Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/comparativeglossOObalguoft A OF THE GOTHIC LANGUAGE WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO ^Sl!Sfiand'GEKiS^/[fI. BY WITH A PREFACE BY PROF. FRANCIS MARCH, LLD,LH.D. A. I=I^IOE $-i.50. Mayville, Wisconsin The Author. : NewYork, N. Y. B. Westermann & Co. : London, England: Truebner & Co. Halle, Germany Max Niemeyer. : 1887—1889. " Entered according to act of congress, in the year 1887, by G. H. BALG, IN THE OFFICE OF THE—LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, AT WASHINGTON. - ^X^-^I^— (ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.l ELECTROTYPED BY BENTON, WALDO & CO., MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN. PRINTED BY JACOB MUELLER, MAYVILLE, WISCONSIN. OOnSTTElsTTS. PAGE PREFACE V INTRODUCTORY REMARKS IX SOURCES OF INFORMATION, ABBREVIATIONS, SIGNS....XIII COMPARATIVE GLOSSARY 1 CORRECTIONS ANDADDITIONS 579 APPENDIX 581 INDEXES 599 I^I^Eir>^A.CE- The study of Gothic is surrounded with interest. The Goths themselvs emergingfor a brief spacefrom amongthe barbarians of the fourth century, theirbishop Wulfila, orUlfilas, their Moses, the first who raizd the speech of abarbarictribeto aliterarylanguage, his translation ofthe Bible, their career of conquest, and their ex- tinction in the darkness of tlie midl ages, ar all interesting. And the story ofthe Codex Argenteus which has preservd a considerabl poi'tion of the Bible of Wulfila, almost the sole relic of that lost world, suits wel with the rest. The remains of the language ar in several respects such as to make them specially suitabl for study by beginners in comparativ study of language, and especially by students wishingto obtain a thuro knowledge ofthe English language. Gothic is a sistersi^eech to English, it is the oldest of the Teutonic family. The GothicBible is severalcenturies older than any record of the other sister speech- es. The student of language entering on the study of fonolpgy finds here an admirably simpl fonetic system, which leads the way at onse to an understanding ofthose fonetic changes which appear so complicated and inexplicabl in English and the other modern Germanic languages. With these wel masterd he is redy to grapl with the history and origin of the inflection forms, and the affixes and suffixes. Here again the Gothic offers the most important helps. These forms ar mostly contractions, and the Gothic words exhibit them in a coni- parativly uncontracted condition, so that theii- parts ar redily seen, or at least they a,r easily identified with correspondnig forms in Latin, Greek or Sanskrit. Thus we see that tense endnigs omf our weak verbs in the past tense wer exactly like the word <1u1 VI PREFACE. its erlyforms, and that other verbs had a reduplication like the Greek! In all these respects Gothic is among the Teutonic tungs what Sanskrit is among the Indo-European. In thegeneral study of the language the manageabl bulk of the remains is an advantagefor the beginnerin comparativ study,ther is enuf to giv the grammatical forms, the copulativ verbs, the parlicls ofrelation, and the most familiar nouns and verbs. But only aboutthreethousand nativ words ar preservd, and the hole literature makes one book of moderate size. The student can make an exhaustivexamination of all the places in which a word orform occurs within reasonabl time and the fewness of the words leads ; him to concentratehis attention and makethuro work. Such astudentis greatly helptin his thuro work by the kind of matter, theBible. It is easily red and understood, and easily com- pared with other languages. No other book is anything like as thurolyprepared for comparativ study. The most accuratetrans- lations ar madein many languages, the most complete grammars and vocabularies, and concordances, by which3^ou can find any- thing, can gatherexampls ofevery kind of grammatical construc- tion, every etymological form, and pursue them from language to language. For Gothic we hav also handbooks for comparativ study, in which Gothic, Greek and Latini), and Gothic, Anglo- Saxon, Wycliffe and Tyndale^) ar printed in parallel columns; fur- thermore, a critically arranged text with critico-exegetical notes and supplemented by the original Greek text^). Prof. Skeat who standsforemost among university professors in England in his perception of the needs of students of English and his skil and promptness in supplyingthem, has prepared sum excel- lent^text-books for Gothic, aglossaryin 1868, and in 1882 an edi- tion ofthe Gospel of St. Mark in Gothic (39 pages), with a gram- matical introduction and glossary, and notes—a veryconvenient primer. This is about all that has been done in Enghsh to pro- mote the study of Gothic among common students, tho Professor Max Miiller, Professor Whitney and others hav emfasized its im- portance. ''An Introduction, phonological, morphological, syn- tactic, to theGothic ofUlfllas" a wel grounded and suggestiv book for more advanced students, has been prepared by T. LeMarchant Douse, London, 1886. 1) Ulfilas: byH. F. Massmann, Stuttgart, 1857. ^^ n rP''!nifvA°"^''"??''''-°' Wycliffe andTyndaleGospels, by tbe Rev. J. Bosworth, 8) \ulfilaOderdiegotischeBibel, byE. Bernhardt, Halle, 1876 PREFACE. VU As long ago as 1865 I introduced specimens of Gothic into the the Anglo-Saxon Reader, and carried thru a comparison ofthe hole Anglo-Saxon grammar with the Gothic in my Comparative Gram- mar of Anglo-Saxon. I was prepared, therefore, to rejoice greatly in Dr. Balg's scholarly enthusiasm about the value of Gothic study to students of English. « — Dr. Balg's plan includes a complete apparatus, an edition of the Gothic remains with an introduction and notes, an etymolog- ical glossary, and a grammar. Histranslation of Braune's Gothic Grammar was first publisht and is acapital beginning. The present glossary is the second of the series. It is connected by reference figures with the Grammar, so that the student can easily find the infiection of any word, or other grammatical information about it. He may find the ex- planation in this way of the varying vowels of the root syllabi which ar often embarrassing, and of otherfoneticchanges. This glossary is largely occupied with comparativ etymology, but it should not be judgd as a scientific etymological dictionary merely, but also as a practical handbook to illustrate and ground the study of English by etymological study of its Gothic relations, and to aid in making comparativ filology interesting. Hense the large number of English derivativs fully explaind, the explanation not being confined to the Gothic elements ofthe English words. Hensethe particular attention to those changes in the form of English words which bring out erlier forms morenearly likethe corresponding words in other languages. Hense the care with which the Anglo-Saxon or Old English words ar givn, a careextendingto thegender as wel as the orthografy. Hensethe care bestowd uponthe correcttranslation of all Gothic words into English. It is not simply didactic, but tries to stimulate research. Hense references to Diefenbach's thesaurus, where one may find materials heapttogetherfor original investigation,not thepositiv knowledge of the neogrammarian. One must not beartoo stubborn a hand over so ernest a worker as Dr. Balg. The book may be expected to reach students for the most part who hav not access to hosts of special glossaries,oreven to the great lexicons of comparativ etymology. Scholars wil be pleased to find the Efferen dialect used in the ety- mology. It is the dialect of Dr. Balg's erly home. It furnishes several novel and happy illustrations. VIII PKEFACE. This book has costthe author great labor, much of it doutless plezant, working over, bringingtogether, and filling out the work ofthe great scholars before him, but much of it hard work. The verification and correction of countless citations ar drudgery at best. Dr. Balg has met great external difficulties also. But he has conquerd them, and givn us a book plezant to the eye and con- venient for use. It remains for him to giv us his edition of the Gothic texts, and that is wel forward. Thanks to Dr. Balg, we shal soon be able to study Gothic as thuroly and conveniently as Latin or Greek. F. A. MARCH, Lafayette College^ Easton, Pa., Dec. 9, 1889.