[gothic-l] Re: Gothic Language Corner 11

[write2andy@yahoo.com [gothic-l]]

Most languages use the same digraph for multiple sounds. At least it's not impossible, and Wulfila may have been basing his "ai" and "au" off of a runic tradition that didn't survive in any attested runic inscriptions except for "HAILAG". It may have been confusing, but he had multiple ways to spell "k" and "I" (assuming "x" and "y" were "k" and "I", respectively), so why couldn't one digraph represent two sounds? The only time we see "aj" and "aw" is in loanwords from Latin and Greek. Wulfila always uses "w" for upsilon; e.g. "martwr". He would have kept doing so when it was in a digraph, but maybe he used something else for native Gothic words. It's perfectly logical, considering he could have spelt "martwr" like "martur", but he went with "w" like always does for upsilon.
 What I don't get, though, is how it could be a monophthong and make some words short-stems and some words long-stems; "waír" is a short-stem (short vowel+one consonant) and so there's no -s ending, but "gáurs" is a long-stem (since it has a short consonant /a/ and two consonants /wr/) and keeps its -s. Also, why would "mawi" change to be pronounced "mojos" in the plural? Again, not impossible, but the tradition of changing the /w/ spelling for the /w/ sound into /u/ before consonants is also seen with, for example, "þiwi", plural "þiujos". The sound /w/ has two spellings, depending on the following sound. (Unless the "iu" in þiujos is pronounced like [y]?)
 In the standard, modern language, I fully support ái and áu.

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