LL-L: "Gothic" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 22.JUN.1999 (05)

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From: "john feather" <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Gothic

Ron

I am a little unhappy about your correction.

There were no Belgians in the 16th century (Belgium wasn't invented then)
and I seem to recall that Crimean Gothic was recorded in the early 18th
century, though I can't lay my hands on a reference. The particular Goths
whose language we have in written form in the translation of the Bible
(preserved as the Codex Argenteus or Silbernbibel) made for them in around
350 CE by Bishop Ulfilas or Wulfila actually entered the Roman Empire in the
area of modern Romania for protection - to escape harassment by other Goths.

John
johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at geocities.com>
> Subject: Gothic
>
> I wrote:
>
> > Gothic is the best known representative of this now extinct East
Germanic
> > branch.  There are reports of a remnant of it still having been used in
the
> eighteenth or
> > nineteenth century in the Black Sea area, which is roughly the
traditional
> > homeland of Gothic, though oral history and recent scholarship seem to
point
> to
> > Southern Sweden's Gotland region as the origin of the Gothic people.
>
> Correction:  It is generally assumed that Gothic was extinct by the 18th
> century.  In the 16th century a Belgian visitor to the east interviewed
two
> informants who spoke what is assumed a form of Ostrogothic with Greek
> interference.  Also it must be mentioned that the Goths seem to have
arrived in
> Continental Europe in the area of the Vistula River in what is now the
general
> area of Eastern Poland and the Baltic countries.  They moved southward
from
> there, the Ostrogoths to what is now Ukraine and the Visigoths to what is
now
> Romania and Bulgaria.  They were a constant thorn in the side of the Roman
> empire.  The Visigoths eventually invaded and ruled large parts of Italy
and
> Spain.  The Goths are assumed to have been absorbed into the ethnic groups
that
> now inhabit the above-mentioned areas.
>
> Regards,
>
> Reinhard/Ron

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at geocities.com>
Subject: Gothic

John Feather wrote:

> and I seem to recall that Crimean Gothic was recorded in the early 18th
> century, though I can't lay my hands on a reference.

John, I also vaguely remembered reading something like that, but I withdrew it
because I was unable to verify it, i.e., forgot the source.  What you read most
often is that Gothic was extinct before the 18th century.

> There were no Belgians in the 16th century (Belgium wasn't invented then)

Oh, come on now!  Of course!  I guess most people on this list know that.  Sure,
I could have written something like "In the 16th century a visitor from what is
now Belgium ..."  (I hesitate to use "Flemish" because not all of Dutch-speaking
Belgium is Flemish, though the name is used loosely by many.)  Is a person from
the area of today's Belgium only a Belgian if he was born after the country was
founded?  Technically speaking maybe, but in the real world people are rarely
that fussy about it.  The Netherlands and Germany as we know them now did not
exist at that time either, and yet we refer to people from those areas at those
times as "Dutch" and "German," and we include people who are not ethnically
Dutch and German.

Regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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