Gothic
Spoken in:	Oium, Dacia, Italy, Gallia Narbonensis, Hispania. Oium or Aujum was a name for an area in Scythia, where the Goths under their king Filimer settled after leaving Gothiscandza, according Dacia, in ancient geography was the land of the Dacians. It was named by the ancient Hellenes ( Greeks) " Getae " Th Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula (Penisola italiana or Penisola appenninica) is one of the three Peninsulas of Southern Europe Gallia Narbonensis ( Narbonese Gaul) was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in southern France. Hispania was the name given by the Romans to the whole of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal, Spain, Andorra, Gibraltar
Language extinction:	mostly extinct by the 8th century, remnants may have lingered into the 17th century
Language family:	Indo-European  Germanic   East Germanic    Gothic
Writing system:	Gothic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	got
ISO 639-3:	got
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken The 8th century is the period from 701 to 800 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 17th Century was that Century which lasted from 1601 - 1700 in the Gregorian calendar List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. The East Germanic languages are a group of extinct Indo-European languages in the Germanic family. A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. This article is about the 4th century alphabet of the Gothic bible ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. The Goths ( Gothic: Gothic usvg|14px|u]]Gothic asvg|14px|a]]Gothic s It is known primarily from Codex Argenteus, a 6th century copy of a 4th century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizeable corpus. The Codex Argenteus (or "Silver Bible" is a 6th century manuscript originally containing bishop Ulfilas 's 4th century translation of the Bible The 6th century is the period from 501 to 600 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 4th century (per the Julian calendar and Anno Domini / Common era) was that Century The East Germanic languages are a group of extinct Indo-European languages in the Germanic family. All others, including Burgundian and Vandalic, are known, if at all, only from proper names that survived in historical accounts. Vandalic was a Germanic language probably closely related to the Gothic language.

As a Germanic language, Gothic is a part of the Indo-European language family. It is the Germanic language with the earliest attestation but has no modern descendants. The oldest documents in Gothic date back to the 4th century. As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 4th century (per the Julian calendar and Anno Domini / Common era) was that Century The language was in decline by the mid-6th century, due in part to the military defeat of the Goths at the hands of the Franks, the elimination of the Goths in Italy, massive conversion to primarily Latin-speaking Roman Catholicism, and geographic isolation. The 6th century is the period from 501 to 600 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. The Franks or Frankish people (Franci or gens Francorum) were West Germanic tribes first identified in the 3rd century as an Ethnic group The language survived in the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) as late as the 8th century, and Frankish author Walafrid Strabo wrote that it was still spoken in the lower Danube area and in isolated mountain regions in Crimea in the early 9th century (see Crimean Gothic). The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe, and includes modern day Spain, Portugal, Andorra Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. The 8th century is the period from 701 to 800 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. The Franks or Frankish people (Franci or gens Francorum) were West Germanic tribes first identified in the 3rd century as an Ethnic group Walafrid, alternatively spelt Walahfrid, surnamed Strabo (or Strabus, i The Danube (In Donau from earlier Danuvius, Celtic *dānu, meaning "to flow run" Slovak and Polish Dunaj Crimea (kraɪˈmiːə or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Крим Автономна Республіка Крим Avtonomna Respublika Krym; Крым The 9th century is the period from 801 to 900 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. Crimean Gothic was a Germanic dialect spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea (now in Ukraine) until the late 18th Gothic-seeming terms found in later (post-9th century) manuscripts may not belong to the same language.

The existence of such early attested corpora makes it a language of considerable interest in comparative linguistics. Comparative linguistics (originally comparative Philology) is a branch of Historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to

Words in Gothic written in this article are transliterated into the Roman alphabet using the system described on the Gothic alphabet page. Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice This article is about the 4th century alphabet of the Gothic bible

Contents 1 History and evidence 2 Alphabet 3 Sounds 3.1 Vowels 3.2 Consonants 3.2.1 Stops 3.2.2 Fricatives 3.2.3 Nasals and approximants and other phonemes 3.3 Accentuation and Intonation 4 Morphology 4.1 Nouns 4.2 Pronouns 4.3 Verbs 5 Gothic compared to other Germanic languages 5.1 Gothic and Old Norse 6 Examples 7 Notes 8 References 9 See also 10 External links

History and evidence

See also: Crimean Gothic language

There are only a few surviving documents in Gothic, not enough to completely reconstruct the language. Crimean Gothic was a Germanic dialect spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea (now in Ukraine) until the late 18th

• The largest body of surviving documentation consists of codices written and commissioned by the Arian bishop Ulfilas (also known as Wulfila, 311-382), who was the leader of a community of Visigothic Christians in the Roman province of Moesia (modern Bulgaria/Romania). A codex ( Latin for block of wood, Book; plural codices) is a book in the format used for modern books with separate pages normally Arianism is the theological teaching of Arius (c AD 250-336 who was ruled a heretic by the Christian church at the Council of Nicea. Wulfila is also a spider genus ( Anyphaenidae) Wulfila (meaning "little wolf" (ca Wulfila is also a spider genus ( Anyphaenidae) Wulfila (meaning "little wolf" (ca Events By Place Roman Empire May 5 — Galerius issues his Edict of Toleration ending Persecution of Christians Events By Place Roman Empire October 3 — Theodosius I commands his general Saturninus to conclude a peace treaty with the The Visigoths (Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, or Wisi were one of two main branches of the Goths, an East A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial Moesia (Μοισία Moisía; Мизия Miziya; Moesia Мезија Mezija) was an ancient region and Roman province situated in the The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania He commissioned a translation of the Greek Bible into the Gothic language, of which roughly three-quarters of the New Testament and some fragments of the Old Testament have survived. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon.

• Codex Argenteus (and the Speyer fragment): 188 leaves. The Codex Argenteus (or "Silver Bible" is a 6th century manuscript originally containing bishop Ulfilas 's 4th century translation of the Bible

The best preserved Gothic manuscript, the Codex Argenteus, dates from the 6th century and was preserved and transmitted by northern Ostrogoths in modern Italy. The Codex Argenteus (or "Silver Bible" is a 6th century manuscript originally containing bishop Ulfilas 's 4th century translation of the Bible The 6th century is the period from 501 to 600 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. The Ostrogoths (Ostrogothi or Austrogothi were a branch of the Goths, an East Germanic tribe that played a major role in the political events of the late It contains a large part of the four Gospels. This article is about the canonical books of the New Testament Since it is a translation from Greek, the language of the Codex Argenteus is replete with borrowed Greek words and Greek usages. The syntax in particular is often copied directly from the Greek.

