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Author: Peter Tunstall
Email: penteract at oe dot eclipse dot co dot uk
Date: 2005-03-04 16:02:46
Subject: Re: Please critique my pronunciation of Gothic
Hi Sean,
Well I’m not qualified to say what’s right or wrong in Gothic pronunciation (if anyone is...), but by way of reply, here’s how I’m pronouncing Gothic these days:
http://www.oe.eclipse.co.uk/nom/markusb,a-q.mp3
Regarding , the evidence from Gothic names in Latin suggests that in stressed syllables the diphthong survived into the 6th century at least (Braune/Helm para. 21; examples from Koebler: Aurgais (3rd c.), Dagalaiphus (4th, 6th), Emila (610), Gaina, Gaisericus, Gisaleicus; De Conviviis Barbaris, Africa, c. 390: eils). There are two runic inscriptions of possible relevance, the Pietrioassa ring had HAILAG, implying a diphthong in the 4th c., and the late 6th c. Charnay fibula has UÞFNÞAI, interpreted as unþfinþai, 3rd person pres. subj -- so maybe the diphthong survived even in an unstressed position, but then again Proto Norse runic inscriptions use in unstressed positions interchangeably with . The Vienna-Salzburg Codex states that was a long 'e' in "lived" (9th or 10th century?), and in the letter name ‘Reda’ = *raida. The Vandal prayer often quoted as “froja armen” (=Gothic “frauja armais”) may also suggest a monophthong in Weak 3 verbs, but the manuscripts contain many garbled variants, so that last example isn’t very reliable.
For now I compromise by making the stem vowel of Weak 3 verbs a monophthong [E:], as per Vienna-Salzburg and Vandal Prayer, but stressed a diphthong -- [aI] or [æI] or [æe] or something like that I think, but I’m not altogether consistent -- except in the case of saian/saijan [sE:jan], etc. For other instances of unstressed I´ve been aiming for a diphthong in "careful" speech, but tending to [E:] if said fast. At least that's the idea.
See also Braune/Helm 20.5, which suggests the possibility that even ‘jains’, ‘waila’ and ‘baitrs’ had diphthongs, if (1) ‘jains’ is related to ‘ains’; and (2) ‘waila’ to ‘wai’; and (3) ‘baitrs’ by ablaut to ‘beitan’. I can believe 1 & 3, but not so sure about 2, so I still say [wEla].
is trickier, since Latin I gather had the same pronunciation as long , except in educated speech, so plenty of room for confusion and hypercorrection in the transmission of foreign names there. Is there any indication that the spelling of the name Austrogoti changed over time to Ostrogoti? I’ve read something to that effect, but how reliable is it? Braune/Helm: "Bei lateinischen Schriftstellern wird got. au durch au wiedergegeben, z.B. Ausila, Austrovaldus, Audericus." But against these we could set Odoacer, etc. As far as I know the Gothic combination is always in Latin, see for example Koebler's appendix on Gothic names under Froi-/Froj-. Greek Naoum > Naum. But Lat. cautio > kawtsjo. Is the an affectation, just spelling a foreign word in a foreign way? I don't know. Note also ‘usskawjaindau’ and ‘usskawjiþ’, instead of –skauj-, as if these spellings were theoretically interchangeable. This I think is related to the adjective ‘unskawai’, though amendations have been proposed, e.g. -skarj-.
Some examples from Koebler:
(AU) Audebertus (683), Audeca (6th c.), Audemundus (683), Audoinus (641), Augis (6th), Aurbald, Aurgais (3rd), Aurocus, Ausegunde, Austrogoti
(O) Oswin (6th) = *Ausawins?, Vidigoia (5th), Froila (6th), and the Arian prayer "Froia armen!" from Africa.
(I) Idoagrus, Idoacrus, Idoacar (5), Irogildus?
Maybe when the Nomen et Gens project is complete we'll be better able to answer questions like these:
http://www.uni-duisburg.de/FB1/GESCHICHTE/neg.html
Among the letter names in the Vienna-Sazburg Codex are NOICZ for 'nauþs' and REDA for *raida. So maybe the monophthingisation didn't work in parallel with these two sounds, as is sometimes assumed. RI Page in An Introduction to English Runes cast doubt on whether these letter names even are Gothic, but I can't really see what else they'd be. For now I'm aiming for a diphthong for in all positions as Wright advises in his chapter on pronunciation, and ignoring his monophthong suggestion at the back of the book. But I'd be interested in any evidence you know about this.
Back to the original question though, here are a few things I think we did differently, or where you might have deviated from Wright´s instructions:
Your and both sounded to me like [eI], particularly if strongly emphasised. I couldn't tell if you made a distinction, but these letters never get muddled up by the scribes. I tried to make my a very high monophthong between [e:] and [i:], as these one-time phonemes apparently were similar enough to be confused, maybe indistinguishable in the pronunciation of some scribes.
& intervocalic . It's hard to tell from listening, as labiodental and bilabial are quite similar, but the books recommend a bilabial pronunciation (I think on the basis that Latin writers very occasionally used besides and to represent Gothic /f/; examples from Koebler: Frawitta (4), Froila (500s), Fugila (650), Fafila (700), Froiliuba (737), Pantardus (589), Parja (500s)). So maybe like Spanish intervocalic and , on the one hand, and Japanese on the other. In the case of this plays havock with the microphone if I get too close! Were yours labiodental, or was that just my ears?
I think you were inconsistent in the stressing of some nouns: usLIÞan v. USliþin, fraWAURHTeins twice. Not sure if there´s any strong evidence one way or the other, but I tried to follow Wright´s instruction on stressing all non-verbs on the first syllable, even in the case of GAlaubeins. But I don’t think anyone’s all that dogmatic about whether ga- was stressed still in nouns, etc.
One other thing I noticed was that you seemed to make originally short vowels long in open syllables, as has happened in many modern Germanic languages. But this may just be an artifact of the fact that you were saying it slowly and carefully. In the case of and scribal confusion is rare, but most of the time of course Wulfila's spelling system offers no clue here.
Concluding thought: who really knows! It was very interesting to hear your interpretation of Gothic. Curious what different sounds we came up with from following the same set of fairly simple instructions! I also followed Wright, but filled in the gaps and ambiguities from Braune/Helm. I did mine a bit more hurriedly, which might make it harder to follow and less easy to distinguish just what sound is being made, especially in unstressed syllables. In principle I tried to keep unstressed vowels more or less distinct, in spite of the indications in the Calendar that they were becoming confused (at least as connecting vowels in compounds). Anyway, I look forward to hearing more!
Peter
> Hello,
>
> I just posted a sound file of myself reading Mark 2:1-7 in Gothic. Here is the link:
>
> http://penguin.pearson.swarthmore.edu/~scrist1/mark_gothic.html
>
> I am considering making voice recordings of a larger body of Gothic text. Before I do that, I'd really appreciate careful criticism of my pronunciation, in case there's something I'm consistently doing wrong.
>
> Some of the details of Gothic pronunciation aren't known for sure, e.g. in what environments the voiced stops had fricative allophones. I followed Wright's suggestions (or, at least, I meant to). The exception, where I knowingly break from what Wright says, is with ai and au, where it is generally agreed nowadays that the historically distinct categories had merged into monophthongs.
>
> If there are any other cases where you think Wright's view on the pronunciation is incorrect, please let me know.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --Sean