About the Gothic language

What do we think about when we hear the word "Gothic"? Most definitely we immediately think about a subculture or an architecture style. But the word has much deeper roots and another very different meaning. The Goths were a Germanic tribe who once dominated half of Europe. They had their language and their own writing system, both are now long forgotten. But who knows, maybe if history played out differently we would all be speaking Gothic now?

Check out this poem in Gothic written by Tolkien here:

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#europe #germanic #history

[AdrianBoyko]

In English we have “loaf” which is a cousin of Gothic “hlefs”, so we have a word that is closer to “хлеб” than most people realize.

[GattoPanco]

PhD student in early Germanic here. As soon as me and my supervisor started teaching the intro class to Gothic at the university, a couple of students in the class were looking at us with rather puzzled faces. At one point, one of them raised his hand and asked me with a straight face "Is this class NOT about Frankenstein by Mary Shelley?". This story makes me chuckle every time.

Btw, great video!

[angelafraser]

A legacy of the Goth presence in Spain is that some common Spanish names have Goth origins, including 'Gomez' 'Alfonso' Gonzalo' and 'Rodrigo'

[Afrologist]

The Goths never really disappeared, most just either assimilated into the local culture or mixed with them to the point where they lost their identities as distinct people. They were only a single digit percentage of Iberia & Italia, so naturally they'd be slowly absorbed into the general population. You could see the same thing happen to the Norse in Northumbria, Ireland, Normandy, & the Kievan Rus centuries later.

[MartijnVos]

Loved the twist at the end.

An interesting detail from the Europa Universalis 4 computer game (which covers the 1444-1821 period), there's one province in Crimea that has Gothic culture. Some players love starting the game as that one province and conquering the Holy Roman Empire from there to re-establish the Goths.

[hoangkimviet]

Like the Vandals, they disappeared, but we still have vandalism.

[ubelmensch]

The study of Gothic language is very important because not just because it's an extinct East Germanic language, it is not the only one! Along them was Vandalic and (ancient) Burgundian, and both of those peoples had a minor, but still relevant impact towards European late antiquity and early middle ages. Sadly, not much trace was left by them, unlike Goths.

Very cool video

[nicolassantis]

In Spanish there are lots of last names ended in "ez" which is Visigoth for "Son of" (e.g., "Sanchez"= son of Sancho)

[Jacob-kyvk]

I was half-expecting you to be wearing a goth outfit in the thumbnail lol. The explanation of how we got modern goths from the ancient ones was actually super interesting. I really enjoy the historical component of these videos in general. It's fascinating to get not just an overview of the language, but also the culture surrounding it.

[crwalker]

Loved your explanation of modern "goths" at the end of the video. I laughed out loud.

[caustic_rage]

As a goth-industrial guy myself, I greatly appreciate your short, comical, but historically accurate, Goth music/Goth literature/Gothic architecture segment.

As a linguistics guy, thank you - I know we have such limited material to work with when it comes to the Gothic language, but every content creator who examines it gives a slightly different angle to help complete what we can of the picture of its history.

[bencehajnal]

The lost germanic languages are pretty fascinating.

[yuseftobias]

"Everything will eventually turn into ashes and darkness and death. Thank you so much for watching."

LOL, 10/10

[Falkenberg]

0:43 My favourite barbarians 😊

The Gepids (Latin: Gepidae, Gipedae, Ancient Greek: Γήπαιδες) were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion and language of the Goths and Vandals.

[tobiasglendenning]

I've started studying Gothic casually, I started with thinking that since we only have a limited amount of Gothic that it means that there's not as much to learn. I've realised that's completely offset by the whole declension and conjugation system. Good thing is that since it is dead with no native speakers, I can take my time in reading and writing in it. I've tried to translate 'Asterix: and the goths' and I'm currently reading Alice in Wonderland in Gothic. I hope to incorparate it into a story of mine about 3 Gothic princes in exile from Visigothic spain.

Even so as difficult as it can be it has granted me better of other languages like German (which I'd actually like to be near fluent in), latin, and even English.

[nymalous]

Years ago I found a book in the library about "barbarians, " the Visigoths and Ostrogoths were among them. It never really occurred to me until a few years ago that my family might come (in part) from those groups (via the peoples they moved through and intermingled with).
Very interesting video.

[EmelieWaldken]

It's so interesting how I could understand almost all the vocabulary thanks to speaking Swedish and German ! I guess it would still be very, very hard to follow a conversation though ^^ Also you surpassed yourself in this video with the oh-so-quick yet oh-so-good summary of the Goth subculture !

[dragasan]

E X C E L L E N T - I loved everything about this video, even how Gothic influences were passed down to modern subculture. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust... ❤

[therealbettyswollocks]

The ending was hilarious, another brilliant video, thanks Julie!

[pjalexandra]

Fascinating, and the rapid-fire 'how we got modern goths' at the end was hilarious.