• Codex Ambrosianus (Milan) (and the Codex Taurinensis): Five parts, totaling 193 leaves. The Codex Ambrosianus refers to five manuscripts written in the 6th and 7th century by different hands and in different Alphabets The codices Milan (Milano Milan (listen) is one of the largest cities in Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy.

The Codex Ambrosianus contains scattered passages from the New Testament (including parts of the Gospels and the Epistles), of the Old Testament (Nehemiah), and some commentaries known as Skeireins. This article is about the canonical books of the New Testament An epistle (pronounced) ( Greek επιστολη epistolē "letter" is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of persons usually a letter In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. The Book of Nehemiah is a book of the Hebrew Bible, historically regarded as a continuation of the Book of Ezra, and is sometimes called the second book The Skeireins ( Gothic) is the longest and most important monument of the Gothic language after Ulfilas ' version of the Bible. It is therefore likely that the text had been somewhat modified by copyists.

• Codex Rehdigerianus from Uppsala universitetsbibliotek
• Codex Gissensis (Gießen): 1 leaf, fragments of Luke 23-24. Codex Rehdigerianus is a medieval Manuscript written on Parchment, which was held in the city library of Breslau. Gießen (ˈgiːsən is a town in the German federal state ( Bundesland) of Hessen, capital of both the district of Gießen and the administrative It was found in Egypt in 1907, but destroyed by water damage in 1945.
• Codex Carolinus: (Wolfenbüttel): 4 leaves, fragments of Romans 11-15.
• Codex Vaticanus Latinus 5750: 3 leaves, pages 57/58, 59/60 and 61/62 of the Skeireins. The Skeireins ( Gothic) is the longest and most important monument of the Gothic language after Ulfilas ' version of the Bible.

• A scattering of old documents: alphabets, calendars, glosses found in a number of manuscripts and a few runic inscriptions (between 3 and 13) that are known to be or suspected to be Gothic. Very few Elder Futhark inscriptions in the Gothic language have been found in the territory historically settled by the Goths ( Wielbark culture, Chernyakhov Some scholars believe that these inscriptions are not at all Gothic (see Braune/Ebbinghaus "Gotische Grammatik" Tübingen 1981)
• A small dictionary of more than eighty words, and a song without translation, compiled by the Fleming Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, the Habsburg ambassador to the court of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul from 1555 to 1562, who was curious to find out about the language and by arrangement met two speakers of Crimean Gothic and listed the terms in his compilation Turkish Letters. Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1520 or 1521 - October 28, 1592; Latin: Augerius Gislenius Busbequius; sometimes Augier Ghislain The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish Istanbul (historically Byzantium and later Constantinople; see the other Names of Istanbul) is the largest city of Turkey Crimean Gothic was a Germanic dialect spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea (now in Ukraine) until the late 18th These terms are from nearly a millennium later and are therefore not representative of the language of Ulfilas. See Crimean Gothic. Crimean Gothic was a Germanic dialect spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea (now in Ukraine) until the late 18th

There have been unsubstantiated reports of the discovery of other parts of Ulfilas' bible. Heinrich May in 1968 claimed to have found in England 12 leaves of a palimpsest containing parts of the Gospel of Matthew. Year 1968 ( MCMLXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. A palimpsest is a Manuscript page whether from scroll or Book that has been written on scraped off and used again The Gospel of Matthew (Gk Κατά Ματθαίον Ευαγγέλιον is one of the four Canonical gospels in the New Testament and is a Synoptic gospel The claim was never substantiated.

Only fragments of the Gothic translation of the Bible have been preserved. Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin The translation was apparently done in the Balkans region by people in close contact with Greek Christian culture. Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings It appears that the Gothic Bible was used by the Visigoths in Iberia until circa 700 AD, and perhaps for a time in Italy, the Balkans and what is now Ukraine. The Visigoths (Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, or Wisi were one of two main branches of the Goths, an East The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe, and includes modern day Spain, Portugal, Andorra Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. In exterminating Arianism, many texts in Gothic were probably expunged and overwritten as palimpsests, or collected and burned. Arianism is the theological teaching of Arius (c AD 250-336 who was ruled a heretic by the Christian church at the Council of Nicea. A palimpsest is a Manuscript page whether from scroll or Book that has been written on scraped off and used again Apart from Biblical texts, the only substantial Gothic document which still exists, and the only lengthy text known to have been composed originally in the Gothic language, is the "Skeireins", a few pages of commentary on the Gospel of John. The Skeireins ( Gothic) is the longest and most important monument of the Gothic language after Ulfilas ' version of the Bible. The Gospel of John (literally According to John; Greek, Κατὰ Ἰωάννην Kata Iōannēn) is the fourth Gospel in the canon

There are very few references to the Gothic language in secondary sources after about 800. In De incrementis ecclesiae Christianae (840/2), Walafrid Strabo, who lived in Swabia, speaks of a group of monks travelling from Scythia (Dobrudja), probably near Odessa, who spoke a lingua Theotisca (Germanic language), probably Gothic, and used such a liturgy. Walafrid, alternatively spelt Walahfrid, surnamed Strabo (or Strabus, i Swabia, Suabia, or Svebia ( German: Schwaben, Schwabenland or Ländle) is both a historic and linguistic In Classical Antiquity, Scythia ( Greek Skuthia) was the area in Eurasia inhabited by the Scythians, from the 8th ODESSA which stands for the German phrase O rganisation d er e hemaligen SS - A ngehörigen which in turn translates ^[1] He also refers to the use of Ulfilas' bible in a region probably around Lake Constance. Under the designation Lake Constance or Lake of Constance ( German Bodensee) one summarizes the three independent bodies of water Obersee In the former case, the language spoken by the monks was probably an incipient Crimean Gothic.

In evaluating medieval texts that mention the Goths, it must be noted that many writers used the word Goths to mean any Germanic people in eastern Europe (such as the Varangians), many of whom certainly did not use the Gothic language as known from the Gothic Bible. The Goths ( Gothic: Gothic usvg|14px|u]]Gothic asvg|14px|a]]Gothic s The Varangians or Varyags ( Old Norse: Væringjar Greek: Βάραγγοι Βαριάγοι Váraggoi / Varyágoi, Ukrainian Some writers even referred to Slavic-speaking people as Goths. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages

The relationship between the language of the Crimean Goths and Ulfilas' Gothic is less clear. Crimean Gothic was a Germanic dialect spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea (now in Ukraine) until the late 18th The few fragments of their language from the 16th century show significant differences from the language of the Gothic Bible, although some of the glosses, such as ada for "egg", imply a common heritage, and Gothic mena ("moon"), compared to Crimean Gothic mine, clearly indicates that Crimean Gothic was East Germanic.

