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Yep, this a thread discussing reviving Gothic and how it should be done. If you are considering taking this seriously, or have done so eons before I have- consider joining a union I came up with so we can focus on reviving Gothic communally, as well as share our knowledge. The union is called the Gothic Language Revival Association.

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Áá Āā Ää Åå Ææ Ðđ Ēē Ĕĕ Éé Ëë Əə H́h́ Īī İi Iı Íí Ïï Łł Ññ Öö Øø Ōō Ŏŏ Óó Œœ Ŕŕ Śś Ŧŧ Üü Ūū Úú V̄v̄ Ÿÿ Źź Ξ Φ Ϙ Ϻ

Let's kick things off: One the things I did in my grammar reform was merge masculine and feminine into a euter gender and transcribe <j> and <ddj> as <y> and <j>, respectively. Do you think alterations should be made to the language?

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Áá Āā Ää Åå Ææ Ðđ Ēē Ĕĕ Éé Ëë Əə H́h́ Īī İi Iı Íí Ïï Łł Ññ Öö Øø Ōō Ŏŏ Óó Œœ Ŕŕ Śś Ŧŧ Üü Ūū Úú V̄v̄ Ÿÿ Źź Ξ Φ Ϙ Ϻ

Nice idea, but who would be the new Gothic speakers? I'll stay a Finn.
Hebrew is the only revitalized language cos' the Jews still were there.

I think you should not change the symbols. Gothic has its own ortography (it isn't Latin, right?). We should it be shanged. If you try to make somebody speak Gothic, don't make it even more difficult by forsing them to speak YOUR version of Gothic.

(Am i understanding something wrong?)

Dude, it's for novelty purposes only- I won't force anybody to speak if they don't have to. Gothic has its own alphabet (which is fine), and it's own romanization (which isn't), and I'm only tampering with the romanization. It also the annoying unnecessary complexities like early germanic languages.

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Áá Āā Ää Åå Ææ Ðđ Ēē Ĕĕ Éé Ëë Əə H́h́ Īī İi Iı Íí Ïï Łł Ññ Öö Øø Ōō Ŏŏ Óó Œœ Ŕŕ Śś Ŧŧ Üü Ūū Úú V̄v̄ Ÿÿ Źź Ξ Φ Ϙ Ϻ

Excuse me?

My bad. A reform would also make the language easier to learn.

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Áá Āā Ää Åå Ææ Ðđ Ēē Ĕĕ Éé Ëë Əə H́h́ Īī İi Iı Íí Ïï Łł Ññ Öö Øø Ōō Ŏŏ Óó Œœ Ŕŕ Śś Ŧŧ Üü Ūū Úú V̄v̄ Ÿÿ Źź Ξ Φ Ϙ Ϻ

Why?


You mean change the current transliteration from <j> and <ddj> to <y> and <j>? Again, why?


So? You just wrote an entire post in a language that wasn't Finnish, didn't you?


Uh, no. It may be the most succesful example of language revitalization, but it's not the only one. And giving "'cos the Jews were still there" as a reason for its success is an oversimplification, to say the least. There are plenty of peoples who are still here but whose languages are nonetheless dead or dying.


Yes, well. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have the resources to "force" people to speak anything, anyway. Nor would it, I think, be a good (not to mention ethical) strategy for language revival even if he did.

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wulþus in hauhistjam!
Gloria in excelsis

Just a couple of thoughts.

1) Since some have done so already, be accepting and open to variations in the Gothic-speaking continuum.
(Yes, there really is one BION!)

2) I love Gothic Language, have studied it for some time, and I welcome any "reforms", but I also like the good old, Wulfilan variety, too. When I post, I will prolly post in it (or Gutiske Rajde - props to Arskoul) when I can...until I get some other varieties down

3) There have been a number of Language Resuscitations. was made an official language in decades ago to help modernize it and perserve the cultural heritage. Same goes/went/is going for .

4) I for one would welcome some change : I have a real / for /ái/ –v- /aí/, /áu/ –v- /aú/ .
Viz.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3 ... 1140143291
&
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4 ... 1140143291

5) Enjoy it!

In hauhistjam wulþus !

@Ominsezy<j> is /ɟ/ to conserve space. <y> is <j> because most languages use that letter for <j>, only slavic, uralic, germanic, and some romance languages don't use it as /j/ [if it's used at all]. I don't plan to force people to speak Gothic.

@Trailsend I merged masculine and feminine into, because A) gender in a language is sexist, B) gender in a language has halfway been proven to limit your understanding on the concept of actual gender, C) it makes the language easier to learn, and most importantly- D) most forms were getting repetitive, and often were too similar to the neutral.

@Lambuzhao My other orthographical changes were: /T/-> Þ/ϴþ, /D/-> Ðð, /B~v/-> Vv, /G/-> Γɣ, /h/(C)->/x/ Xx, /c/ <ttj> -> Cc, /aː/ Āā/Áá /eː/ Ee, /oː/ Oo, /ɛ/ Ĕĕ/Èè, /ɛː/ Ēē/Éé, /iː/ Īī/Íí, /ɔ/ Oo/Oo, /ɔ/ Ōō/Óó.

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Áá Āā Ää Åå Ææ Ðđ Ēē Ĕĕ Éé Ëë Əə H́h́ Īī İi Iı Íí Ïï Łł Ññ Öö Øø Ōō Ŏŏ Óó Œœ Ŕŕ Śś Ŧŧ Üü Ūū Úú V̄v̄ Ÿÿ Źź Ξ Φ Ϙ Ϻ

In my opinion, <y> /j/ and <j> /dʒ~ɟ/ looks horribly counterintuitive for non-Anglosaxon Germanic languages, but maybe that's just me.

