4 posts tagged “gothic”
So, I had my Hittite 2 test today. It included Hittite, Hieroglyphic Luwian and Lycian. It went fine, but as I was busy working with it, I stumbled upon the last question of the test which went as follows: What can you tell about the genitive in Anatolian languages?
The answer was easy enough, and I'll give it as an introduction that is to come.
Anatolian languages seem to have two separate ways of creating a genitive construction. One is by the typical genitive ending suffixed to the possesor. This is Proto-Anatolian *-as (Hitt. -aš, Luw. -as, Lyc. -eh). This just goes back to the typical Indo-European genitive suffix *-ós (although some might argue it's the other way around).
What is interesting about the *-ós suffix though, is that it is also seen in the Anatolian a-stems (PIE o-stems), while in the later PIE languages we tend to find the pronominal *-eso, or even a *-esio (and maybe *-eio).
The other way of creating a genitive construction is the -ssi- suffix (Luw. -esi, Lyc. -ehi), oddly enough this formation seems to be absent in Hittite, while it is dominant in Hieroglyphic Luwian and Lycian, and the only formation in Cuneiform Luwian. This formation is typically Anatolian and works quite different from what you're used to.
I'll give an example of both the traditional genitive construction, and the Anatolian genitive.
Both forms can be found in a Lycian trilingual on the founding of Xanthos (a Lycian city). The *-as genitive is used as a so called onomastic genitive (a genitive used for names), while the *-ssi- genitive is used for nouns.
ẽke Trm̃isñ χssaϑrapazate Pigesere Katamlah tideimi
'When Pigesere son of Katamla became Xadrape of Lycia....'
The Genitive construction here is Katamlah tideimi. where -ah goes back to *-as (though we would expect **-eh, but there's still many things we don't fully understand about the *a>e shift in Lycian.)
se-t-ahñtãi χñtawatehi χbidẽñnehi sey-ArKKazumahi
'and to be of the king of Kaunos, and of Arkesima'
And there we have, not one, not two, but three -ssi-genitives!
χñtawatehi, χbidẽñnehi, ArKKazumahi. What's interesting (though not particularly visible in this example), about the -ssi- suffix, is that it makes it a new noun, which afterwards, just conjugates like any normal noun. So *-ssi-s is the Nominative, *-ssi-n is the accusative, etc.
So here is approximately where I ended my answer, and, my answer had less cool examples and diachronic notes, but you get the point.
So, now that we have an overview of Anatolian genitives. Let's look at some other Indo-European languages.
First Greek:
Standard for all consonant stems is the -ος genitive. For example:
πατηρ > πατρος
o-stems though, work differently. they end in -ου. For example:
ἱππος > ἱππου
This ending could come from a variety of sources.
Some idea's are: *eso, *eo, *ejo but definitely not *esio. The first *e could also be an *o, and technically the final *o could be an *e if the first letter is an *o. *eo is dismissable if we're to assume it's from an Indo-European origin.
*eso is the most likely, since this is what we see in the pronouns, which in most cases seem to work the same as the o-stems.
Gothic has -is, which should be safely derrived from *eso as well.
But then comes Sanskrit to screw it all up!
Taking the same examples (etymologically) as Greek:
pitā > pituḥ पिता > पितुः
This formation is rather weird, I believe it points to a *-r-s ending, and thus proterodynamic rather than hysterodynamic as seen in Greek. It's not that relevent though, the word for horse (an a-stem (PIE *o-stem)) shows a very odd genitive:
aśvaḥ > aśvasya अश्वः > अश्वस्य
An -asya suffix. This could be from a variety of sources, the likeliest ones are *esio or *osio. It might just be me, but I think the -sy- part looks an awful lot like the Anatolian *-ssi- suffix e-si-o. An *e thematic vowel, *-si- suffix, and an *-o ending. What exactly this *o-ending would be is unclear. Maybe it's an *-e, and then it would be an old vocative suffix. Maybe it's based on the pronominal ending *-eso which might have sounded enough like *-esi to start influencing each other.
