Crimean Gothic was a
GermanicThe Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
dialect spoken by the
Crimean GothsCrimean Goths were those Gothic tribes who remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in Crimea. They were the least-powerful, least-known, and paradoxically longest-lasting of the Gothic communities....
in some isolated locations in
CrimeaCrimea or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is the only autonomous republic of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name.The territory of Crimea was conquered and controlled many times throughout its history...
(now in
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
) until the late
18th centuryThe 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini/Common Era numbering system.However, Western historians sometimes specifically define the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work...
.
The existence of a Germanic dialect in the Crimea is attested in a number of sources from the 9th century to the 18th century. However, only a single source provides any details of the language itself: a letter by the Flemish ambassador
Ogier Ghiselin de BusbecqOgier Ghiselin de Busbecq was a Flemish writer, herbalist and diplomat in the employ of three generations of Austrian monarchs...
, dated 1562 and first published in 1589, gives a list of some eighty words and a song supposedly in the language.
Busbecq's information is problematic in a number of ways: his informants were not unimpeachable (one was a Greek speaker who knew Crimean Gothic as a second language, the other a Goth who had abandoned his native language in favour of Greek); there is the possibility that Busbecq's transcription was influenced by his own Flemish tongue; there are undoubted misprints in the printed text, which is the only source.
Nonetheless, much of the vocabulary cited by Busbecq is unmistakably Germanic and was recognised by him as such:
Crimean
Gothic |
meaning |
Bible
Gothic |
Other Germanic cognates |
| Apel |
"apple" |
(unattested) |
German Apfel, Dutch appel, Swedish (vild-)apel, äpple |
| Handa |
"hand" |
handus (f.) |
German Hand, Swedish hand |
| Schuuester |
"sister" |
swistar (f.) |
German Schwester, Swedish syster |
| Hus |
"house" |
-hūs (n.) |
German Haus, Dutch huis, Swedish hus |
| Reghen |
"rain" |
rign (n.) |
Dutch and German regen, Swedish regn |
| Singhen |
"sing" |
(unattested) |
German singen, Swedish sjunga |
| Geen |
"go" |
(unattested) |
German gehen, Dutch gaan |
| Busbecq also cites a number of words which he did not recognise but which we now know have Germanic cognates: |
| ano |
"chicken" |
hana (m.) |
German Hahn, English hen, Swedish höna |
| malthata |
"said" |
(unattested) |
Old English maþelode, Swedish mälte (archaic) |
While the initial identification of this language as "Gothic" probably rests on ethnological rather than linguistic grounds - that is, the speakers were identified as Goths therefore the language must be Gothic - it shares a number of distinctive phonological developments with the Gothic of
UlfilasUlfilas, or Gothic Wulfila , bishop, missionary, and Bible translator, was a Goth or half-Goth who had spent time inside the Roman Empire at the peak of the Arian controversy. Ulfilas was ordained a bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia and returned to his people to work as a missionary...
's Bible. For example, the word
ada "egg" (Swedish
ägg) shows the typical Gothic "strengthening" of
Proto-GermanicProto-Germanic , or Common Germanic, as it is sometimes known, is the unattested, reconstructed common ancestor of all the Germanic languages such as modern English, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, and Swedish...
*
-jj- into
-ddj- (as in
Ulfilian GothicGothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th century copy of a 4th century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable corpus...
iddja "went" from PGmc. *
ejjon), being from Proto-Germanic *
ajja-.
There are also examples of features preserved in Crimean Gothic and Biblical Gothic but which have undergone changes in West and North Germanic. For example, both Crimean Gothic and Biblical Gothic preserve Germanic /z/ as a sibilant, while it became /r/ in all other Germanic dialects.
However, there are problems in assuming that Crimean Gothic represents simply a later stage in the development of the Gothic attested in Ulfilas' Bible. Some innovations in Biblical Gothic are not found in Crimean Gothic, for example:
- Crimean Gothic preserves Germanic /e/, whereas in Biblical Gothic it has become /i/, e.g. Crimean Gothic reghen, suuester, Biblical Gothic rign, swister
- Crimean Gothic preserves Germanic /u/ before /r/ whereas Biblical Gothic has /au/, e.g. Crimean Gothic vvurt, Biblical Gothic waurþi.
However, there are also similarities with developments in West Germanic, such as the change of /þ/ to a
stopThe word stop has several possible meanings in the English language, but most commonly means to cease moving.Additionally, stop, STOP, or stops may refer to:...
seen in Crimean Gothic
tria (cf. Biblical Gothic
þriu). Several historical accounts mention the similarity to
Low GermanLow German or Low Saxon is any of the regional language varieties of the West Germanic languages spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands.-Geographical extent:-Low German in Europe:Dialects...
and the intelligibility of Crimean Gothic to German speakers.
There are two alternative solutions: that Crimean Gothic presents a separate branch of East Germanic, distinct from Ulfilas' Gothic; or that Crimean Gothic is descended from the dialect of West Germanic settlers who migrated to the Crimea in the early
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
and whose language was subsequently influenced by Gothic.
Both of these were first suggested in the
19th centuryThe 19th century was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Ottoman, Holy Roman and Mughal empires...
and are most recently argued by Stearns and Grønvik, respectively. While there is no consensus on a definitive solution to this problem, it is accepted that Crimean Gothic is not a descendant of Biblical Gothic.
The song quoted by Busbecq is less obviously Germanic and has proved impossible to interpret definitively. There is no consensus as to whether it is in fact Crimean Gothic.
Sources
- MacDonald Stearns, Crimean Gothic. Analysis and Etymology of the Corpus, Saratoga 1978. Includes Latin text of Busbecq's report and English translation.
- MacDonald Stearns, "Das Krimgotische". In: Heinrich Beck (ed.), Germanische Rest- und Trümmersprachen, Berlin/New York 1989, 175-194.
- Ottar Grønvik
Ottar Nicolai Grønvik was a Norwegian philologist and runology scholar best known for his work on the runic alphabet and various runestones, especially the Tune Runestone, the Rök Runestone and the Eggjum stone....
, Die dialektgeographische Stellung des Krimgotischen und die krimgotische cantilena, Oslo 1983.
External links