alphabet and spelling
all phases of gothic are written with the gothic alphabet traditionally attributed to wulfila; the text presented in this thread is of course a transliteration. a description of the spelling and pronunciation of old gothic can be found
elsewhere; this post of course is concerned with the orthography of later phases
phase one (middle gothic)
one immediately distinct change made in middle gothic orthography is the introduction of spaces between words (which is generally present in academic transliteration of old gothic text but absent in the original texts themselves). middle gothic spelling strikes an uneasy balance between maintaining old gothic spelling
principles and the actual
spellings of old gothic words. an example of the former is the middle gothic ending /-ɔs/, found (among other places) in the nom sg of declension-3 strong nouns. many of these words descend from old gothic words ending in
-us /-us/, but sound changes altered the vowel, and by middle gothic they are spelled
-aus, dutifully reflecting the old gothic use of
au for /ɔ(ː)/. similarly, middle gothic /ɛ/ is usually written
ai
many spellings, however, ignore sound changes and retain earlier spellings. this is starkest in the stressed vowels:
ai can stand for /ɛ́/ or /ɛ́ʊ/,
au for /ɔ́/ or /ɔ́ʊ/, and
a for /á/ or /áʊ/. similarly, the decision to write
d or
þ for /ð/ is based largely on etymology. middle gothic /já/, likewise, descends from multiple sources, and is generally spelled according to its origins:
ja from old gothic
ja, iu from old gothic
iu, and
ei in most other instances
other spellings of note:
- w indicates /v/ even when it descends from earlier /b/
- g generally continues to indicate [ŋ]
- as indicated above, [já] can be spelled ja, iu, or ei (very occasionally e)
- [wá] is always spelled o even if it descends from earlier /uː/
- palatalized consonants usually retain their pre-palatalization spelling, typically with a following j, e, or i (/ɛ/ following a palatalized consonant is usually written i, in contrast to its typical spelling ai)
- however, /ʤ/ is nearly always spelled ddj, or dj at the beginning of a word
- leveled voicing is unevenly indicated: stops usually indicate the new pronunciation, fricatives only sometimes, and /s/ and /z/ very rarely
- the letter ƕ is only used in interrogative pronouns descended from earlier [hʷ], and even then only if it's pronounced /f/
- the letter q is only used in descendants of old gothic qēns "wife", qinō "woman", qiþan "to say, speak", qiman "to come"
- the letter x is only found in descendants and derivates of xristus "Christ", and occasionally in liturgical words or given names descended from greek
phase two (early modern gothic)
by early modern gothic, the sound system had changed so drastically that to continue earlier spelling rules would be extremely unwieldly, and the general spelling system was greatly simplified. this predated the introduction of printing to eastern europe, but was certainly cemented by it. the vowels by this point had settled into five phonemes, and were written accordingly:
a e i o u. the consonant [ŋ] was lost, and with it the convention for spelling it
g; when it was reintroduced as a new phoneme, it was spelled
n before a velar consonant and
ng otherwise. the use of
þ vs
d for /ð/ continues to largely be etymological, although it is usually written
þ when adjacent to a voiced consonant. the phone [h] was lost but [x] remained, still spelled
h; when [h] returned, as the reflex of earlier [ɣ], it came to be spelled
h as well (though this took a while to be cemented, with the alternate spelling
g appearing fairly frequently for several centuries)
an important note is that the palatal(ized) consonants are written as pronounced, regardless of how they alternate with other consonants: /ʃ/ is always
sj, and /ʒ/ is always
zj (except in the clusters /ʃt/ and /ʒd/, which are
stj and
zdj). this leads to stark variations in spelling:
midus /míðʊs/ "alcoholic drink" (nom sg) vs
mizjus /míʒʊs/ (nom pl). this also compounds the ambiguity of /s z/, which may be plain consonants in their own right with palatal forms /ʃ ʒ/, but can also be palatalized forms of /k g/
lastly, the letters
ƕ q x began to be reintroduced into words they had formerly appeared in, though in this stage this reintroduction does not go very far
phase three (modern gothic)
the development of early modern gothic into thoroughly modern gothic was marked by a number of sound changes, and the spelling inconsistently indicated or ignored these changes.
