Gothic alphabet
The Gothic alphabet is an alphabetical script that the Gothic bishop Wulfila developed in the 4th century to translate the New Testament into the Gothic language ( Wulfilabibel ). The Gothic translation of the New Testament was the first book in a Germanic language. It was created in Nicopolis ad Istrum , now in Bulgaria. Nicopolis ad Istrum thus became the birthplace of the Germanic literary tradition.
origin
The whole of the Gothic script is based on the Greek alphabet . This provided not only the basic sequence of letters and the principle of writing numbers with letters, but also most of the character shapes. However, individual letters for sounds that the Greek does not know come from the Latin script and the runic script . The letters have names - usually a word that begins with the appropriate sound.
Lore
The sound value, order and names of the letters are handed down in an Alcuin manuscript from the 9th century . Accordingly, there were 25 letters with a sound value and - just like in Greek - two more that only had a numerical value (90 and 900). The names of the letters show a contamination between late Gothic and more recent West Germanic sounds. From the traditional forms, however, 'classical' Gothic forms can be reconstructed, which in many cases form the exact linguistic-historical correspondence to the otherwise traditional old Germanic rune names . It therefore seems certain that the entire runic alphabet was present as an ideal starting point in the conception of the script. Only the letter names eze, thyth, laaz, quertra, uuaer , possibly also aza , are new creations.
table
In the following table, the Gothic reconstructed according to the run names and the traditional name forms are entered in the first place, and the traditional name forms in the second place.
Letter | Unicode | value | Name (reconstructed) |
Name (handed down) |
Meaning of the name | Numerical value |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
? | U + 10330 | a | ans? * ahsa? | aza | Ase? Axis? | 1 |
? | U + 10331 | b | * baírkan | bercna | Birch rice | 2 |
? | U + 10332 | G | giba | geuua | Gift | 3 |
? | U + 10333 | d | dags | daaz | Day | 4th |
? | U + 10334 | e | * aíƕs | eyz | Horse (?) | 5 |
? | U + 10335 | q | * qaírþra (qairthra) | cross | Bait (?) | 6th |
? | U + 10336 | z | ? | ezec | ? | 7th |
? | U + 10337 | H | * hagl (s) | haal | hail | 8th |
? | U + 10338 | þ, th | þiuþ (thiuth) | thyth | Good | 9 |
? | U + 10339 | i | *ice | iiz | ice | 10 |
?̈ | U + 10339 U + 0308 | i (ï) | 10 | |||
? | U + 1033A | k | * kusma | chozma | Ulcer (?) | 20th |
? | U + 1033B | l | * lagus | laaz | Laugh, water | 30th |
? | U + 1033C | m | manna | manna | Man, man | 40 |
? | U + 1033D | n | nauþs (nauths) | noicz | Need | 50 |
? | U + 1033E | j | jer | gaar | year | 60 |
? | U + 1033F | u | * urus | uraz | Ur, aurochs | 70 |
? | U + 10340 | p | * paírþra (pairthra) | pertra | ? | 80 |
? | U + 10341 | 90 | ||||
? | U + 10342 | r | * raida | reda | Dare (?) | 100 |
? | U + 10343 | s | sauil | sugil | Sun | 200 |
? | U + 10344 | t | * part | tyz | got. god Tyr | 300 |
? | U + 10345 | w | winja? * wunja? | uuinne | Pasture (bliss?) | 400 |
? | U + 10346 | f | faíhu | fe | Cattle, movable property | 500 |
? | U + 10347 | x | * iggws | enguz | man | 600 |
? | U + 10348 | ƕ, hv, hw | * ƕaír (hvair) | uuaer | boiler | 700 |
? | U + 10349 | O | * oþal (othal) | utal | Inheritance | 800 |
? | U + 1034A | 900 |
Hints:
- The symbol * marks those name words that have not been handed down anywhere else in the Gothic texts. Their sound shape has been reconstructed according to the laws of language history, but remains in many cases uncertain.
- The symbol for w also stood for the second part of diphthongs , called y in Greek . So Paul ( ancient Greek Παῦλος Paũlos ) was rendered as Pawlos in Gothic.
Unicode
The Gothic alphabet is coded in Unicode under U + 10330 to U + 1034F . Because older software often assumes that all Unicode code points can be expressed as 16-bit numbers (less than U + 10000), problems with the representation of the Gothic alphabet can arise.
Remarks
- ↑ On the Gothic alphabet see also Fausto Cercignani , The Elaboration of the Gothic Alphabet and Orthography , in “Indogermanische Forschungen”, 93, 1988, pp. 168–185.
- ^ Wilhelm Streitberg: Gotisches Elementarbuch (= Germanische Bibliothek 1st series: Grammatiken . Second volume: Gotisches Elementarbuch). 5th and 6th edition. Carl Winter's, Heidelberg 1920, The Gothic Script. [§18], The I at the beginning of the syllable, p. 42 ( online at Project Wulfila, University of Antwerp, Belgium ).
See also
literature
- Wolfgang Krause : Handbook of the Gothic. Munich 1968.
- Siegfried Gutenbrunner : About the origin of the Gothic alphabet. In: PBB 72 (1950), pp. 500-508.
- Fausto Cercignani : The Elaboration of the Gothic Alphabet and Orthography , in “Indogermanische Forschungen”, 93, 1988, pp. 168-185.
- Norbert Wagner : To the Gotica of the Salzburg-Vienna Alcuin manuscript . In: Historische Sprachforschung 107 (1994). Pp. 262-283.
- Piergiuseppe Scardigli: Article "Gothic Script" in: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Vol. 12 (1998)
Web links
- The Unicode Standard 5.0, Section 14.4: Gothic (PDF file; 326 kB)
- The Unicode Standard 5.0, Code Chart Gothic (PDF file; 54 kB)
- Gothic Unicode fonts