Gotique

The Gotique (this orthography is used, in French exclusively, in opposition to “Gothique” in order to avoid confusions ) is a Germanic Langue now extinct, that of the Goths and, more particularly, Visigoths. The gotique one is thus a Indo-European Langue.

It is oldest of the attested Germanic languages but it gave rise to no current Germanic language. The oldest documents date from the {{S|IV|E}} of the Christian era. Gotic cease to be usually used starting from second half of the {{S|VI|E}} because of the wisigothic defeats vis-a-vis the Frank , of the destruction of Goths of Italy (the Ostrogoths), of conversion to the Catholicism of Goths of Spain, Latinization and romanisation, geographical insulation, etc

The language gothe nevertheless would have survived at least until the medium of the {{S|VII|E}} in Spain and the Franc Walahfrid Strabo mentions that at the beginning of the {{S|IX|E}}, it is still spoken on the lower course about the the Danube and in the mountains isolated from the Crimea. Perhaps the terms seeming to belong to gotic found in the posterior manuscripts (paid to the 16th century) of the Crimea do not correspond exactly to the same language.

The antiquated character of gotic makes of it the principal interest in compared Linguistique.

For reasons of legibility, the parts concerning the gotic Alphabet and the pronunciation of the language constitute separate articles.

Certificates

The gotique one is attested by a small number of documents, which do not make it possible to restore it with a high degree of accuracy:

the principal sum is represented by the texts of the bishop arien Wulfila (or Ulfilas ; 311 - 382), which was with the head of a community of Christian Visigoths in Mésie (Bulgaria); this one translated the Bible Greek that Seventy in the gotic language in order to évangéliser the people; of this translation, there remain to us mainly the three quarters of the New Testament , and some fragments of the Ancien. The best manuscript, the Codex Argenteus , date of the Life, preserved and transmitted by Ostrogoths of Italy of north. It contains broad passages of the four Gospels. The second among the principal manuscripts is the Codex Ambrosianus , which contains more scattered passages of the Nouveau will (of which extracts of the Gospels and Épîtres ), Old will ( Néhémiah ) as well as named comments Skeireins (see below). It is thus probable that the original text was somewhat modified by the copyists; the text being a translation of the Greek, the language attested by the Codex Argenteus is enamelled hellenisms, which is noted especially in the syntax, which often copies that of the source language;
of the comments of the Gospel of Jean , known under the name of Skeireins (female name), “Interpretation”, making eight pages;
various scattered old documents: alphabetical, calendar, gloses found in various manuscripts as well as inscriptions sometimes written by means of the Rune S, etc;
a few tens of terms that Ogier de Busbecq, diplomatic Flemish having lived in XVIe century, collected in the Crimea and transmitted in its Lettres of Turkey ; these terms are however not representative of the language that Wulfila noted and it is more than probable that it is not really the gotique one with the direction where one hears it in historical linguistics.

In kind, when one speaks about gotic, it is most of the time about that of Wulfila, but the documents are mainly Life century, i.e. quite posterior. This list not being exhaustive, one will be able to refer in this external page for a more precise description of the certificates of the language.

Alphabet

Phonological and phonetic system

Morphology

Nominal system

The antiquated character of gotic enabled him to preserve features specific to the Indo-European languages that do not have inevitably any more the modern Germanic languages, like a nominal inflection much richer in Cas; one finds into gotic the Nominatif, the Accusatif, the Génitif and the Datif (like certain traces of a Vocatif often identical to personal, sometimes with the accusative). As comparison, Germanic languages, only the Icelandic and German still have all these cases. The three kind S IE are represented, of which the neutral (as in German, Norwegian and Icelandic and, in a certain manner, as in Dutch, Danish and Swedish, which opposes the neutral to the “common kind” ( genus common ), i.e. a synthesis of the masculine and the female one). The nouns and adjectives are bent according to two number S: singular and plural.

One of the characteristics more striking this family of languages is the opposition between the weak nominal inflections (while simplifying: with consonant termination of the radical ) and strong (while simplifying: with vocalic termination of the radical and with mixture of Ending S specific to the pronouns), opposition particularly prégnante into gotic. Whereas for a given name, only one inflection is possible (according to the finale of the radical) certain adjectives can follow one or the other inflection, according to their value: an adjective employed in a given way and accompanied by a pronominal form deictic, like the conclusive pronoun its , þata , so playing the part of a definite article, is declined with weak; one declines at the height the unspecified adjectives. This process still meets in German, for example, where it is said that without definite article, the adjective carries the flexional marks from there:

weak: of er' gut' e' Wein (“good wine”);
extremely: gut' er' Wein (“good wine”).

Into gotic, the qualifying adjectives (also with superlative in - STI and - ost ) and the last participle can follow the two inflections; only weak the certain pronouns like sama follow (“identical”, cf English same ), certain adjectives, like unƕeila (“ceaseless”; for the radical ƕeila , “time”, cf English while , “while”), the adjectives with comparative, the present participles, etc follow only strong the áins (“ones”), the possessive adjectives, the indefinite ones, etc

One will be satisfied to give some examples of the nominal and adjectival variations opposing the strong and weak inflections: Guma , masculine, weak topic in - year , “man”; dags , masculine, strong topic in - has , “day”; blind , “blind man”.

