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The phonemic status of Gothic w h q

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

William H. Bennett
William H. Bennett*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
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Extract

The Gothic letter that is now usually transcribed as w occurs in the MSS as a cursive form of the Greek majuscule Y. So far as scribal spelling is concerned, this letter creates no complications; it is used consistently and without confusion in both native and foreign words. On the other hand, modern interpretations of Go. w may become fairly complex, involving nuances of pronunciation that the scribes either disregarded or failed to recognize. All told, Go. w has been assigned five different values—two vocalic, one semivocalic, one spirant, and one purely non-phonetic.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 35 , Issue 3: July-September , September 1959, pp. 427 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © 1959 by the Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Thus, F. Mossé, Manuel de la langue gotique 2 §23.2 (Paris, 1956).

2 Thus, F. Wrede, Stamm-Heyne's Ulfilas 13-14 304, §50 (Paderborn, 1920).

3 H. Paul, BGDSL 1.158 (1874). For a recent expression of this view see W. Krause, Handbuch des Gotischen §49.3, §88 (Munich, 1953).

4 E. Prokosch, A comparative Germanic grammar §49d (Philadelphia, 1939).

5 J. Wright, Grammar of the Gothic language §29 (Oxford, 1910).

6 Two apparent exceptions arise from the introduction of Biblical proper names in their Latin forms: Didimus Dídumos John 11.15 (the i-spelling occurs frequently in Vulgate MSS) and Saur- (Sur-, L Sur-) Luke 2.2, 4.27, Gal. 1.21. See W. Streitberg, Gotisches Elementarbuch 5-6 §19.7 and reff. (Heidelberg, 1920).

7 In one instance (2 Tim. 2.17, Cod. B) a scribe has omitted the initial H of Hwmainaius, which corresponds to the aspirate of the Greek form, but elsewhere the vocalic w of Greek words invariably occurs between consonants.

8 E. H. Sturtevant, The pronunciation of Greek and Latin 2 34 (Philadelphia, 1940). Comparative evidence alone may lead to circular reasoning. Thus Sturtevant (loc.cit.) refers to Go. w in defining the Greek semivowel u as [w], while Gothic grammars generally refer to u in determining the values of w. In The sounds and phonemes of Wulfila's Gothic, an unpublished University of Michigan dissertation (1955), J. W. Marchand suggests more plausibly (30 fn. 1) that the Greek semivowel alternating with high front round [ü] might be high

9 Even proponents of diphthongal au admit this much for au < u.

10 Oscar F. Jones, Gothic iu, Lg. 34.353-8 (1958); Eric P. Hamp, Gothic ai and au again, Lg. 34.359-63.

11 Streitberg, op.cit. §90, regards lasiws 2 Cor. 10.10 as an exceptional spelling for *lasjus, but this is tantamount to providing an entirely different suffix for the word. In view of the spelling interchange of ei and i in forms like gabeigs = gabigs, kunnei = kunni, andbahtiþ = andbahteiþ, etc., the suffix -iws may well represent PIE -īwos (cf. L captīvus), as suggested by Th. von Grienberger, Untersuchungen zur got. Wortkunde, Sitzungsb. d. kaiserl. Akad. d. Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Kl. 142.145 (Vienna, 1900).

12 Op.cit. §21.

13 Interpreting ai au as vowels in all positions is of course nothing new, but H. Penzl has pointed out that the internal evidence shows no proof whatever for phonemic vowel length in scribal Gothic, which has been assumed solely on the basis of comparative and historical considerations: Lg. 30.412 (1954); Marchand, op.cit. 133 f.; Vowel length in Gothic, General linguistics 1.79-88 (1955); Lg. 33.236 (1957). See also Hamp, op.cit. 359 f.; Jones, op.cit. 357, §6.

14 Thus, W. G. Moulton, The phonemes of Gothic, Lg. 24.83, fn. 28 (1948); Mossé, op.cit. §23.5. For an excellent summary of the evidence that has been considered so far, see H. Penzl, Orthography and phonemes in Wulfila's Gothic, JEGP 49.218-20 (1950). For the immediate purpose, /hw/ is used as a cover symbol representing h as a unit phoneme, whether interpreted as [hw], [xw], or [].

15 Moulton, loc.cit.

16 Op.cit. 220.

17 Or [hü], if a Greek pronunciation is preferred, but in either event this combination nevertheless represents consonant plus vowel.

18 See drauhsnos and driusan in S. Feist, Vergl. Wb. d. got. Sprache 3 (Leiden, 1939).

19 Thus, Streitberg, op.cit. §100.2.b. Anm. and Festschrift für E. Windisch 244 ff. (Leipzig, 1914).

20 Warren Cowgill, to whom I am indebted for several very useful suggestions, points out that the interpretation of h and q as unit phonemes may be supported by contrasting the development of gw /gw/, which is also a reflex of a Proto-Indo-European labiovelar. After /g/, /w/ was voiced and retained both its vocalic and semivocalic allophones, so that this combination, unlike h and q, remained a cluster.