That change looks a little north by northwest of the Ingvaeonic traintracks, but let's see how it pans out.

If you're going to revive a language the only people that are going to be interested are people who want to speak Gothic as it truly was back when it was extant, not your random "New and Improved" version. It is understandable if the speaker population eventually starts to change the language (I.e. Hebrew) but at least the very beginning should adhere to the historical Gothic, whichever dialect and form you choose.

The above applies to all revived languages.

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ILR 5 =
ILR 4 =
ILR 3 = None
ILR 2 =
ILR 1 = None
Abandoned = (Scots), , ,
Current Obsession = ASL

I gotchyer point, try not to be condescending while you're at it. You must also realize, Hebrew (along with many other revived languages) changed artificially as well as naturally. Is matters little if the orthography (latin) is different? The latinizations started in the 1700s. Not exactly when the language was extant. Besides, many- not all natlangs have gone thru some orthography reform in their existence (this includes languages as conservative as Icelandic, English, Japanese, Lithuanian, and Coptic). I don't plan on changing it enough to make it unrecognizable by scholars or priests.

You also seem to not be specific on what you're complaining about.

EDIT: The goths have dropped the face of the earth, as have anyone believes in any of their unique religions. The only purpose reviving Gothic serves now is unfortunately novelty. Please stop talking to me as if want to force people to speak the language.

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Áá Āā Ää Åå Ææ Ðđ Ēē Ĕĕ Éé Ëë Əə H́h́ Īī İi Iı Íí Ïï Łł Ññ Öö Øø Ōō Ŏŏ Óó Œœ Ŕŕ Śś Ŧŧ Üü Ūū Úú V̄v̄ Ÿÿ Źź Ξ Φ Ϙ Ϻ

What the fuck are you talking about

In retrospect, that was a stupid comment. .

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Áá Āā Ää Åå Ææ Ðđ Ēē Ĕĕ Éé Ëë Əə H́h́ Īī İi Iı Íí Ïï Łł Ññ Öö Øø Ōō Ŏŏ Óó Œœ Ŕŕ Śś Ŧŧ Üü Ūū Úú V̄v̄ Ÿÿ Źź Ξ Φ Ϙ Ϻ

Well, I love Gothic and work on Gothic-based conlangs. Changing the romanization, which is in fact a direct transliteration of the original alphabet, does not seem a priority to me, except for the hw letter for which no font exists, but it is already implemented in most web-based sources.

As for reforms, well, there are two distinct things. Gothic-based conlangs are, well, conlangs : what Gothic would have become if things had turned out differently, and in my view, that includes influences from other alt-languages. For me, that means Gutesc and Gutiske Rajde, but there may be others (Geoff Eddy's Dekavurian, for instance)

Historically attested Gothic, which includes Busbecq's Crimean Gothic, is, well, historically attested Gothic. There are a significant body of texts written in it (with three genders) and it means as much change to change its grammar as to change Latin's. Besides, in a revival legitimacy is an important thing and virtually nobody will consider a reformed ancient language as legitimate - unless it is presented as a conlang, not the real thing. Latino sine flexione is not Latin. Just look at the controversies inside the Cornish movement, for instance.

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Native : French
Known : English, Breton
Intermediate : Gothic, Latin
Basic : Russian, Danish, Old English

Conlangs : Gutesc (Eastern Germanic), Lautopaei (a-priori)

Um. The person who asked about that was me, not Omnizesý... Anyway, whether or not Gothic had a phonemic /ɟ/ is far from clear. In any case it would always be a long [ɟ:], so spelling it with a single letter seems counterintuitive, IMO.


...and Guaraní, Welsh, Albanian, Lithuanian, Malagasy and Turkmen, just to name a few examples from Wikipedia. Also, what Avo said. Gothic is a Germanic language, so when spelling it in the Latin alphabet, I'd use Germanic-looking spelling conventions. In addition, there's the thing that the Gothic letter winja (which I apparently can't post on this board without getting an SQL error, but see here) was apparently sometimes used to transcribe /y/ in Greek loans; IMO, it would make sense to reserve <y> for transliterating that.

Although really, if I were to design a modernized orthography for Gothic, I'd probably use the Greek alphabet. The Latin is rather boring, and the original Gothic script was primarily based on Greek anyway.


Again, that was me. Trailsend hasn't even posted in this thread.


Not this again.


What? When, where, by whom?


Arguably, yes. However, anyone who's a language geek enough to be interested in learning Gothic probably won't care too much about it being "easy"; "historically accurate" would probably rate a lot higher.


If there's evidence that the masculine and feminine were already starting to merge in fourth-century Gothic, then I suppose you could have some kind of case for merging them.

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What are you going to use the lang for?
Are you making an aposteriori conlang based on gothic, or should it still be Gothic, with minor changes?

If there are prohblems with the romanisation. I have an Gothic grammar in German that does use an odd romanisation so that I don't even understand the real phonetic value though it should be explained at the beginning. So go ahead and change it, but the style must be kept <y> for /j/ is westreuropean (from French to west) and Gothic was not from there. I think <j> is stylistically better.

From what I've read it is considered a hoax by most linguists.

@Helios, I'm mainly talking about changes in grammar. As for Hebrew, the only artificial changes I can think of are vocabulary and phonology (the latter being because it was based on the Sephardi pronunciation of Hebrew). Any others?

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ILR 5 =
ILR 4 =
ILR 3 = None
ILR 2 =
ILR 1 = None
Abandoned = (Scots), , ,
Current Obsession = ASL

Eh, source? The information he recorded is considered somewhat unreliable, yes, but I've never seen it claimed anywhere that the whole language would have been a hoax.

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