When I presented this idea to a fellow student of mine, he pointed out the rather odd dative plural of consonant stems in Greek, which is made with a -σι(ν) suffix as well!
It's hard to explain how a genitive *-si- ended up in a dative plural. But the current explanation isn't too satisfying either. People generally compare it with the Sanskrit locative suffix -su सु/षु. But an ablaut of i/u isn't what we like to see in Indo-European.
So to conclude. There's two types of genitive constructions in Anatolian languages. The true genitive *-as and the genitival stem extension *-ssi-. There are some indications, especially in Sanskrit, that this suffix may have already existed in Indo-European itself, but only ended up being productive as a separate category in the Anatolian languages.
I am quite sure there's other Indo-European languages that have evidence for a -si- genitive like Sanskrit does, maybe Slavic languages? I'm not sure, but if you know, please leave a message.
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.
An interesting feature of the Indo-European verbal (and sometimes nominal) system is so called 'reduplication'.
Reduplication in Indo-European is the repetition of the first consonant plus an extra vowel before the action root.
A famous example is the Indo-European word for 'wheel' one of the few nominal roots with reduplication:
*kʷe-kʷlo-
Note that the reduplication is solely the first consonant, never the cluster. Well never is, of course, a big word. It does seem to happen sometimes.
Typically in Indo-European we reconstruct two types of reduplication, one with a vowel *e after the reduplicated consonant, one with the vowel *i. Obviously we like to reconstruct some kind of earlier **ə that gave both reflexes, but in the latest phase of PIE these two were definitely there.
Are these reconstructions really that natural though? Maybe not. Many languages seem to indicate a different system. For once Sanskrit was not authoritative in the opinions of the earlier Indo-Europeanists (typically, when there's doubt, the Sanskrit form is considered correct). No, this time it's Greek. Greek knows solely two types of reduplication. i-reduplication in presents (and very rare aorists), and e-reduplication in the perfect.
When we have a look at three other languages with attest reduplication, we get a very different view though. The languages I will discuss are Gothic, Sanskrit and Tocharian B. I've been told that Latin also displays some non-standard reduplication, but since my Latin isn't much better than 'dulce et decorum est pro patria mori', I'll leave that languages for people with more expertise.
First, let's talk about Gothic. Gothic is a nice language, for it displays reduplication often, and consistently throughout it's full history (which is awefully short, but still), unlike any other Germanic language. There's some proof of reduplication in other languages (I believe an odd Old-English form for 'rowed' was 'roard' (though spelling is probably wrong)). The other for is what we see in the preterite of do did < *deda. But the *deda discussion is a different one all together where no consensus has been found yet.
Gothic reduplication, occurs in the preterite. This is exactly the way we like it in Indo-European reconstructions. There is one main issue though. The vowel use for reduplication is <ai> which phonetically is [ɛ] (some people are pro diphthong, especially in the long variant, I disagree, it has to be a monophthong).
This is not the vowel we expect in reduplication. PIE *e consistently became Gothic i in all contexts. Later though i was changed to ai in several contexts (this all happened before our first Gothic textual attestation).
*i > ai/_r,h,ƕ This is linguist speak for 'e became <ai> before r,h and ƕ (Similarly als *u > au/_r,h,ƕ for you symmetry lovers).
Not all reduplication verbs start with r,h or ƕ though. In fact I can't think of any. So a verb like letan you'd expect to have a preterite **lilot. What we actually have is lailot. Some people have desperately tried to explain this to say that the vocalism is analogy from the reduplicating verbs that do start with r,h and ƕ. Personally I do not find this very convincing. Nevertheless, it's very hard to have any <ai> in Gothic outside of the above mentioned position. Ony if it were the long variant of <ai> (not visible in writing), we would be able to have that vowel outside of that position.
