Gothic love poem
Sa skuggwa
Frisahts þeina ïn skuggwin
Saggws meins sa batista ïst.
Ïþ sniu! usleiþiþ auk.
Þata ïst mein spedist “þuk frijo”.
International specialist for Gothic and other old Germanic languages
→ French poem ←
Gothic is her language
Gothic (Gothisch, Gotische), the language that is the only known witness of the Eastern Germanic group. Mirror of the Goths, Visigoths, and Ostrogoths women of the Middle Ages, in the Goths language, now a dead language.
Around the 2nd century BC, Gothic tribes migrated from Scandinavia to southeastern Europe along the Danube and Vistula rivers, reaching the Black Sea around the 3rd century AD. Ostrogoth tribes settled east of the Dniester, others, Wisigoths to the west.
Some Goths chased by the Huns in the 3rd century, migrated more to the West and founded kingdoms in France and Spain (Wisigoths), as well as in Italy (Ostrogoths), but with the collapse of these kingdoms the Gothic will be extinguished West. It is in the east, in present-day Bulgaria and in Crimea that it will last the longest (16th).
In the 4th century, in present-day Bulgaria, Bishop Wulfila (Ulfilas) a Visigoth apostle and bishop of the Western Goths, will translate the Bible from Greek. We have a few fragments of this translation, and except a few runic inscriptions, these are the very first writings in a Germanic language that we know. Needless to say their importance from the linguistic point of view, and their usefulness for comparison and research on Indo-European languages
The codex argenteus, dating from the 5th century, found in Italy, and preserved in Uppsala, is capital for the knowledge of the common primitive state of the Germanic languages, because it precedes by several centuries the other texts of the Old English group, Old Saxon, old high German. The other writings found in Gothic are only a few comments or notes on manuscripts, and some runic inscriptions.
The Visigoths who will serve as missionaries to the other Eastern Germanic tribes: Burgundian, Vandals, Ostrogoths, will do it in Gothic which was the lingua franca.
Ogier Ghiselin (or Ghislain) of Busbecq, imperial ambassador to the Ottoman court of Constantinople in 1560-1562, will record some words and phrases, with Latin translations.
The victories of the Franks on the Visigoths will stop the use of the Gothic language. It was still a bit spoken around the black sea in the years 1500.
Again, with this translation, take full advantage of the so pretty alphabet in which this language is written.