Gothic alphabet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the 4th century alphabet of the Gothic bible. Blackletter typefaces for the Latin alphabet are sometimes referred to as "Gothic script".
| Gothic | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type: | Alphabet | |
| Languages: | Gothic language | |
| Time period: | Before 300 BC, in decline by 500 BC | |
| Parent writing systems: | Mostly Greek, with Latin and Runic influences Gothic | |
| ISO 15924 code: | Goth | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
The Gothic alphabet is an alphabetic writing system attributed by Philostorgius to Wulfila, used exclusively for writing the ancient Gothic language. Before its creation in the fourth century, Gothic was possibly written in runes. It was primarily used by Wulfila to translate the Bible into Gothic. It appears to be derived from the Greek alphabet with some borrowings from the Latin one. The names clearly derive from the names of the Runic alphabet.
Contents |
[edit] The letters
| History of the Alphabet |
|---|
|
Middle Bronze Age 19–15th c. BC
|
| Meroitic 3rd c. BC |
| Complete genealogy |
Below is a table of the Gothic alphabet. Two letters used in its transliteration are not used in current English: þ (þiuþ, thorn) and ƕ (hwair). These represent sounds like the th in thin and a breathy wh respectively.
As with the Greek alphabet, letters were also used as numerals. When used as numerals, letters were generally written with an overdot or overbar. There are two numerals (representing 90 and 900) with no phonetic value.
The letter names are recorded in a 9th century manuscript of Alcuin (Codex Vindobonensis 795). Most of them seem to be Gothic forms of names also appearing in the rune poems. The names are given in the reconstructed form of the Gothic words, followed by the spelling of their actual attestation.
| Letter | Translit. | c.f. | Name | IPA | Numeric value | XML Entity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 𐌰 Image:Gothic a.png | a | Α | ahsa / aza | /a, aː/ | 1 | 𐌰 |
| 𐌱 Image:Gothic b.png | b | Β | bairkan / bercna | /b/ | 2 | 𐌱 |
| 𐌲 Image:Gothic g.png | g | Γ | giba / geuua | /ɡ/ | 3 | 𐌲 |
| 𐌳 Image:Gothic d.png | d | Δ | dags / daaz | /d, ð/ | 4 | 𐌳 |
| 𐌴 Image:Gothic e.png | e | Ε | aiƕus / eyz | /e, eː/ | 5 | 𐌴 |
| 𐌵 Image:Gothic q.png | q | Π | qairþra (qairthra) / qertra | /kʷ/ | 6 | 𐌵 |
| 𐌶 Image:Gothic z.png | z | Ζ | ezec | /z/ | 7 | 𐌶 |
| 𐌷 Image:Gothic h.png | h | H | hagl / haal | /h/ | 8 | 𐌷 |
| 𐌸 Image:Gothic th.png | þ, th | Θ | þiuþ (thiuth) / thyth | /θ/ | 9 | 𐌸 |
| 𐌹 Image:Gothic i.png | i | Ι | eis / iiz | /i, iː/ | 10 | 𐌹 |
| 𐌺 Image:Gothic k.png | k | Κ | kusma / chozma | /k/ | 20 | 𐌺 |
| 𐌻 Image:Gothic l.png | l | Λ | lagus / laaz | /l/ | 30 | 𐌻 |
| 𐌼 Image:Gothic m.png | m | Μ | manna | /m/ | 40 | 𐌼 |
| 𐌽 Image:Gothic n.png | n | Ν | nauþs (nauths) / noicz | /n/ | 50 | 𐌽 |
| 𐌾 Image:Gothic j.png | j | ᛃ | jer / gaar | /j/ | 60 | 𐌾 |
| 𐌿 Image:Gothic u.png | u | ᚢ | urus / uraz | /u, uː/ | 70 | 𐌿 |
| 𐍀 Image:Gothic p.png | p | Π | pairþra (pairthra) / pertra | /p/ | 80 | 𐍀 |
| 𐍁 Image:Gothic 90.png | Ϟ | 90 | 𐍁 | |||
| 𐍂 Image:Gothic r.png | r | R | raida / reda | /r/ | 100 | 𐍂 |
| 𐍃 Image:Gothic s.png | s | S | sauil / sugil | /s/ | 200 | 𐍃 |
| 𐍄 Image:Gothic t.png | t | Τ | teiws / tyz | /t/ | 300 | 𐍄 |
| 𐍅 Image:Gothic w.png | w | Υ | winja / uuinne | /w, y/ | 400 | 𐍅 |
| 𐍆 Image:Gothic f.png | f | F | faihu / fe | /f/ | 500 | 𐍆 |
| 𐍇 Image:Gothic x.png | x | X | iggws / enguz | /kʰ/ | 600 | 𐍇 |
| 𐍈 Image:Gothic hw.png | ƕ, hw | ƕair / uuaer | /ʍ/ | 700 | 𐍈 | |
| 𐍉 Image:Gothic o.png | o | Ω | oþal (othal) / utal | /o, oː/ | 800 | 𐍉 |
| 𐍊 Image:Gothic 900.png | Ϡ | 900 | 𐍊 |
Most of the letters are taken over from the Greek alphabet directly, but a few letters are innovated to accurately express Gothic phonology; these are Image:Gothic j.png j, Image:Gothic u.png u (expressed in Greek as a digraph ου), Image:Gothic hw.png ƕ, and Image:Gothic q.png q (interestingly not derived from Greek koppa, which figures merely as the numeral 90 Image:Gothic 90.png, but a variant of Image:Gothic p.png p). Image:Gothic th.png þ similarly to Cyrillic Ф seems derived from Greek Φ rather than Θ. Image:Gothic r.png r and Image:Gothic s.png s appear derived from the Latin rather than the Greek alphabet. Likewise, the shape of Image:Gothic f.png f is derived from Latin F rather than Greek digamma, since it takes the place of Φ, not digamma, in alphabetical order. Image:Gothic x.png x is only used in proper names and loanwords containing Greek X (xristus "Christ", galiugaxristus "ψευδόχριστος", zaxarias "Zacharias", aivxaristia "eucharist").
Regarding the letters' numeric values, most correspond to that of the Greek numerals. Image:Gothic q.png q takes the place of digamma (6); Image:Gothic j.png j takes the place of ξ (60), Image:Gothic u.png u that of ο (70) Image:Gothic hw.png ƕ that of ψ (700).
[edit] Diacritics and punctuation
Diacritics and punctuation used in the Codex Argenteus include a trema placed on Image:Gothic i.png i, transliterated as ï, in general applied to express diaeresis, the Interpunct (·) and colon (:) as well as overlines to indicate sigla (such as xaus for xristaus).
[edit] Character encoding
The Gothic alphabet is encoded in Unicode in the range U+10330–U+1034F. As older software often assumes that all Unicode codepoints can be expressed as 16 bit numbers (smaller than U+10000), problems may be encountered using the Gothic alphabet Unicode range.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Omniglot's Gothic writing page
- Pater Noster in Gothic
- JavaScript Gothic transliterator
- Unicode code chart for Gothic
- WAZU JAPAN's Gallery of Gothic Unicode Fontsde:Gotisches Alphabet
es:Alfabeto gótico fr:Alphabet gotique gl:Alfabeto gótico ko:고트 문자 he:אלפבית גותי nl:Gotisch alfabet ja:ゴート文字 no:Gotisk alfabet pl:Alfabet gocki pt:Alfabeto gótico fi:Goottilainen aakkosto
