Gothic alphabet

This article is about the 4th century alphabet of the Gothic Bible. For manuscript hands and typefaces sometimes referred to as "Gothic script", see Blackletter. For type fonts sometimes referred to as "Gothic", see Sans-serif.
Gothic
Type
Languages Gothic
Time period
 From c. 350, in decline by 600
Parent systems
Mostly Greek, with Latin and Runic influences
  • Gothic
Direction Left-to-right
ISO 15924 Goth, 206
Unicode alias
 Gothic
U+10330–U+1034F

The Gothic alphabet is an alphabet for writing the Gothic language, created in the 4th century by Ulfilas (or Wulfila) for the purpose of translating the Bible.[1]

The alphabet is essentially a uncial form of the Greek alphabet, with a few additional letters to account for Gothic phonology: Latin F and G, a questionably Runic letter to distinguish the /w/ glide from vocalic /u/, and the letter ƕair to express the Gothic labiovelar. It is completely different from the 'Gothic script' of the Middle Ages, a script used to write the Latin alphabet.

Origin

Ulfilas is thought to have consciously chosen to avoid the use of the older Runic alphabet for this purpose, as it was heavily connected with heathen beliefs and customs.[2] Also, the Greek-based script probably helped to integrate the Gothic nation into the dominant Greco-Roman culture around the Black Sea.[3]

Letters

Below is a table of the Gothic alphabet.[4] Two letters used in its transliteration are not used in current English: the Runic þ (representing /θ/), and ƕ (representing /xʷ/).

As with the Greek alphabet, Gothic letters were also assigned numerical values. When used as numerals, letters were written either between two dots (•𐌹𐌱• = 12) or with an overline (𐌹𐌱 = 12). Two letters, 𐍁 (90) and 𐍊 (900), have no phonetic value.

The letter names are recorded in a 9th-century manuscript of Alcuin (Codex Vindobonensis 795). Most of them seem to be Gothic forms of names also appearing in the rune poems. The names are given in their attested forms followed by the reconstructed Gothic forms and their meanings.[5]

Letter Translit. Compare Gothic name PGmc rune name IPA Numeric value XML entity
𐌰 a Α aza < ans "god" or asks "ash" *ansuz /a, aː/ 1 &#x10330;
𐌱 b Β bercna < *bairka "birch" *berkanan /b/ [b, β] 2 &#x10331;
𐌲 g Γ geuua < giba "gift" *gebō /ɡ/ [ɡ, ɣ, x]; /n/ [ŋ] 3 &#x10332;
𐌳 d Δ daaz < dags "day" *dagaz /d/ [d, ð] 4 &#x10333;
𐌴 e Ε eyz < aiƕs "horse" or eivs "yew" *eihwaz /eː/ 5 &#x10334;
𐌵 q (Ϛ), ϰ quetra < *qairþra ? or quairna "millstone" (see *perþō) /kʷ/ 6 &#x10335;
𐌶 z Ζ ezec < ezec[6] (?) (see *algiz) /z/ 7 &#x10336;
𐌷 h Η haal < *hagal or *hagls "hail" *haglaz /h/, /x/ 8 &#x10337;
𐌸 þ (th) Φ, Ψ thyth < þiuþ "good" or þaurnus "thorn" *thurisaz /θ/ 9 &#x10338;
𐌹 i Ι iiz < *eis "ice" *īsaz /i/ 10 &#x10339;
𐌺 k Κ chozma < *kusma or kōnja "pine sap" *kaunan /k/ 20 &#x1033A;
𐌻 l Λ laaz < *lagus "sea, lake" *laguz /l/ 30 &#x1033B;
𐌼 m Μ manna < manna "man" *mannaz /m/ 40 &#x1033C;
𐌽 n Ν noicz < nauþs "need" *naudiz /n/ 50 &#x1033D;
𐌾 j G gaar < jēr "year" *jēran /j/ 60 &#x1033E;
𐌿 u ᚢ uraz < *ūrus "aurochs" *ūruz /ʊ/, /uː/ 70 &#x1033F;
𐍀 p Π pertra < *pairþa ? *perþō /p/ 80 &#x10340;
𐍁 Ϙ 90 &#x10341;
𐍂 r R reda < *raida "wagon" *raidō /r/ 100 &#x10342;
𐍃 s S, Σ sugil < sauïl or sōjil "sun" *sôwilô /s/ 200 &#x10343;
𐍄 t Τ tyz < *tius "the god Týr" *tīwaz /t/ 300 &#x10344;
𐍅 w Υ uuinne < vinja "field, pasture" or vinna "pain" *wunjō /w, y/ 400 &#x10345;
𐍆 f Ϝ, F fe < faihu "cattle, wealth" *fehu /f/ 500 &#x10346;
𐍇 x Χ enguz < *iggus or *iggvs "the god Yngvi" *ingwaz /x/? 600 &#x10347;
𐍈 ƕ (hw) Θ uuaer < *ƕair "kettle" - /hʷ/ 700 &#x10348;
𐍉 o Ω, Ο, ᛟ utal < *ōþal "ancestral land" *ōþala /oː/ 800 &#x10349;
𐍊 Ͳ (Ϡ) 900 &#x1034a;

