[gothic-l] Re: is Gothic the language of one or a few men?

[edmundfairfax@yahoo.ca [gothic-l]]

Mutual intelligibility does not preclude the existence of dialectal variation. Given the political fragmentation that characterized Germanic-speaking parts in the ancient world -- as far as one can tell -- it is highly unlikely that there were any infrastructures that would have ensured a broad linguistic unity throughout the area, and thus, the existence of Germanic dialects is certain. 

 Indeed, a concrete example of such variation can be given. The Gallehus runic inscription, which dates very roughly from the third or fourth century AD, and thus is roughly contemporary with Wulfila, bears the North Germanic inscription: 

 ek Hlewagastiz Holitjaz horna tawido
 'I Hlewagastiz son of Holtaz (this) horn made'
 

 The Gothic equivalent would be:
 

 Ik Hliugasts Hulteis haurn tawida
 

 Likely the speakers of these two varieties of Germanic could make themselves understood among each other, yet these two varieties clearly show considerable differences.
 

 Moreover, Latinized East Germanic personal names also hint at dialectal variation within the East Germanic area itself: the root 'gais-,' for example, which can be found in such names, appears as both "gais-" and "ges-".

 

 That all Goths in the fourth century spoke (and wrote) precisely the language as found in the Gothic Bible is highly unlikely. But how much dialectal variation existed among the Goths is impossible to tell for want of evidence. The kind of standardization evident in the "national" languages of today is the result of centuries of change and much "invention" and politicization.
 

 Audamunds
 

---In Gothic-L at yahoogroups.com, <setiez at ...> wrote :

 "As I have read how Visigoths and Ostrogoths could understand each other well I think tgat there wasn't much to standardize."
 

 I understood the idea of standardization in the context of the migration hypothesis, that for example Old Nordic, a predecessor of OHG (Vandalic?, Suebian?) and one or two additional languages, would have been mixed up to ca 350 when Wulfila began to translate.
 

 The first result from a web-search says the split between Visigoths and Ostrogoths happened around 370 CE. Unless the division into Visigoths and Ostrogoths was an old concept resurrected, Visigoths and Ostrogoths would have spoken the same language, so this division should have nothing to do with the standardization idea. It would be like saying "I don't think English has been a mix of Anglic, Nordic, German and Latin, because Australians and Americans understand each other well."
 

 Or what do you think?
 /Basti
 


 




 




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