Re: Gothic language

On Wed, 25 Aug 1999, Ed Heil wrote:

> Padraic Brown wrote:
>
> > When I can I'll have a look!  Of course, "Real Gothic" was a conlang as
> > well, invented by St. Wulfilas (patron of conlangers?) in order to
> > translate Christian scripture for the various Visigoth tribes.  In other
> > words, a sort of interlanguage which could be used by more than just one
> > tribe.
>
> That's a little hard to believe.  Do we know for a fact that, even
> ignoring necessary coinages to accomodate difficult-to-translate terms
> and constructions, Wulfian Gothic was so distinct from any of the
> tribal dialects that we must call it a different *language*?
I didn't say it was a "different language", only that it's a "conlang".
As far as I have been instructed, its audience originally came from
different parts of Visigothland; and his brand of language levels some odd
forms and accentuates commonalities.  In other words, I don't think it can
be said his work is of any particular dialect.  (If I write something sort
of Middle Englishy, picking and chosing forms from the various dialects
and levelling all the odd stuff so that it has a good chance of being
understood widely, that makes a pretty good comparison.)

>
> This seems to stretch the bounds of the term "conlang" to me.
Gothic is a conlang in the same sense Latin is.  The way both are
presented, they are languages constructed to convey literature & no one
spoke them precisely as written.  It's conlangy enough for me, if not for
thee; plus makes a good excuse for having another patron saint of the art.

Padraic.

>
> Ed
>