Most of the letters have been taken over directly from the Greek alphabet, though a few have been created or modified from Latin or Runic letters to express unique phonological features of Gothic. These are:

𐍂 (r), 𐍃 (s) and 𐍆 (f) appear to be derived from their Latin equivalents rather than from the Greek, although the equivalent Runic letters (ᚱ, ᛋ and ᚠ), assumed to have been part of the Gothic futhark, possibly played some role in this choice.[10] However, Snædal notes that “Wulfila’s knowledge of runes was questionable to say the least”, as the extreme paucity of inscriptions attests that knowledge and use of runes was rare among the East Germanic peoples.[7] No indisputably Gothic Runic inscriptions are known to exist.[7] Some variants of 𐍃 (s) are shaped like a sigma and more obviously derive from the Greek Σ.[7]

𐍇 (x) is only used in proper names and loanwords containing Greek Χ (xristus "Christ", galiugaxristus "Pseudo-Christ", zaxarias "Zacharias", aivxaristia "eucharist").[11]

Regarding the letters' numeric values, most correspond to those of the Greek numerals. Gothic 𐌵 takes the place of Ϝ (6), 𐌾 takes the place of ξ (60), 𐌿 that of Ο (70), and 𐍈 that of ψ (700).

Diacritics and punctuation

Diacritics and punctuation used in the Codex Argenteus include a trema placed on 𐌹 i, transliterated as ï, in general applied to express diaeresis, the Interpunct (·) and colon (:) as well as overlines to indicate sigla (such as xaus for xristaus) and numerals.

First page of the Codex Argenteus or "Silver Bible", a 6th-century manuscript containing bishop Ulfilas's 4th century translation of the Christian Bible into the Gothic language.

Unicode

The Gothic alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in March, 2001 with the release of version 3.1.

The Unicode block for Gothic is U+10330–U+1034F in the Supplementary Multilingual Plane. As older software that uses UCS-2 (the predecessor of UTF-16) assumes that all Unicode codepoints can be expressed as 16 bit numbers (U+FFFF or lower, the Basic Multilingual Plane), problems may be encountered using the Gothic alphabet Unicode range and others outside of the Basic Multilingual Plane.

Gothic[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+1033x 𐌰 𐌱 𐌲 𐌳 𐌴 𐌵 𐌶 𐌷 𐌸 𐌹 𐌺 𐌻 𐌼 𐌽 𐌾 𐌿
U+1034x 𐍀 𐍁 𐍂 𐍃 𐍄 𐍅 𐍆 𐍇 𐍈 𐍉 𐍊
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 9.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

Notes

  1. ↑ According to the testimony of the historians Philostorgius, Socrates of Constantinople and Sozomen. Cf. Streitberg (1910:20).
  2. ↑ Cf. Jensen (1969:474).
  3. ↑ Cf. Haarmann (1991:434).
  4. ↑ For a discussion of the Gothic alphabet see also Fausto Cercignani, The Elaboration of the Gothic Alphabet and Orthography, in “Indogermanische Forschungen”, 93, 1988, pp. 168-185.
  5. ↑ The forms which are not attested in the Gothic corpus are marked with an asterisk. For a detailed discussion of the reconstructed forms, cf. Kirchhoff (1854). For a survey of the relevant literature, cf. Zacher (1855).
  6. ↑ Zacher arrives at *iuya, *ivja or *ius, cognate to ON ȳr, OE īv, eóv, OHG īwa "yew tree", though he admits having no ready explanation for the form ezec. Cf. Zacher (1855:10-13).
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Magnús Snædal (2015). “Gothic Contact with Latin” in Early Germanic Languages in Contact, Ed. John Ole Askedal and Hans Frede Nielsen.
  8. ↑ Cf. Kirchhoff (1854:55).
  9. ↑ Haarmann (1991:434).
  10. ↑ Cf. Kirchhoff (1854:55-56); Friesen (1915:306-310).
  11. ↑ Wright (1910:5).

See also

References

Gothic edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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