Class 1, Question 6

oxford p10 - Gothic is one of the languages brought to england by the germanic tribes. Just like the runes, it distinguishes itself from the other languages brought by the tribes, by the fact that it was already a written language.

Robinson p13 - It is part of the eastern germanic languages. it is now a dead language

oxford p21 -

In north-western Europe the Germanic subgroup of the Indo-European
family took up residence many years ago and still dominates the linguistic
scene. Of the original Germanic languages, only a few have become extinct in
relatively recent times. One of them is Gothic, a language that was once
spoken in the eastern regions of Europe, but which no longer exists as a
living language today. In the northernmost reaches of Europe is found the
Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family. Here people speak Norwegian,
Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic. Further to the south one comes across
German, spoken in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Dutch, spoken in the
Netherlands (Holland), Flemish, a language very similar to Dutch which is
spoken in Belgium, and a little-known language called Frisian, spoken by
about 20 000 people in the northern part of the Netherlands.

What is Gothic? Where and when was it spoken? What makes it different from other Germanic languages? What languages are now spoken where (geographically speaking) Gothic was spoken? What does this tell you about language change, etc?

Gothic is a language that was one spoken in the eastern regions in Europe but which no longer exists as a living language today.
The gothic language is one of the extinct languages of the Eastern Germanic languages.
The Gothic or the dead language was a branch of the medieval languages of the eastern German that was spoken by the Ostogoths of the ancient Germany and Italy.
The language was also spoken by the Visigoths of the Eastern Europe and Spain.
It died out among the ‘’Ostrogoths’’ after the fall of their kingdom in Italy in the 6th century and among the Visigoths around the time of the Arab conquest in 711.
It persisted longer in the Crimea where a form of Gothic was spoken as late as the 16 century.

For the language to be spoken in the medieval Germany, Italy and Spain means that it must have served as a means of communication in the early international trade and diplomatic relations between these countries.
Bishop Ufila spread the language as he propagated the Arian heresy which flourished in some parts of Europe for several Centuries.
He visited Constantinople, the present day Istanbul in 360 and again in 381 to propagate the interest of the Arian ideology. He is believed to be the one who brought Christianity to the Goths.

Here are some main traits distinguishing Gothic from other Germanic tongues:
1) We know that Common Germanic had three voices: active, passive and medium, but only Gothic preserved all three, using mediopassive voice in the present and past tenses.
2) Gothic used the method of reduplication (double stem) in constructing the perfect stem of the verb. This feature is common with Latin and Greek, but is not seen anywhere else in Germanic.
3) Diphthongs were shorted into long vowels in Gothic, and ai > é, au > ó.
4) The strong verbs of the V class lost the suffix -j- (ligjan > ligan)

Gothic was extensively rich with preverbs, or verbal prefixes, which were quite productive in making new verbs. Gothic died leaving just a small dialectal group of Crimean Gothic which can hardly be considered as a descendant of this tongue.

website on gothic : http://indoeuro.bizland.com/tree/germ/gothic.html