If <ai> in reduplicating verbs is not from earlier i, we would expect it to be from an earlier *ai < PIE *oi, which is not at all convincing either. Because of this (and several other reasons), I think there might be reason to assume that reduplication in Gothic is not a direct descendant of Indo-European reduplication (this assumption is going to academically kill me :P),
If it is old though, we have either a very odd Indo-European reduplication, or a very odd development in Gothic. You choose ;).
Now, let us discuss Sanskrit. Sanskrit uses reduplication in much the same contexts as Greek. It's used in some presents/aorists (which, I believe, use exclusively the i-vocalism). Besides that the i-vocalic reduplication is used in desideratives and intensives (some indication of this, is also, and solely available in Greek (even more proof for my pro-Graeco-Iranian theory :P)). In the perfect though, we see a different situation all together. We don't see the velar-palatalising a that we would expect as a reflex of PIE *e. No, it reduplicates the sonorant semi-vowel or vowel of the root in the zero grade.
What does that mean? Here let me show you:
Stem: puṣ- present: puṣyati perfect: pupoṣa (< Vedic pupauṣa). So it actually reduplications the u. This is odd in many ways, especially because the sound u is not actually immediately following the first consonant when the verb is in the perfect. In the perfect plural it is though, so likely it got it from there.
This reduplication is also seen when the semi-vocalic consonant is an i. Also the a is reduplicated when it's in the zero grade of the root, or if the second consonant is a vocalic r. But to be honest, this might be the Indo-European *e, especially since it palatalises the reduplicated velars.
Note that this semi-vocalic root vowel even crosses cluster boundaries. So the root śru- gives śuśro-.
Another distinctive feature of Sanskrit reduplication is the way the consonants are treated. When a voiceless non-aspirate is reduplicated, the same consonant remains. An example was given above.
If a voiced aspirate and h < *gh, is aspirated, a voiced non-aspirate. For example
dhāv- > dadhāv
This is not that different from Greek, it's Grassmann's law. Only Greek has voiceless aspirates, and they thus give the voiceless non-aspirate. (τιθημι).
But in some roots, and this is really weird, a voiceless consonant reduplicated sometimes gives the most bizarre reflexes. One that comes to mind right now is the verb pibati 'he drinks' with the root pā-. That's right, the root shortened it's ā to a, then the root consonant became b while the reduplicative consonant remains p. Absolutely insane, but very real nevertheless. This is but a minority though. Most voiced reduplicated consonant remain voiced.
This is, once again, a very different form of reduplication than the one we see in Greek. I've been told that something similar happens in the few Latin verbs that have reduplication. But someone else is going to have to give examples.
Now we get to the last, and really crazy part. That's right, Tocharian B. Tocharian B (and probably also Tocharian A :P) is always crazy. It fails to conform to any type of normal behaviour. I love it.
Tocharian B has reduplication in only one class. The Preterite Participle.
The most normal Preterite Participle is perfectly normal. CäCaw (a<accented ä). Example:lätaw from the root lät-
The second group is C1eC1aw (a from accented ä). Example śeśaw. Though this looks like a perfectly normal reduplication, this is already bizarre. Because TochB e does not come from IE *e, rather it comes from IE *o. This o is also nowhere to be found in the root. śä-
The third group is C1eC1aC2äw (a from accented ä), For example lyelyakäw from root läk-
Next group is C1eC1éC2äw Example: teteku (u = äw) from täk-, At last here we find a decent reduplication of the root vowel.
(j)VCäw where V is accented. For example: yáku root: yäk-
C1aC1áC2äw for example: lalālu (ā = accented a) from root: la-. TochB. a comes from Indo-European *h2e.
The next class is rather normal (no reduplication!) CäCáu for example: krämpau root: krämp-
The before last class is C1aC1áC2au for example kakārpau root: korp-
The last class I don't have any example of, but luckily isn't reduplicating either. áCau.