Generally, the Gothic language refers to the language of Ulfilas, but the attestations themselves are largely from the 6th century - long after Ulfilas had died. Wulfila is also a spider genus ( Anyphaenidae) Wulfila (meaning "little wolf" (ca The 6th century is the period from 501 to 600 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. The above list is not exhaustive, and a more extensive list is available on the website of the Wulfila Project.

Alphabet

Main article: Gothic alphabet

Ulfilas' Gothic, as well as that of the Skeireins and various other manuscripts, was written using an alphabet that was most likely invented by Ulfilas himself for his translation. This article is about the 4th century alphabet of the Gothic bible Some scholars (e. g. Braune) claim that it was derived from the Greek alphabet only, while others maintain that there are some Gothic letters of Runic or Latin origin. The Greek alphabet (Ελληνικό αλφάβητο is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome.

This Gothic alphabet has nothing to do with Blackletter (also called Gothic script), which was used to write the Roman alphabet from the 12th to 14th centuries and evolved into the Fraktur writing later used to write German. This article is about the 4th century alphabet of the Gothic bible Blackletter, also known as Gothic script or Gothic minuscule, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 The German word Fraktur () refers to a specific sub-group of Blackletter Typefaces The word derives from the past participle fractus (“broken” The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages.

Sounds

It is possible to determine more or less exactly how the Gothic of Ulfilas was pronounced, primarily through comparative phonetic reconstruction. Wulfila is also a spider genus ( Anyphaenidae) Wulfila (meaning "little wolf" (ca Furthermore, because Ulfilas tried to follow the original Greek text as much as possible in his translation, we know that he used the same writing conventions as those of contemporary Greek. Since the Greek of that period is well documented, it is possible to reconstruct much of Gothic pronunciation from translated texts. In addition, the way in which non-Greek names are transcribed in the Greek Bible and in Ulfilas' Bible is very informative.

Vowels

Monophthongs

Diphthongs

• /a/, /i/ and /u/ can be either long or short. Gothic writing distinguishes between long and short vowels only for /i/ - writing i for the short form and ei for the long (a digraph or false diphthong), in imitation of Greek usage (ει = /iː/). A digraph, bigraph, or digram is a pair of characters used to write one Phoneme (distinct sound or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond Single vowels are sometimes long where a historically present nasal consonant has been dropped in front of an /h/ (a case of compensatory lengthening). A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Compensatory lengthening in Phonology and Historical linguistics is the lengthening of a Vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following Consonant Thus, the preterite of the verb briggan [briŋgan] "to bring" (English bring, Dutch brengen, German bringen) becomes brahta [braːxta] (English brought, Dutch bracht, German brachte), from the proto-Germanic *braŋk-dē. Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, is the hypothetical common ancestor ( Proto-language) of all the Germanic languages such as modern English In detailed transliteration, where the intent is more phonetic transcription, length is noted by a macron (or failing that, often a circumflex): brāhta, brâhta. Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice Phonetic transcription (or phonetic notation) is the visual system of symbolization of the sounds occurring in spoken human Language. A macron, from Greek el μακρόv ( makrón) meaning "long" is a Diacritic ¯ placed over or under a Vowel which was originally Pitch The circumflex accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, where it occurred (subject to certain rules on the accented syllable /uː/ is found often enough in other contexts: brūks "useful" (Dutch gebruik, German Gebrauch, Swedish bruk "usage").
• /eː/ and /oː/ are long close-mid vowels. A close-mid vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds They are written as e and o: neƕ [neːʍ] "near" (English nigh, Dutch nader, German nah); fodjan [foːdjan] "to feed".
• /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are short open-mid vowels. The open-mid vowels make a class of Vowel sounds used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned They are noted using the digraphs ai and au: taihun [tɛhun] "ten" (Dutch tien, German zehn, Swedish tio), dauhtar [dɔxtar] "daughter" (Dutch dochter, German Tochter). In transliterating Gothic, accents are placed on the second vowel of these digraphs aí and aú to distinguish them from the original diphthongs ái and áu: taíhun, daúhtar. In most cases short [ɛ] and [ɔ] are allophones of /i, u/ before /r, h, ʍ/. Furthermore, the reduplication syllable of the reduplicating preterites has ai as well, which is probably pronounced as a short [ɛ]. Finally, short [ɛ] and [ɔ] occur in loan words from Greek and Latin (aípiskaúpus [ɛpiskɔpus] = ἐπίσκοπος "bishop", laíktjo [lɛktjoː] = lectio "lection", Paúntius [pɔntius] = Pontius).
• The Germanic diphthongs ai and au appear as ai and au in Gothic (normally written with an accent on the first vowel to distinguish them from ai, au < Germanic i/e, u). In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with Some researchers suppose that they were still pronounced as diphthongs in Gothic, i. e. /ai/ and /au/, whereas others think that they have become long open-mid vowels, i. The open-mid vowels make a class of Vowel sounds used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned e. /ɛː/ and /ɔː/: ains [ains] / [ɛːns] "one" (German eins), augo [auɣoː] / [ɔːɣoː] "eye" (German Auge). In Latin sources Gothic names with Germanic au are rendered with au until the 4th century and o later on (Austrogoti > Ostrogoti). Long [ɛː] and [ɔː] occur as allophones of /eː/ and /uː, oː/ respectively before a following vowel: waian [wɛːan] "to blow" (Dutch waaien, German wehen), bauan [bɔːan] "to build" (Dutch bouwen, German "bauen", Swedish bo "live"), also in Greek words Trauada "Troad" (Gk. Τρῳάς).
• /y/ (pronounced like German ü and French u) is a Greek sound used only in borrowed words. It is transliterated as w in vowel positions: azwmus [azymus] "unleavened bread" (< Gk. ἄζυμος). It represents an υ (y) or the diphthong οι (oi) in Greek, both of which were pronounced [y] in period Greek. Since the sound was foreign to Gothic, it was most perhaps pronounced [i].
• /iu/ is a descending diphthong, i. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with e. [iu̯] and not [i̯u]: diups [diu̯ps] "deep" (Dutch diep, German tief, Swedish djup).
• Greek diphthongs: In Ulfilas' era, all the diphthongs of classical Greek had become simple vowels in speech (monophthongization), except for αυ (au) and ευ (eu), which were probably still pronounced as [aβ] and [ɛβ]. Wulfila is also a spider genus ( Anyphaenidae) Wulfila (meaning "little wolf" (ca A monophthong ( Greek μονόφθογγος "monophthongos" = single note) is a "pure" Vowel sound one whose articulation at (They evolved into [av/af] and [ev/ef] in modern Greek. ) Ulfilas notes them, in words borrowed from Greek, as aw and aiw, probably pronounced [au, ɛu]: Pawlus [paulus] "Paul" (Gk. Παῦλος), aíwaggelista [ɛwaŋgeːlista] "evangelist" (Gk. εὐαγγελιστής, via the Latin evangelista).
• Simple vowels and diphthongs (original and spurious ones) can be followed by a [w], which was likely pronounced as the second element of a diphthong with roughly the sound of [u]. It seems likely that this is more of an instance of phonetic coalescence than of phonological diphthongs (such as, for example, the sound /aj/ in the French word paille ("straw"), which is not the diphthong /ai/ but rather a vowel followed by an approximant): alew [aleːw] "olive oil" (< Latin oleum), snáiws [snɛːws] ("snow"), lasiws [lasiws] "tired" (English lazy). Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants

Consonants

	Labials		Dentals		Alveolars		Palatals		Velars		Labiovelars		Laryngeals
Plosives	p /p/	b /b/			t /t/	d /d/		?ddj /ɟː/	k /k/	g /g/	q /kʷ/	gw /gʷ/
Fricatives	f /ɸ, f/	b [β]	þ /θ/	d [ð]	s /s/	z /z/			g, h [x]	g [ɣ]	ƕ /ʍ/		h /h/
Approximants								j /j/				w /w/
Nasals		m /m/				n /n/				g, n /ŋ/
Laterals						l /l/
Trills						r /r/

In general, Gothic consonants are devoiced at the ends of words. Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth The term labiovelar is ambiguous It may mean labial-velar (a Consonant made at two places of articulation, one at the lips and the other at the soft Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both Final obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as German, Dutch, Polish Gothic is rich in fricative consonants (although many of them may have been approximants, it is hard to separate the two) derived by the processes described in Grimm's law and Verner's law and characteristic of Germanic languages. Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift or the Rask's-Grimm's rule) named for Jacob Grimm, is a set of statements describing Verner's law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875 describes a historical Sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby voiceless fricatives * The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. Gothic is unusual among Germanic languages in having a /z/ phoneme which has not become /r/ through rhotacization. Furthermore, the doubling of written consonants between vowels suggests that Gothic made distinctions between long and short, or geminated consonants: atta [atːa] "dad", kunnan [kunːan] "to know" (Dutch kennen, German kennen "to know", Swedish: kunna). In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant.

Stops

• The voiceless stops /p/, /t/ and /k/ are regularly noted by p, t and k respectively: paska [paska] ("Easter", from the Greek πάσχα), tuggo [tuŋgoː] ("tongue"), kalbo [kalboː] ("calf"). The stops probably had (non-phonemic) aspiration like in most modern Germanic languages: [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ]. Thus, the High German consonant shift seems to presuppose aspiration. In Historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift was a phonological development ( Sound change) which took place
• The letter q is probably a voiceless labiovelar stop, /kʷ/ ([kʷʰ]), comparable to the Latin qu: qiman [kʷiman] "to come". The term labiovelar is ambiguous It may mean labial-velar (a Consonant made at two places of articulation, one at the lips and the other at the soft In the later Germanic languages this phoneme has become either a voiceless velar stop + a labio-velar approximant (English qu) or a simple voiceless velar stop (English c, k)
• The voiced stops /b/, /d/ and /g/ are noted by the letters b, d and g. The voiced labiovelar (actually labialized velar) approximant is a type of Consonantal sound used in certain spoken Languages including To judge from the other Germanic languages, they were probably restricted to a word-initial position and the position after a nasal; in other positions they had affricative allophones. In the end of a word and before a voiceless consonant, they were most likely also devoiced: blinds [blints] "blind", lamb [lamp] "lamb".
• There was probably also a voiced labiovelar stop, /gʷ/, which was written with the digraph gw. The term labiovelar is ambiguous It may mean labial-velar (a Consonant made at two places of articulation, one at the lips and the other at the soft It occurred after a nasal, e. g. saggws [saŋgʷs] "song", or long as a regular outcome of Germanic *ww, e. g. triggws [trigʷːs] "faithful" (English true, German treu, Swedish trygg).
• Similarly the letters ddj, which is the regular outcome of Germanic *jj, may represent a voiced palatal stop, /ɟː/: waddjus [waɟːe] "wall" (Swedish vägg), twaddje [twaɟːeː] " two (genitive)" (older Swedish tvägge).

Fricatives

• /s/ and /z/ are usually written s and z. The latter corresponds to Germanic *z (which has become r or silent in the other Germanic languages); at the end of a word, it is regularly devoiced to s. E. g. saíhs [sɛhs] "six", máiza [mɛːza] "greater" (English more, Dutch meer, German mehr, Swedish mer) ~ máis [mɛːs] "more, rather".
• /ɸ/ and /θ/, written f and þ, are voiceless bilabial and voiceless dental fricatives respectively. It is likely that the relatively unstable sound /ɸ/ became /f/. f and þ are also derived from b and d at the ends of words, when they are devoiced and become approximants: gif [giɸ] "give (imperative)" (infinitive giban: German geben), miþ [miθ] "with" (Old English mid, Dutch met, German mit).
• /h/ is written as h: haban "to have". It was probably pronounced [h] in word-final position and before a consonant as well (not [x], since /g/ > [x] is written g, not h): jah [jah] "and" (Dutch, German, Scandinavian ja "yes").

• [x] is an allophone of /g/ at the end of a word or before a voiceless consonant; it is always written g: dags [daxs] "day" (German Tag). In some borrowed Greek words, we find the special letter x, which represents the Greek letter χ (ch): Xristus [xristus] "Christ" (Gk. Χριστός). It may also have signified a /k/.
• [β], [ð] and [ɣ] are voiced fricatives only found between vowels. They are allophones of /b/, /d/ and /g/ and are not distinguished from them in writing. In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. [β] may have become /v/, a more stable labiodental form (a case of articulatory strengthening). In the study of Germanic languages, these phonemes are usually transcribed as ƀ, đ and ǥ respectively: haban [haβan] "to have", þiuda [θiu̯ða] "people" (Old Norse þióð, Dutch Diets, German Deutsch > English Dutch), áugo [auɣoː] "eye" (English eye, Dutch oog, German Auge).
• ƕ (also transcribed hw) is a labiovelar variant of /x/ (derived from the proto-Indo-European kʷ). The term labiovelar is ambiguous It may mean labial-velar (a Consonant made at two places of articulation, one at the lips and the other at the soft It probably was pronounced as /ʍ/ (a voiceless /w/) as it is in certain dialects of English and is predominant in Scots, where it is always written as wh: ƕan /ʍan/ "when", ƕar /ʍar/ "where", ƕeits [ʍiːts] "white".

