Crimean Gothic

Crimean Gothic
Crimean Gothic
Native to	formerly Crimea
Ethnicity	Crimean Goths
Extinct	the late 18th century
Language family	Indo-European Germanic East Germanic † Gothic † Crimean Gothic; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	crim1255
IETF	gem-u-sd-ua43

Crimean Gothic was an East Germanic language spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea until the late 18th century.^[1]

Attestation[]

The existence of a Germanic dialect in Crimea is noted in a number of sources from the 9th century to the 18th century. However, only a single source provides any details of the language itself: a letter by the Flemish ambassador Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, dated 1562 and first published in 1589, gives a list of some eighty words and a song supposedly in the language.

Busbecq's account is problematic in a number of ways. First, his informants were not unimpeachable; one was a Greek speaker who knew Crimean Gothic as a second language, and the other was a Goth who had abandoned his native language in favour of Greek. Second, Busbecq's transcription was likely influenced by his own language, a Flemish dialect of Dutch.^[2] Finally, there are undoubted typographical errors in known extant versions of the account.

Nonetheless, much of the vocabulary cited by Busbecq is unmistakably Germanic and was recognised by him as such:

Crimean Gothic	Bible Gothic	English	Dutch	Low Saxon	German	Faroese	Icelandic	Danish	Norwegian		Swedish
Crimean Gothic	Bible Gothic	English	Dutch	Low Saxon	German	Faroese	Icelandic	Danish	Bokmål	Nynorsk	Swedish
apel	apls (m.)	apple	appel	appel / Appel	Apfel	epli ('potato')	epli	æble	eple		äpple ('apple') apel (Malus)
handa	handus (f.)	hand	hand	haand	Hand	hond	hönd	hånd	hånd/hand	hand	hand
schuuester	swistar (f.)	sister	zus(ter)	zus / Sester	Schwester	systir	systir	søster	søster	syster	syster
hus	-hūs (n.)	house	huis	hoes / huus	Haus	hús	hús	hus	hus		hus
reghen	rign	to rain	regen	regen / reagn	Regen	regn	regn	regn	regn		regn
singhen	siggwan^[1]	to sing	zingen	zingen / sing	singen	syngja	syngja	synge	synge	syngja	sjunga
geen	gaggan^[1]	to go	gaan	gaon	gehen	ganga	ganga	gå	gå	gå / ganga	gå

^{^} Medial -⟨gg⟩- in the Biblical Gothic examples represents /ŋg/.

Busbecq also cites a number of words which he did not recognise but which are now known to have Germanic cognates:

Crimean Gothic	Meaning	Bible Gothic	English	Dutch	German	Faroese	Icelandic	Old Norse	Norwegian (BM/NN)	Swedish	Danish	Old English	Old Saxon	Old High German
ano	Rooster	hana	hen	haan	Hahn	hani	hani	haðna hani	hane	^†hane	hane	hana	hano	hano
malthata	Said	(unattested)	(unattested)	—	—	mælti	mælti	mælti	mælte	^†mälde ^†mälte	^†mælte	maþelode	gimahlida	gimahalta
rintsch	Ridge	(unattested)	ridge	rug	Rücken	ryggur	hryggur	hryggr	rygg	rygg	ryg	hrycg	hruggi	ruggi

^† archaic

Busbecq mentions a definite article, which he records as being tho or the. This variation may indicate either a gender distinction or allomorphy — the latter whereof would be somewhat akin to the English "the", which is pronounced either /ðə/ or /ðiː/.

In 1780, Stanisław Bohusz Siestrzeńcewicz, an Archbishop of Mogilev, visited the southern coast of Crimea and Sevastopol. According to his account, he met some Tatars who spoke a language similar to Plattdeutsch; this was probably a form of Crimean Gothic.^[3]

Identification and classification[]

While the initial identification of this language as "Gothic" probably rests on ethnological rather than linguistic grounds — that is, the speakers were identified as Goths, and therefore the language must be Gothic — it appears to share a number of distinctive phonological developments with the Gothic of Ulfilas' Bible. For example, the word ada ("egg") shows the typical Gothic "sharpening" of Proto-Germanic *-jj- to -ddj- (as in Ulfilian Gothic WIKI

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