So in Tocharian we have reduplication with o, or h2e. And not once with *e or *i. Nor is the root semi-vowel reduplicated as we'd hope to see considering Sanskrit.
So there we have it! Three completely different reduplication systems, which are opposed directly against the Greek and reconstructed Indo-European form. Why we are still reconstructing the reduplication the way we are is actually a bit mysterious. It's the easiest, that's for sure. All these systems might have also undergone some analogy, especially Sanskrit and Gothic.
This leaves us with Tocharian B though, which went about being it's own crazy self (he likes to do that). Now we might want to mention that Tocharian split of from the Indo-European family well before the rest of the languages started branching off (but well after Anatolian branched off). Maybe this was indeed the crazy reduplication system PIE used to have, but then all reduplication was reduced to a schwa.
One thing is sure, the last word has definitely not been spoken about Indo-European reduplication, it's no where near as straight forward as some people like to think (Though in all honesty, to keep your sanity, I can imagine you'd rather think it's that simple than look at Tocharian; What can I say? I'm a linguistic masochist :P).
Today, a bit later than planned, I will write another update. This time it won't be specifically about the translation of a certain text, but I'll show some stuff about my own language, Dutch, and some thoughts on etymology.
First of all a translation of the title:
Ook dat nog!
Which literally translates to: also that still!
Which is a rather odd construction which I can not fully explain, but the more natural translation would be `that's just great'.
It would be used in the context like this:
Imagine yourself working on a paper all night, and you suddenly find out you were supposed to also (the ook part) finish another paper. That's the moment you'd say `ook dat nog!'.
Ook is an interesting word. It would mean something as `as well, too, also'. I started wondering about it's etymology, and my first instinct said. it must be related to the Latin suffix -que, Gothic suffix -uh, which both mean `and'. -que is suffixed to the last word of an and-construction. Like: senatus populusque romanus `senate and people of Rome'.
-que goes back to PIE *kʷe. Tracing this to gothic, by applying Grimm's law you'd get **-ƕe. Supposing it's unstressed position cause it to lost the last vowel, you'd get a form like **-h (ƕ word-finally becomes h, saƕan > sah). Since -h is difficult to pronounce, especially after a consonant, you'd expect an epenthetic vowel. resulting in the attested form -uh. One can't help but think that this looks an awful lot like german `auch' (same meaning as Dutch ook).
Now there is one enormous problem in this supposed etymology. The k in ook would not be explained. If auch comes from a proto germanic -h. Then also Dutch would have a -ch. Now it just seems that the German version is from an original -k that underwent the High German Sound shift. And there is no way that PWGm. *k comes from PIE *kʷ.
Now there's only one way out of this mess, and that's saying that the -k in Dutch might be dialectal or from Frisian. I'm not sure if it would work for Frisian, since I'm not well known with the language. But taking a look at the Woordenboek Der Nederlandse Taal (Dictionary of the Dutch language) quickly killed all my hope.
voegw. en bijw. Got. auk, ohd. ouh, auh, mhd. ouch, nhd. auch, ags. eác, eng. (verouderd) eke (zie nog andere vormen bij 3, 66 c), on. auk, os. ôk, mnl. oec. De oorsprong van deze algemeen Germaansche partikel is niet met zekerheid te bepalen. Gewoonlijk brengt men ze in verband met den wortel auk-, vermeerderen, waarvan got.aukan, ohd. ouhhôn, ags. eácian, on. auka, os. ôkjan, mul. ooken (verg. ook nog , Elym. Wdb.).
I don't feel much for give a word per word translation of this entry. But what anyone should note, is that Gothic actually already has a word for `ook' being `auk'. Which quickly kills of my fantasies of it being related to Gothic suffix -uh.
Another thing that is stated, that the origins of this particle are unclear, generally it is connected with the germanic root *auk- which mean `to add'.
Now you see, how some, `blatantly clear' etymologies can actually be wrong as well. Oh well, it was a fun thought experiment.