Nasals and approximants and other phonemes

Gothic has three nasal consonants, of which one is an allophone of the others, found only in complementary distribution with them. Complementary distribution in Linguistics is the relationship between two different elements where one element is found in a particular environment and the other element is Nasals in Gothic, like most languages, are pronounced at the same point of articulation as either the consonant that follows them ( assimilation). In Articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a Consonant is the point of contact where an Obstruction Assimilation is a common Phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary Therefore, clusters like [md] and [nb] are not possible.

• /n/ and /m/ are freely distributed - they can be found in any position in a syllable and form minimal pairs except in certain contexts where they are neutralized: /n/ before a bilabial consonant becomes [m], while/m/ preceding a dental stop becomes [n], as per the principle of assimilation described in the previous paragraph. In Phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of Words or phrases in a particular Language, which differ in only one phonological element such as a Phone In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and In front of a velar stop, they both become [ŋ]. /n/ and /m/ are transcribed as n and m, and in writing neutralisation is marked: sniumundo /sniu̯mundoː/ ("quickly").
• [ŋ] is not a phoneme and cannot appear freely in Gothic. It is present where a nasal consonant is neutralised before a velar stop and is in a complementary distribution with /n/ and /m/. Following Greek conventions, it is normally written as g (sometimes n): þagkjan [θaŋkjan] "to think", sigqan [siŋkʷan] "to sink" ~ þankeiþ [θaŋkiːθ] "thinks". The cluster ggw sometimes denotes [ŋgʷ], but sometimes [gʷː] (see above).
• /w/ is transliterated as w before a vowel: weis [wiːs] ("we"), twái [twai] "two" (German zwei).
• /j/ is written as j: jer [jeːr] "year", sakjo [sakjoː] "strife".
• /l/ is used much as in English and other European languages: laggs [laŋks] "long", mel [meːl] "hour" (English meal,Dutch maal, German Mahl).
• /r/ is a trilled /r/ (or possibly a flap /ɾ/): raíhts [rɛxts] "right", afar [afar] "after". In Phonetics, a trill is a Consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the Place of articulation. In Phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of Consonantal sound which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (such as the
• The sonorants /l/, /m/, /n/ and /r/ act as the nucleus of a syllable ("vowels") after the final consonant of a word or between two consonants. In Phonetics and Phonology, a sonorant is a Speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the Vocal tract. A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds This is also the case in modern English: for example, "bottle" is pronounced [bɒtl̩] in many dialects. Some Gothic examples: tagl [taɣl̩] "hair" (English tail, Swedish tagel), máiþms [mɛːθm̩s] "gift", táikns [tɛːkn̩s] "sign" (English token, Dutch teken, German Zeichen, Swedish tecken) and tagr [taɣr̩] "tear (as in crying)".

Accentuation and Intonation

Accentuation in Gothic can be reconstructed through phonetic comparison, Grimm's law and Verner's law. Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift or the Rask's-Grimm's rule) named for Jacob Grimm, is a set of statements describing Verner's law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875 describes a historical Sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby voiceless fricatives * Gothic used a stress accent rather than the pitch accent of proto-Indo-European. In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a Syllable It is indicated by the fact that long vowels [eː] and [oː] were shortened and the short vowels [a] and [i] were lost in unstressed syllables.

Just as in other Germanic languages, the free moving Indo-European accent was fixed on the first syllable of simple words. The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. (For example, in modern English, nearly all words that do not have accents on the first syllable are borrowed from other languages. ) Accents do not shift when words are inflected. In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice In most compound words, the location of the stress depends on its placement in the second part:

• In compounds where the second word is a noun, the accent is on the first syllable of the first word of the compound.
• In compounds where the second word is a verb, the accent falls on the first syllable of the verbal component. Elements prefixed to verbs are otherwise unstressed, except in the context of separable words (words that can be broken in two parts and separated in regular usage, for example, separable verbs in German and Dutch) - in those cases, the prefix is stressed. A separable verb is a Verb that is composed of a verb stem and a Separable affix.

Examples: (with comparable words from modern Germanic languages)

• Non-compound words: marka ['marka] "border, borderlands" (English "march" as in the Spanish Marches); aftra ['aftra] "after"; bidjan ['bidjan] "pray" (Dutch, bidden, German bitten, Swedish bedja, English bid). Mark from the Old English mearc and march (or various plural forms of these words derived from the Frankish word marka ("boundary"
• Compound words:
  • Noun second element: guda-láus ['guðalaus] "godless".
  • Verb second element: ga-láubjan [ga'lauβjan] "believe" (Dutch geloven, German glauben < Old High German g(i)louben by syncope of the atonic i).

Morphology

Nouns

Main article: Gothic declension

Gothic preserves many archaic Indo-European features that are not always present in modern Germanic languages, in particular the rich Indo-European declension system. Gothic is an inflected language and as such its nouns pronouns and adjectives must be declined in order to serve a grammatical function In Linguistics, declension (or declination) is the occurrence of Inflection in Nouns Pronouns and Adjectives indicating Gothic had nominative, accusative, genitive and dative cases, as well as vestiges of a vocative case that was sometimes identical to the nominative and sometimes to the accusative. The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another The vocative case is the case used for a Noun identifying the person (animal object etc The three genders of Indo-European were all present, including the neuter gender of modern German and Icelandic and to some extent modern Dutch, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, in opposition to the "common gender" (genus commune) which applies to both masculine and feminine nouns. In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong Nouns and adjectives were inflected according to one of two grammatical numbers: the singular and the plural. In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one"

One of the most striking characteristics of the Germanic languages is the division of nouns between those with weak declensions (generally those where the root word ends in an n) and those with strong declensions (those whose roots end in a vowel or an inflexional suffix indicative of a pronoun). The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. The root is the primary lexical unit of a Word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents This separation is particularly important in Gothic. While a noun can only belong to one class of declensions, depending on the end of the root word, some adjectives can be either strongly or weakly declined, depending on their meaning. An adjective employed with a particular meaning and accompanied by a deictic article, like the demonstrative pronouns sa, þata, or so which act as definite articles, took a weak declension, while adjectives used with indefinite articles had a strong declension. In Pragmatics and Linguistics, deixis is collectively the orientational features of human languages to have reference to points in time space and the speaking event Demonstratives are deictic words (they depend on an external frame of reference that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others

This process is found in, e. g. , German and Swedish, where adjectives are declined not only according to gender and number, but also according to indeterminate/determinate form:

	German	Swedish	English	Gothic
weak declension	der lange Mann	den långe mannen	the long man	sa lagga manna
strong declension	(ein) langer Mann	(en) lång man	(a) long man	ains laggs manna

Descriptive adjectives in Gothic (as well as superlatives ending in -ist and -ost) and the past participle may take either declension. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite Some pronouns only take the weak declension; for example: sama (English "same"), adjectives like unƕeila ("constantly", from the root ƕeila, "time"; compare to the English "while"), comparative adjectives, and present participles. In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite Others, such as áins ("some"), take only the strong declension.