This table, of course, does not provide complete paradigms (there exist indeed secondary endings, especially with the singular neutral extremely, irregularities, etc). An exhaustive version of the types of inflection would be presented thus for the names (the inflections are treated in an exhaustive way in a separate article):

strong inflection :

topics in - has , - ja , - wa (male and neutral): equivalent of the inflections sets of themes Latin and Greek that, (second variation) in ‑ custom / ‑ I and ‑ ος/‑ ου;
topics in - O , - OJ and - wo (female): equivalent of the first Latin and Greek variations in ‑ has / ‑ æ and ‑ α/‑ ας (‑ η/‑ ης);
topics in - I (male and female): third Latin and Greek variation ‑ is (acc. ‑ im ) and ‑ ις/‑ εως;
topic in - U (three kinds): fourth Latin variation and Greek third ‑ custom / ‑ custom and ‑ υς/‑ εως;

weak inflection (all topics in - N ), third Latin and Greek variation in ‑ O / ‑ onis and ‑ ων/‑ ονος or ‑ ην/‑ ενος:

topics in - year , - jan , - wan (male);
topics in one and - ein (female);
topics in - N (neutral): third Latin and Greek variation in ‑ men / ‑ mini and ‑ μα/‑ ματος;

minor inflections : in - R , in - Nd and remainders of other topics in consonants, equivalents of the other paradigms of the third Latin variation and Greek.

The system of the adjective follows very close that of the name: the types of inflections are found there.

Pronominal system

The gotique one has a complete set of pronouns, personnel (as well as reflexive single for the three people), possessive, conclusive (simple and made up), relative, interrogative and indefinite. Those follow a series of particular inflections (that the strong nominal inflection began again partly), following the example other Indo-European languages. The most outstanding feature is undoubtedly the conservation of the duel, number concerning two people or things, while plural concerns what exceeds the pair. Thus, “us two” and “us (more than two)” say respectively wit and Weiss . Whereas the duel was used in Indo-European for all the categories able to express the number (it is found thus in Greek and Sanskrit, for example), it is remarkable that the gotique one preserved it only for the pronouns.

The simple conclusive pronoun its (neutral: þata , female: so , of the same origin than the Greek article ὁ, τό, ἡ, i.e. *so , *seh₂ , tod ; for this last, cf so Latin is' tud ), is used like article and allows the construction of noun phrases of the type definite article + adjectival weak + name .

Other milked notable, the interrogative pronouns begin all with ƕ- , which continues the Indo-European phoneme *k^w and is indeed at the beginning of such pronouns in the language-mother; thus in English these terms generally begin with wh- , which can, as into gotic, to note, in German by W , Swedish v , etc One finds in Latin qu , Greek τ or π (evolution of *k^w being particular there), Sanskrit K , etc

The detail of the pronominal inflection is the subject of a separate article.

Verbal system

The large majority of the verbs gotic follows the conjugation Indo-European known as “set of themes”, because it intercalates an alternating vowel *e/_o between the radical and the endings. Latin and the Greek make in the same way:

Latin leg-I-driven “we read”: radical leg- + Vowel set of themes - I (coming from *e ) + ending - driven ;
Greek λυ-ό-μεν “we untie”: radical λυ- + vowel set of themes - ο- + ending - μεν;
gotic nim-a-m “we take”: radical nim- (cf German nehm ) + vowel set of themes - has (coming from *o ) + ending - m .

The other conjugation, known as “athematic”, where another set of endings is directly added to the radical, remains only with the state of vestige, as in Latin or Greek. The most important paradigm is that of the verb “being”, which are also athematic in Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, etc

In addition, the verbs are also separate in two great groups, the weak verbs and the strong verbs. The weak ones are characterized by a preterite formed by the addition of a suffix in dental consonant - da / - your , as with the past participle, - þ / - T , while the forts use for the preterite a play of vocalic alternations (modification of the vowel of the radical) and/or of redoubling of the first consonant of the radical (as in Greek and Sanskrit for the Parfait) without particular suffix. This dichotomy finds in German, English, Icelandic, inter alia Germanic languages:

weak (verb “to have”):

gotique : haban , preterite habái' da , takes part last habái þ S ;

German: haben , preterite hat you , takes part last (Ge) hab T ;

English

: (to) cuts , preterite ha D , takes part last ha D ;

Dutch

: hebben , preterite ha D , takes part last (Ge) ha D ;

Icelandic

: hafa , preterite haf ði , takes part last hafi 2D ;

extremely (verb “to give”):

gotique : infinitive G i' round of applause , preterite g' a' F ;
German: infinitive g' e' Ben , preterite g' a' B ;
: infinitive (to) g' i' ve , preterite g' a' ve ;
: infinitive g' e' Venn , preterite g' a' F ;
: infinitive g' e' F , preterite g' a' F .

The verbal inflection has two Diathèse S (or “voice”), the credit and the liability (derivative of an old means), three numbers, singular, duel (except with the third nobody) and plural, two times, present and preterite (old perfect), three personal modes, code, subjunctive (old optative) and requirement, like three series of nominal forms of the verb, an infinitive present as well as a participle present active and last passive. All times and all the people are not represented with all the modes and all the voices, the conjugation using for certain forms a system of supplétion.

Lastly, the existence of verbs says “prétérito-present” is notable: they are old perfect Indo-European which was reinterpreted like present. Thus wáit , of the Indo-European *woid-h₂e (verb “to see” with perfect), finds its guarantor exact in Sanskrit véda and in Ϝοἶδα Greek, who mean all étymologiquement “I saw” (perfect direction) thus “I know” (feel prétérito-present). The case is similar in Latin with nōuī : “I knew” thus “I know”. Among the verbs prétérito-present, one counts also áihan (“to have”), kunnan (“to know”, cf German kennen ), etc

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