Early Goths as Drinkers

[David L. White]

> As I mentioned earlier, there is the Gothic verb <us-gutan> 'pour out' that
> is at the prime basis of seeing "Goth" as stemming from a flooded area or a
> different kind of pouring (in the works of such as the Swedish scholar
> Thorsten Andersson > "both Goetar, Proto-Germanic *gautoz, and Goths, Gutar,
> Proto-Germanic *gutaniz, are nomina agentis based on different ablaut grades
> of the verb Sw. gjuta, Germ. gießen 'to pour', in the sense of 'to pour out
> semen'....")

        That is more or less what I was suggesting earlier.

> Because I have, perhaps for only personal reasons, problems with the Goths
> naming themselves either the "flood people" or the "semen people,"  I've
> tried to look again at the notion that the Gothic name is not a self-name and
> therefore perhaps not Germanic in origin

        It could be an "other-name" (if that is the opposite of "self-name")
from other Germans.  If "pour" had in some dialects come to mean 'drink'
(perhaps jocularly in the beginning, and/or end), then I suppose it's
conceivable that the name meant "drunks" or "drinkers", though I wouldn't
bet on it.

Dr. David L. White