cf. Old English *engliscgereord* '(the)
> English (language)'). If you do use **gutisk-*, then it should likely be
> feminine (assuming *razda* 'language' is understood). As it stands, ***Magt
> thu rodjan gutisks?* is ungrammatical: the object ('Gothic') cannot be in
> the nominative case here, as *rodjan* requires an accusative object:
> either *gutiska* (fem. acc.) or *gutiskana* (masc. acc.), cf. *tho waurda
> thoei ik rodida izwis* (John6,64) 'the words (acc.) that I have spoken to
> you'.
>
> 4) *Wai* means 'woe, alas'
>
> Lesson 2:
>
> 1) 'I want to know' is not ***ik mag witan* but rather *wiljau witan.*
>
> 2) The preposition *du* normally takes the dative; thus ***du gard is* should
> be *du garda is* or *du is garda. *I have doubts about the construction *sa
> wigs du garda is* and will see if I can find something better.
>
> 3) ***thu magt fraihnan imma* is ungrammatical: *fraihnan* takes an
> accusative object; cf. *frah ina sa kindins* 'the governor asked him'.
> The verb *magan* normally denotes ability; the use of the verb here to
> indicate a suggestion is surely an anglicism. I suggest you use simply
> *fraihnan* in the subjunctive*.*
>
> 3) *Goths* must refer to a masculine noun. Based on the construction
> evident in *batizo ist thus ei frakwistnai aina lithiwe theinaize...* ('it
> is better for you that one of your limbs perish'), the neuter form of
> *goths* would appear to be necessary here.
>
> 4) 'I thank you' should be *awiliudo thus* cf. *Guth, awiliudo thus unte
> ni im swaswe thai antharai mans* "God, I thank thee that I am not like
> the others'.
>
>  I have not looked beyond this to see what errors may lie ahead.
>
> I fear that you have introduced too many grammatical points into these
> exchanges (the three cases nom., acc., and dat.), verbs from a variety of
> classes (the pret. pres. no less), etc., which are likely to overwhelm the
> learner. I understand you wish to have a conversational thrust, but
> introducing such a variety of grammatical concepts in less than eight lines
> is not user-friendly.
>
> Edmund
>
>
>   On Wednesday, May 28, 2014 7:10:48 PM, "roellingua at gmail.com[gothic-l]" <
> gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>  I thought that it might be an idea to already share this with you guys
> in order to get some reviews.
>
> The texts aren't perfect and I 'm not sure about the word order, the
> grammar might also contain certain mistakes, but I would be happy if people
> point them out so that I can correct them.
>
> I assume that most people here are familiar with the method of Assimil? I
> have learned several languages with the books of Assimil because their
> method simply is to use a lot of dialogs to get used to the way in which
> the languages is used. For the Gothic language, we only have all kinds of
> books to learn the grammar, new words etc. I thought that it might be a
> good idea to have an Assimil-like book for Gothic for the people which
> don't like to study too much things and just like to go straight to what
> you use it for: conversation
>
> At the moment I have made 12 lessons.
>
> I have uploaded the current PDF and you can download it here:
> http://roel.tengudev.com/Neo%20Gothic/download_course.php
>       http://roel.tengudev.com/Neo%20Gothic/download_course.php
> The download link to the Gothic Learning Book PDF: Conversational course
> for Gothic.
>      View on roel.tengudev.com
> <http://roel.tengudev.com/Neo%20Gothic/download_course.php>
>   Preview by Yahoo
>
> This is the link to the document if you want to see updates, it looks
> different from the PDF though and uglier:
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/12rtTAxpUcOJrgOMBXAOFnFvH_ElTuL-EBS69kEp6was/pub
>
>
> What I still need are people who can help with neologisms, there isn't
> even an official organization for it yet. I also don't know how we can set
> that up.
>
> If it is good enough we could try to go to Assimil and ask if they see
> something in this.
>
>
>
>
>
>    
>
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