The table below displays the declension of the Gothic adjective blind (English: "blind") with a weak noun (guma - "man") and a strong one (dags - "day"):

Case	Weak declension					Strong declension
Singular	Noun	Adjective				Noun	Adjective
		root	M.	N.	F.		root	M.	N.	F.
Nom.	guma	blind-	-a	-o	-o	dags	blind-	-s	-ø	-a
Acc.	guman		-an	-o	-on	dag		-ana	-ø	-a
Gen.	gumins		-ins		-ons	dagis		-is		-áizos
Dat.	gumin		-in		-on	daga		-amma		ái
Plural
Nom.	gumans	blind-	-ans	-ona	-ons	dagos	blind-	-ái	-a	-os
Acc.	gumans		-ans	-ona	-ons	dagans		-ans	-a	-os
Gen.	gumane		-ane		-ono	dage		-áize		-áizo
Dat.	gumam		-am		-om	dagam		-áim

This table is, of course, not exhaustive. (There are secondary inflexions, particularly for the strong neuter singular and irregular nouns among other contexts, which are not described here. ) An exhaustive table of only the types of endings Gothic took is presented below.

• strong declension :
  • roots ending in -a, -ja, -wa (masculine and neuter): equivalent to the Greek and Latin second declension in ‑us / ‑i and ‑ος / ‑ου;
  • roots ending in -o, -jo and -wo (feminine): equivalent to the Greek and Latin first declension in ‑a / ‑æ and ‑α / ‑ας (‑η / ‑ης);
  • roots ending in -i (masculine and feminine): equivalent to the Greek and Latin third declension in ‑is (acc. ‑im) and ‑ις / ‑εως;
  • roots ending in -u (all three genders) : equivalent to the Latin fourth declension in ‑us / ‑us and the Greek third declension in ‑υς / ‑εως;
• weak declension (all roots ending in -n), equivalent to the Greek and Latin third declension in ‑o / ‑onis and ‑ων / ‑ονος or ‑ην / ‑ενος:
  • roots ending in -an, -jan, -wan (masculine);
  • roots ending in -on and -ein (feminine);
  • roots ending in -n (neuter): equivalent to the Greek and Latin third declension in ‑men / ‑minis and ‑μα / ‑ματος;
• minor declensions : roots ending in -r, en -nd and vestigial endings in other consonants, equivalent to other third declensions in Greek and Latin.

Gothic adjectives follow noun declensions closely - they take same types of inflexion.

Pronouns

Gothic inherited the full set of Indo-European pronouns: personal pronouns (including reflexive pronouns for each of the three grammatical persons), possessive pronouns, both simple and compound demonstratives, relative pronouns, interrogatives and indefinite pronouns. Personal pronouns are Pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common Nouns. Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others A possessive pronoun is a Part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something Demonstratives are deictic words (they depend on an external frame of reference that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others A relative pronoun is a Pronoun that marks a Relative clause within a larger sentence. An indefinite pronoun is a Pronoun that refers to one or more unspecified beings objects or places Each follows a particular pattern of inflexion (partially mirroring the noun declension), much like other Indo-European languages. One particularly noteworthy characteristic is the preservation of the dual number, referring to two people or things while the plural was only used for quantities greater than two. Dual is a Grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and Plural. Thus, "the two of us" and "we" for numbers greater than two were expressed as wit and weis respectively. While proto-Indo-European used the dual for all grammatical categories that took a number (as did classical Greek and Sanskrit), Gothic is unusual among Indo-European languages in only preserving it for pronouns. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical

The simple demonstrative pronoun sa (neuter: þata, feminine: so, from the Indo-European root *so, *seh₂, *tod; cognate to the Greek article ὁ, ἡ, τό and the Latin istud) can be used as an article, allowing constructions of the type definite article + weak adjective + noun. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome.

The interrogative pronouns begin with ƕ-, which derives from the proto-Indo-European consonant *k^w that was present at the beginning of all interrogratives in proto-Indo-European. This is cognate with the wh- at the beginning of many English interrogatives which, as in Gothic, are pronounced with [ʍ] in some dialects. This same etymology is present in the interrogatives of many other Indo-European languages" w- [v] in German, v- in Swedish, the Latin qu- (which persists in modern Romance languages), the Greek τ or π, and the Sanskrit k- as well as many others. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical

Verbs

The bulk of Gothic verbs follow the type of Indo-European conjugation called "thematic" because they insert a vowel derived from the reconstructed proto-Indo-European phonemes *e or *o between roots and inflexional suffixes. In the Indo-European languages, thematic roots are those roots that have a "theme vowel" a Vowel sound that is always present between This pattern is also present in Greek and Latin:

• Latin - leg-i-mus ("we read"): root leg- + thematic vowel -i- (from *e) + suffix -mus. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome.
• Greek - λυ-ό-μεν ("we untie"): root λυ- + thematic vowel -ο- + suffix -μεν.
• Gothic - nim-a-m ("we take"): root nim- + thematic vowel -a- (from *o) + suffix -m.

The other conjugation, called "athematic", where suffixes are added directly to roots, exists only in unproductive vestigial forms in Gothic, just as it does in Greek and Latin. In the Indo-European languages, thematic roots are those roots that have a "theme vowel" a Vowel sound that is always present between The most important such instance is the verb "to be", which is athematic in Greek, Latin, Sanskrit and many other Indo-European languages. A feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a Verb corresponding to the English verb to be.

