Griutungi

Griutungi is an East Germanic language which was the ancestor of Valthungian. It was contemporaneous and likely mutually intelligible with Gothic. There was no written record of Griutungi, aside from a few possible examples written in the Gothic alphabet which may have been attributed to Gothic instead. It has been reconstructed with a very similar phonology:

Gothic	Gothic	IPA	Griutungi
𐌰	a	ɑ	a
𐌰	ā	ɑː	ā
𐌰𐌹	aí	ɛ	e
𐌰𐌹	ai, ái	ɛː	ǣ
𐌰𐌿	aú	ɔ	o
𐌰𐌿	au, áu	ɔː	ǭ
𐌱	b	b, β	b
𐌲	g	g, ɣ	g
𐌲𐌲	gg	ŋg	ng
𐌲𐌵	gq	ŋkʷ, ŋkw	nkw
𐌲𐌺	gk	ŋk	kw
𐌳	d	d, ð	d
𐌴	ē	eː	ē
𐌴𐌹	ei	iː	ī
𐌵	q	kʷ, kw	kw
𐌶	z	z	z
𐌷	h	h	h
𐌸	þ	θ	þ
𐌹	i	i	i
𐌹𐌿	iu	iu̯	iu
𐌺	k	k	k
𐌻	l	l	l
𐌼	m	m	m
𐌽	n	n	n
𐌾	j	j	j
𐌿	u	u	u
𐌿	ū	uː	ū
𐍀	p	p	p
𐍁	90	-	-
𐍂	r	r	r
𐍃	s	s	s
𐍄	t	t	t
𐍅	w	w	w
𐍅	w	ʏ	y
𐍆	f	f	f
𐍇	x	kʰ	kh
𐍈	ƕ	hʷ, xw	hw
𐍉	ō	oː	ō
𐍊	900	-	-

Aside from a slightly modified orthography, Griutungi also differs from “Biblical” or “Wulfilian” Gothic in several minor but important ways.

• The most immediately noticeable difference between Gothic and Griutungi is the second person pronoun. Each has þu for the nominative, but the accusative and dative forms in Gothic replaced the vowel with the /u/ of the nominative (þuk and þus) while Griutungi retained the Germanic form (þik and þis).

• Griutungi also retained the “short forms” of the anomalous verbs gangan and standan, which either disappeared from Gothic entirely or were never used in any of the texts that have survived to our time. Specifically, the verb gǣn ‘to go’ was used beside the long form gangan (Gothic gaggan), and stǣn ‘to stand, to stay’ beside standan. Griutungi also retained the verb dōn ‘to do’, which was usually expressed in Gothic by the verb taujan (Griutungi tǭjan).

• The Germanic preposition tô remains in Griutungi as tō, while in Gothic it inexplicably – despite several conflicting theories, all of which seem like a bit of a stretch – became du; Griutungi seems to have also had du, used in a benefactive sense, though it was likely borrowed from Gothic proper sometime in the fifth or sixth century while the two languages were still fairly mutually intelligible.

• The Gothic third person plural and gerund ending –nd shows the variation –nþ in Griutungi. The –nþ ending also appears in the ordinal forms of some numbers where we would otherwise expect –nd, e.g. njunþa ‘ninth’ instead of expected **njunda.

• Griutungi (and indeed even modern Valthungian) maintains the Siever’s Law distinction (i.e. the distinction between “long-stem” and “short-stem” roots) in the neuter of ja-stem nouns. This distinction was retained in the masculine in Gothic, but was lost in the neuter. E.g. Compare Gothic stukkjis, genitive of stukki ‘piece’ to Griutungi stukkīs. This distinction can still be observed in Modern Valthungian in that these “long-forms” do not show palatalization; here, stȳkis, whereas, if if were descended directly from the Gothic, we would find stȳčis.

• Griutungi retains r/n alternation in certain heteroclitic nouns which only show /n/ in Gothic, e.g. fōr/funin ‘fire’ (Gothic fōn/funin), watra/watna ‘water’ (Gothic wata/watna), and otherwise unattested in Germanic, ǧikur/ǧikun ‘liver’.

• The final vowel is not reduced in adverbs formed with –ba (from earlier Germanic bi), resulting in Valthungian –ve instead of the expected **–f, so Griutungi likely had –bi in this position instead of –ba.

• The final –t of the neuter interrogative pronoun (‘what’) was lost in Gothic, likely due to Coronal Consonant Deletion, but persists in Valthungian, though it is likely that –t was lost initially and then later added back from analogy with other neuter nominative and accusative pronouns, determiners, and adjectives (e.g. it, þat, hit, gōðat, &c.)

• Weak verbs in Valthungian show no trace of the ‹d›-reduplication that occurs in Gothic (e.g. Gothic kambidēdun ‘they combed’ versus Griutungi kambidun). This is possibly a leveling of the paradigm, though it is likely that it was never manifested in the same manner that it was in Gothic.

• Gothic has a small class of feminine nouns (sometimes called “i/ō-stems”) which follow the i-stem paradigm in the singular and the ō-stem in the plural. These nouns exclusively follow the i-stem in Griutungi. E.g. Gothic haims, plural haimōs, compared to Griutungi hǣms, hǣmīs.

• The genitive singular of feminine i- and ō-stem nouns and adjectives in Valthungian appears as –is instead of expected –as (e.g. Gothic qēnais ‘wife’s’, gibōs ‘gift’s’, but Valthungian kwēnis, givis). This may be partially due to paradigmatic levelling, but it is assumed that at least the feminine i-stem paradigm in Griutungi was identical to the masculine in all cases except for the dative.

• Gothic shows an alternation in the comparative and superlative of adjectives where some take an ō- ending and other take i-. Valthungian exclusively takes i- for comparison. It is unknown whether Griutungi used both forms.

• The numbers 70, 80, and 90 in Gothic took a different ‘tens’ form which does not appear in Valthungian, though likely due to later paradigmatic levelling. Gothic sibuntēhund ‘70’, ahtautēhund ‘80’, niuntēhund ‘90’, but Griutungi sibuntigjus, ahtǭtigjus, niuntigjus; Valthungian sivuntiǧis, ātatiǧis, njuntiǧis.

• Valthungian also has a curious “trial distributive,” þrǣ, comparable to the dual bǣ (Gothic bai), though this is likely an innovation to the language well after Gothic times.