The Gothic Bible translation

 

The Goths came from Scandinavia to eastern Europe, where they played an important role within the east Germanic tribes.

In the fourth century the Western Goths were to be found on the Balkan peninsula, and the Eastern Goths to the north of the Black Sea. During the Wandering of the Nations in the fifth century the Western Goths moved on to the southern France and Spain, where the established an empire which lasted until the eighth century. The Eastern Goths set up their own empire in Italy in 493 under king Theoderic the Great (born 455, reigned 493-526) which lasted until the sixth century. In both empires the Gothic tongue gradually disappeared and the languages of the original inhabitants prevailed.

In the Crimea a form of Gothic was still spoken until the 18th century by the remnants of the Eastern Goths, but since then the language has died out completely. (see also Van Bree, 1977: 27f)

Apart from numerous runic inscriptions the oldest preserved Gothic text - in fact the oldest in any Germanic language - is the "Wulfila Bible" from the fourth century.

Wulfila (311-383), also known as Ulfilas, was a Western Gothic bishop who translated the bible from Greek for the benefit of his converted Goths. Only part of this bible translation has survived, comprising three quarters of the New Testament and part of Nehemia from the Old Testament, both in manuscripts from the sixth century. The most important and attractive of these manuscripts is the Codex Argenteus (see illustration), with lettering in silver and gold, which was probably created in northern Italy for Theoderic the Great. (see also Van Bree 1995: 5-13) ) At present it is preserved in the University Library in Uppsala, Sweden.

Wulfila was perhaps the first person to put any Germanic language, let alone Gothic, into writing. To this end he compiled an alphabet with letters which he borrowed mainly from Greek. He also used some Germanic runic letters and some Latin letters.

One problem for Wulfila was that there simply did not exist Gothic words for some of the biblical terms and concepts. He therefore extended the vocabulary in several ways:

• semantic loans: existing Gothic words gained a new, Christian content; eg galga  , formerly 'pole' gained the meaning 'cross'
• new compounds and derivatives: eg the word 'altar' was translated with the compound hunslastaþs (ie 'place of sacrifice')
• loan words: Wulfila took words from Greek and Latin, eg praufetus = 'prophet', aiwaggeljo = 'evangelia' ("gospel")

As far as syntax is concerned, Wulfila was strongly influenced by Greek, as a result of which we can learn hardly anything about Gothic syntax. (see also Van der Wal, 1992: 3.10)

Gothic, in fact, followed its own developmental path and cannot therefore be equated with Common Germanic, but it is certainly a good representative of its principal features. We can use Gothic to understand better how the Germanic languages, in this case Dutch, developed.
(see also the characterisation of the Germanic language family)