sound changes that are generally reflected in modern spelling:
- the loss of post-vocalic /l/
- the shift of certain diphthongs into monophthongs (/aj/ > /e/, /au eu/ > /o/, etc.), though not the shift of falling diphthongs to rising diphthongs (e.g. /wi/ continues to be written oj or uj)
- vowel hiatus simplification (except when it leads to former vowels turning into semivowels; these are still written with the letter for the earlier vowel, as indicated in the table below)
- the collapse of consonant + unstressed vowel + same consonant into just the consonant (e.g. unstressed /kɪk/, /mæm/ becoming /k/, /m/)
- a stop assimilating to a preceding nasal consonant's point of articulation
additionally, the deletion of an unstressed vowel in word initial C_CV is inconsistently indicated, as are the changes listed under "consonant cluster simplification".
all other phase 3 sound changes are generally not indicated
most confusingly for the learner of modern gothic, each of the five vowel letters can indicate several different sounds depending on the word. as described in the post on sound changes, an originally allophonic shift of stressed vowels in open syllables becomes morphemic due mostly to paradigm leveling, with "shifted" forms alternating with non-shifted forms. additionally, word-initial stressed vowels developed opening glides which are generally not written. this leads to the somewhat bewildering set of pronunciations for each vowel letter:
| Variant | a | e | i | o | u | iu | oj/uj | ou |
| Stressed (non-initial) | á | é | í | ó | ú | jú | wí | wú |
| Stressed (initial) | wá | jé | jí | wó | wú | jú | wí | wú |
| Stressed and shifted (non-initial) | áu | á | é | ɑ́ | ó | jó | wé | wó |
| Stressed and shifted (initial) | wá | já | jé | wɑ́ | wó | jó | wé | wó |
| Unstressed | æ | ɛ | ɪ | ɔ | ʊ | jʊ | wɪ | wʊ |
| Unstressed (final syllable) | ə | ɨ | ɨ | ə | ə | jə | wɨ | wə |
| Semivowel | w | j | j | w | w | n/a | n/a | n/a |
the most distinctive change from early modern spelling is the spelling of palatals. palatal consonants are written to be consistent throughout a paradigm, and between related words, whenever possible:
midus /méðəs/ "liquor" (nom sg) vs
midjus /méʒəs/ (nom pl). outside of paradigmatic alternation, the palatal consonants /ʃ ʒ/ are spelled etymologically where possible. old gothic words that have palatalized to /s z j/ that don't alternate with non-palatalized forms are generally just spelled
s z j, with the most notable exceptions being
xrjistus (see below) and the word
rjigo /jéɟə/ "rain" (from old gothic
rign)
this period also sees a much wider-spread reintroduction of
ƕ q x into reflexes of old gothic words that contained them. due to sound changes,
ƕ is usually /f/, sometimes /v/, and
q is generally /k/ or /g/ (as is
x, though in this case it reflects the old gothic pronunciation). the reintroduction is sometimes not etymologically accurate, the most famous case being
qwos "cow" from old gothic
*kūs. the letters
q and
x can also be affected by palatalization; a distinctive example of this is
xrjistus /sístəs/ "Christ"
possible changes
in each phase, the spelling of /ð/ is either
d and
þ, the choice of which largely depends on etymology. i'm not entirely happy with this, and i've been toying with the idea of them pressing another unused letter into service, either 𐍁 or 𐍊. these letters were not used in spelling gothic words, only in writing numbers, and represented 90 and 900 respectively. my instinct is to use the 900 glyph, as the shape is reminiscent of T, which feels appropriate for a dental consonant; however, the 90 glyph also has a visual similarity to the gothic þ glyph 𐌸. either way, if i do end up going this route, the use of the letter would be introduced in early modern gothic as part of the broader reimagining of spelling that took place in that era
secondly, all of this assumes a direct, unchanged continuation of the original forms of the letters themselves. i admit this assumption was mostly due to laziness on my part, but i've been reconsidering my approach, and may try to develop an internal history of the letter forms themselves. it's certainly not unreasonable to expect them to have developed a distinction between capital and lowercase, for example, as both the greek script (which gothic letters are based on) and cyrillic script (which is used by the cultures the modern goths find themselves surrounded by) developed this distinction. if i were to look at evolving the letters to a different set of forms today, this might also include forming diacritics, especially one that would replace the current
j used to indicate palatalization. like i said, however, these are just thoughts, and i haven't made any actual progress on any of this
