HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS

Gothic, mainly known from a Bible translation of the fourth century AD, is the only Germanic language that has come down to us from antiquity in a reasonably complete state of preservation. Lacking direct descendants itself, it is closely related to the early medieval dialects ancestral to Modern English, German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese). The family tree of the Germanic languages can be drawn as follows:

As can be seen from this figure, Gothic is the sole representative of the East Germanic branch of the family. The more numerous North and West Germanic languages are much later: Old English and Old High German are first substantially attested in the eighth century, while Old Saxon and Old Low Franconian date from the ninth and tenth centuries, respectively. The remaining “Old” Germanic languages – Old Frisian and the early Scandinavian dialects – are essentially languages of the High Middle Ages, contemporary with Middle English and Middle High German. It is thus not surprising that Gothic presents a significantly more conservative appearance than its Germanic sister dialects. The only comparably archaic remains of an early Germanic language are the Early Northwest Germanic inscriptions of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, mostly from Denmark and written in the indigenous runic alphabet (see Ch. 10). These, however, are only tantalizing fragments, often deliberately obscure and topheavy with personal names.