Gothic verbs are, like nouns and adjectives, divided into strong verbs and weak verbs. Weak verbs are characterised by preterites formed by appending the suffixes -da or -ta, parallel to past participles formed with -þ / -t. This article is about the grammatical term To see the article relating to Eschatology and the Book of Revelation, see Preterism. Strong verbs form preterites by alternating vowels in their root forms or by doubling the first consonant in the root, but without adding a suffix in either case. This parallels the Greek and Sanskit perfect tenses. The perfect aspect is variously considered either an aspect or tense which calls a listener's attention to the consequences generated by an action rather than the This dichotomy is still present in modern Germanic languages:

• weak verbs ("to have") :
  • Gothic: haban, preterite habáida, past participle habáiþs ;
  • English: (to) have, preterite had, past participle had ;
  • German: haben, preterite hatte, past participle (ge)habt ;
  • Icelandic: hafa, preterite hafði, past participle haft ;
  • Dutch: hebben, preterite had, past participle (ge)had ;
  • Swedish: ha(va), preterite hade, supine haft ;

• strong verbs ("to give") :
  • Gothic: infinitive giban, preterite gaf ;
  • English: infinitive (to) give, preterite gave ;
  • German: infinitive geben, preterite gab ;
  • Icelandic: infinitive gefa, preterite gaf.
  • Dutch: infinitive geven, preterite gaf ;
  • Swedish: infinitive giva, preterite gav ;

Verbal inflexions in Gothic have two grammatical voices: the active and the medial; three numbers: singular, dual (except in the third person), and plural; two tenses: present and preterite (derived from a former perfect tense); three grammatical moods: indicative, subjunctive (from an old optative form) and imperative; as well as three kinds of nominal forms: a present infinitive, a present participle, and a past passive. In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive Verb forms that are used to signal modality. Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive Verb forms that are used to signal modality. In Grammar, the subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a Verb mood that exists in many languages The optative mood is a Grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope The imperative mood is a Grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests In Grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite Not all tenses and persons are represented in all moods and voices - some conjugations use auxiliary forms. In Linguistics, an auxiliary (also called helping verb, helper verb, auxiliary verb, or verbal auxiliary) is a Verb functioning

Finally, there are forms called "preterite-present" - old Indo-European perfect tenses that were reinterpreted as present tense. The Gothic word wáit, from the proto-Indo-European *woid-h₂e ("to see" in the perfect tense), corresponds exactly to its Sanskrit cognate véda and in Greek to ϝοἶδα. Both etymologically should mean "I saw" (in the perfective sense) but mean "I see" (in the preterite-present meaning). Latin follows the same rule with nōuī ("I knew" and "I know"). The preterite-present verbs include áihan ("to possess") and kunnan ("to know") among others.

Gothic compared to other Germanic languages

For the most part, Gothic is significantly closer to Proto-Germanic than any other Germanic language, excepting of that of the (very scantily attested) early Norse runic inscriptions. This has made it invaluable in the reconstruction of Proto-Germanic. In fact, Gothic tends to serve as the primary foundation for reconstructing Proto-Germanic. The reconstructed Proto-Germanic conflicts with Gothic only when there is a clearly identifiable evidence from other branches that the Gothic form is a secondary development.

Gothic fails to display a number of innovations shared by all later-attested Germanic languages. Most conspicuously, Gothic shows no sign of morphological umlaut. Gothic fotus, pl. fotjus, can be contrasted with English foot : feet, German Fuß : Füße, Danish fod : fødder, Swedish fot : fötter. These forms contain the characteristic change /o:/ > /ø:/ (> Eng. /i:/, Germ. /y:/) due to i-umlaut; the Gothic form shows no such change.

Proto-Germanic *z remains in Gothic as z or is devoiced to s. In North and West Germanic, *z > r. E. g. Gothic drus (fall), Old English dryre.

Gothic retains a morphological passive voice inherited from Indo-European, but unattested in all other Germanic languages, except for the single fossilised form preserved in, for example, Old English hātte "is/am called".

Gothic possesses a number of verbs which form their preterite tense by reduplication, another archaic feature inherited from Indo-European. While traces of this category survived elsewhere in Germanic, the phenomenon is largely obscured in these other languages by later sound changes and analogy. In the following examples the infinitive is compared to the 3rd person singular preterite indicative:

"to sow" Gothic saian : saiso. Old Norse sá : seri < Proto-Germanic *sezō.

"to play" Gothic laikan : lailaik. Old English lācan : leolc, lēc.

Gothic and Old Norse

Jordanes, writing in the 6th century, ascribes to the Goths a Scandinavian origin, and there are indeed some linguistic similarities between Gothic and Old Norse, which set them apart from the West Germanic languages. Jordanes (also Jordanis or even Iornandes) was a 6th century Roman Bureaucrat, who turned his hand to History later in life The 6th century is the period from 501 to 600 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of Languages and include languages such as English The hypothesis that Gothic and Old Norse share a common ancestor language distinct from West Germanic is known as the Gotho-Nordic hypothesis. A proto-language is a Language which was the common ancestor of related languages that form a Language family.

Significant points of agreement between North and East Germanic include:

1) The evolution of the Proto-Germanic *-jj- and *-ww- into Gothic ddj (from Pre-Gothic ggj?) and ggw, and Old Norse ggj and ggv ("Holtzmann's Law"), in contrast to West Germanic where they remained as semivowels. Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, is the hypothetical common ancestor ( Proto-language) of all the Germanic languages such as modern English Holtzmann's Law is a Proto-Germanic Sound law originally noticed by Adolf Holtzmann in 1838. For instance, the genitive of the numeral "two" appears in Old High German as zweio, but in Gothic as twaddje and Old Norse tveggja. Compare Modern English true, German treu, with Gothic triggws, Old Norse tryggr. However, it has been suggested that this is in fact two separate and unrelated changes. ^[2].

2) The existence of numerous inchoative verbs ending in -na, such as Gothic ga-waknan, Old Norse vakna.

3) 2nd person singular preterite indicative with the ending -t and the same root vowel as the 1st and 3rd persons singular. E. g. Gothic namt (you received), Old Norse namt, versus Old High German nāmi, Old English nāme, nōme. In West Germanic, the 2nd person preterite indicative ending -t is restricted to preterite-present verbs. Following the convention in Historical linguistics, this article marks unattested reconstructed words with an asterisk

4) Absence of gemination before j, or (in the case of old Norse) only g geminated before j. E. g. Proto-Germanic *kunjam > Gothic kuni (kin), Old Norse kyn; but Old English cynn, Old High German kunni.

5) The dative absolute formed using the preposition at with a participle: Gothic at urrinnandin sunnin, Old Norse at upprennandi sólu (at sunrise, when the sun rose); Gothic at Iesu ufdaupidamma (when Jesus had been baptised), Old Norse at liðnum vetri (when the winter had passed).

