1 post tagged “alphabet”

I've read in several places, that Gothic alphabet is believed to be the Greek alphabet combined with runes and the Latin alphabet. Personally I am strongly opposed to the last notion, and am, in fact convinced it's solely the Greek Alphabet filled up with Germanic Runes when dear Wulfila ran out of runes. I'll discuss the runes individually, and by this I'll show that there's not a single time that a possible Latin variant might not be derived from Runic inscription.

There's also good reason to believe Wulfila did not use the Latin alphabet. Wulfila first of all used the Greek alphabet to fill up as many positions as possible. When he still had some left, he started using runes. It's not a realistic thought to think that he used both Runes and Latin alphabet to fill up the gaps. Why on earth would he want to do that?

Let's start with

𐌰 Phonemic value is /a/ or /ā/, although highly abstract, there's still some indication that this sign was derived from Upper Case α, thus: Α. it could be argued that it's from runic ᚨ, but I consider it unlikely.
𐌱 Phonemic value is /b/. This might go either way, it could be from the Greek Uppercase β: Β, or from runic ᛒ. Assuming that Wulfila first filled up the alphabet with Greek letters, I'm inclined to believe it's from the Greek alphabet.
𐌲 Phonemic value is /g/ Not a doubt here, clearly from upper case γ: Γ
𐌳 Phonemic value is /d/ Again clearly from upper case δ: Δ.
𐌴 Phonemic value is /ē/ This one is clearly from the Greek ε, though it somehow seems closer to the lower case than the upper case Ε, which is not really what we'd expect (Did greek have a lower case at al back in those days?)
𐌵 Phonemic value is /q/ This is an interesting one, First of all, it's in the alphabetical position, and has the numeral value equal to the greek Waw (ϝ). What's interesting is that the sign itself, is a turned around rune /u/ ᚢ. Apparently wulfila recognised that the /q/ and /u/ both had a labio-velar element, so he created a 'like /u/ but different' sign.
𐌶 Phonemic value is /z/ Clearly derrived from uppercase ζ : Ζ.
𐌷 Phonemic value is /h/. This one is probably the most difficult. Greek doesn't really have an /h/ letter around this time anymore η was already used for /ǣ/. But it can't really come from Latin either, although it has a striking resemblance with lower case h, simply because there was no such thing as a lower case in Latin those days. So the only one that's left is the Rune ᚺ. Not too convincing, but due to lack of any other thing to speak against it, I think we have no choice but to conclude this must be right.
𐌸 Phonemic value is /þ/. Of course derived from Greek ψ/Ψ
𐌹 Phonemic value is /i/. Derived from Greek ι/Ι
𐌺 Phonemic value is /k/. Derived from Greek κ/Κ
𐌻 Phonemic value is /l/. Derived from Greek λ/Λ
𐌼 Phonemic value is /m/. Derived from Greek Μ
𐌽 Phonemic value is /n/. Derived from Greek Ν
𐌾 Phonemic value is /j/. This is another one of those terrible controversial letters. Many people will claim that this letter came from Latin G. But honestly, this does not make much sense to me. Latin G has never had the value /j/. The striking resemblance between the Latin G and this letter is thus only coincidence. The real letter it was derived from is the Runic ᛃ, which has quite a similar shape and does have the value /j/.
𐌿 Phonemic value is /u/. This one is not really open to discussion, clearly comes from the Runic ᚢ.
𐍀 Phonemic value is /p/. Derived from Greek π/Π.
𐍁 No phonemic value, purely a numeral '90'. This is an odd letter. It's in the position where we'd expect the Ϟ. While in shape I think it most resembles the Stigma: Ϛ.
𐍂 Phonemic value is /r/. This is a very interesting letter, many people like to connect it with Latin R. But they're silly, it's just from the Rune ᚱ. The real issue here is, why didn't Wulfila just use Greek ρ/Ρ? Surely this would've helped us confused scholars to not mix up k and r up all the time (Notice the near Identical shape). The fact that Wulfila did not want to use the ρ is indirect proof that the Greek sound was quite different from the Gothic. Either Gothic r was [ʀ], or the often assumed aspiration of the Greek ρ thus: [rʰ] was too dissimilar to [r] to Wulfila's ears to use the same letter. Most likely is that the Gothic value of /r/ was [ʀ] though.
𐍃 Once again one of those controversial letters! It looks just like Latin S. It also looks a lot like lower case Greek ς, but like I said, I'm not sure how wide spread the lower case script of Greek was at the time. Therefore I believe this letter comes from the Runic ᛋ, or actually the slightly more tilted version as seen in the 'SS' sign. Because if you believe that  /j/ Was derived from ᛃ, it's not hard to believe that also ᛋ received round shapes. The shapes of these runes isn't all that dissimilar.
𐍄 Phonemic value /t/. Clearly from Greek τ/Τ
𐍅 Phonemic value /w/, and possible /y/ in some Greek loanwords. Without doubt from the Greek Υ.
𐍆 Phonemic value /f/. Some people might want to connect this to Latin F, but it's way to similar to Runic ᚠ to assume another relation, Although the branches are in the wrong directions, they both start at the main branch, while the Latin F has the top bar go over the main branch.
𐍇 Phonemic value unclear probably /kʰ/, It's solely used in Greek loanwords and is thus also clearly related to the Greek χ/Χ.
𐍈 Phonemic value /ƕ/. It seems odd to map this letter to the Greek Θ, but it's without a doubt what happened.
𐍉 Phonemic value /ō/. From Runic ᛟ. An interesting use, why didn't Wulfila just use Ω? An explanations is that Ω was most likely closer to the sound /ɔ̄/. Some might also Argue that this letter isn't from the Rune, but from the Greek Ω after all.
𐍊 The final letter! No Phonemic value just means '900'. The Greek letter for '900' is ϡ. Gothic seems to use the Runic ᛏ with the phonemic value /t/. Pretty mysterious choice, but that's the way it is.