However, point 1 is disputed (see the article on Holtzmann's Law), and points 2 and 4 are shared retentions and therefore not sufficient evidence for a subgroup. Holtzmann's Law is a Proto-Germanic Sound law originally noticed by Adolf Holtzmann in 1838. The comparative method (in Comparative linguistics) is a technique used by linguists to demonstrate genetic relationships between Languages It aims to prove Furthermore, other isoglosses have led scholars to propose an early split between East and Northwest Germanic. An isogloss is the geographical boundary or delineation of a certain linguistic feature e Northwest Germanic is a proposed grouping of the Germanic dialects It must in any case be borne in mind that that features shared by any two branches of Germanic do not require the postulation of a proto-language excluding the third, as the early Germanic languages were all part of a dialect continuum in the early stages of their development and contact between the three branches of Germanic was extensive. A proto-language is a Language which was the common ancestor of related languages that form a Language family. The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. A dialect continuum is a range of Dialects spoken across a large geographical area differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close and gradually decreasing Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact

Without necessarily accepting either Gotho-Nordic or Northwest Germanic unity, Gothic is also important for the understanding of the evolution of Proto-Germanic into Old Norse through Proto-Norse. Proto-Norse (also Proto-Scandinavian, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Ancient Nordic, Old Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic For instance, the origin of the final -n in Old Norse nafn (name) is shown by Gothic namo, genitive plural namne. Sometimes Gothic casts light on word-forms found on the oldest runestones, e. g. gudija (see gothi) found on the runestone of Nordhuglo in Norway, for which a Gothic cognate gudja (priest) is attested. for the town in Nepal see Gothi Nepal A goði or gothi (plural goðar) is the Old Norse term for a Priest Cognates in Linguistics are words that have a common origin They may occur within a language such as shirt and skirt as two English words descended from

Old Gutnish (Gutniska) shows a number of similarities with Gothic which are not shared by other Old Norse dialects: lack of a-umlaut in short high vowels (e. Old Gutnish was the dialect of Old Norse that was spoken on the island of Gotland. g. fulk : Old Icelandic folk), lowering of u to o before r (e. g. bort), the use of lamb with the sense "sheep", the appearance in both of an early Germanic loanword from Latin lucerna (Gothic lukarn, Old Gutnish lukarr), and, arguably, the preservation of the Proto-Germanic diphthongs *ai and *au (but see above). It is debated to what extent these similarities are due to coincidence or ancestral connection. Elias Wessén went as far as to classify Old Gutnish as a Gothic dialect. Elias Wessén (1889-1981 was a prominent Swedish linguist and a professor of North Germanic languages at Stockholm University (1928-1956 But such a proposal should be understood in strictly historical terms; that is to say, it properly refers to the precursor of Old Gutnish contemporary with the Gothic texts. By the time Old Gutnish came to be recorded in manuscripts, it possessed most of the characteristics which distinguish Old Norse from Wulfilan Gothic (in terms of vocabulary, morphology, phonology and syntax), as can be seen in this text sample from the Gutasaga about a migration to southern Europe (Manuscript from the 14th century written in Old Gutnish):

siþan af þissum þrim aucaþis fulc j gutlandi som mikit um langan tima at land elptj þaim ai alla fyþa þa lutaþu þair bort af landi huert þriþia þiauþ so at alt sculdu þair aiga oc miþ sir bort hafa som þair vfan iorþar attu. The Gutasaga is a saga treating the history of Gotland before its Christianization. Old Gutnish was the dialect of Old Norse that was spoken on the island of Gotland. . . so fierri foru þair at þair quamu til griclanz. . . oc enn byggia oc enn hafa þair sumt af waru mali

over a long time, the people descended from these three multiplied so much that the land couldn't support them all. Then they draw lots, and every third person was picked to leave, and they could keep everything they owned and take it with them, except for their land. . . . They went so far that they came to the land of the Greeks. . . they settled there, and live there still, and still have something of our language.

Examples

The Lord's Prayer in Gothic:
Gothic	English
Atta unsar þu in himinam weihnai namo þein	Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name
qimai þiudinassus þeins wairþai wilja þeins	Thy kingdom come thy will be done
swe in himina jah ana airþai. The Lord's Prayer, also known as the Our Father or Pater noster, is probably the best-known Prayer in Christianity.	as in heaven so on earth.
hlaif unsarana þana sinteinan gif uns himma daga	Give us this day our daily bread
jah aflet uns þatei skulans sijahma	And forgive us guilty as we are
swaswe jah weis afletam þaim skulam unsaraim	As we also forgive our debtors
jah ni briggais uns in fraistubnjai	Also do not bring us into temptation
ak lausei uns af þamma ubilin	But free us from this evil
unte þeina ist þiudangardi jah mahts	For thine is the kingdom and the power
jah wulþus in aiwins.	And glory in eternity.

Notes

References

• F. Mossé, Manuel de la langue gotique, Aubier Éditions Montaigne, 1942
• W. Braune and E. Ebbinghaus, Gotische Grammatik, 17th edition 1966, Tübingen
  • 20th edition, 2004. ISBN 3-484-10852-5 (hbk), ISBN 3-484-10850-9 (pbk)
• Wilhelm Streitberg, Die gotische Bibel , 4th edition, 1965, Heidelberg
• Joseph Wright, Grammar of the Gothic language, 2nd edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1966
  • 2nd edition, 1981 reprint by Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-811185-1
• W. Wilhelm August Streitberg (1864&ndash1925 was a German Indo-Europeanist, specializing in Germanic languages. Joseph Wright FBA (1855–1930 rose from humble origins to become Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford University. Krause, Handbuch des Gotischen, 3rd edition, 1968, Munich.

See also

• List of Gothic unicode fonts
• List of Germanic languages
• Germanic Languages - Comparison of Selected Terms for a chart comparing Gothic words to those of other Germanic languages
• Geats
• Gotlanders
• Old Gutnish
• Grimm's law
• Verner's law

External links

• Gotisch im WWW Portal for information on Gothic (in German)
• English-Gothic Dictionary (Also contains neologisms and reconstructed words)
• "Gothic dictionary with etymologies" by Andras Rajki
• Gothic lessons
• Germanic Lexicon Project - early (Public Domain) editions of several of the references. The Germanic languages include some 58 ( SIL estimate languages and dialects that originated in Europe; this language family is a part of the Indo-European The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. Geats, Geatas, Gautar, Goths, Gotar, Gøtar, Götar were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting Götaland The Gotlanders are the population of the island of Gotland. In Swedish they are also called Gutar an ethnonym identical to Goths ( Old Gutnish was the dialect of Old Norse that was spoken on the island of Gotland. Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift or the Rask's-Grimm's rule) named for Jacob Grimm, is a set of statements describing Verner's law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875 describes a historical Sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby voiceless fricatives *
• Texts:
  • The Gothic Bible in Latin alphabet
  • The Gothic Bible in Ulfilan script (Unicode text) from Wikisource
  • The Gothic Bible in Runic alphabet (Unicode text) from Wikisource
  • Titus has Streitberg's Gotische Bibel and Crimean Gothic material after Busbecq.
  • Wulfila Project
  • Skeireins Projet
  • Bagme Bloma, a Gothic poem by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Gothic for Travellers: Good conversation starters are death, torture, eating and drinking.
• Gothic Online from the University of Texas at Austin

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