Mariupol Gothic

Mariupol Gothic is a Germanic language spoken by approximately 15,000 people on the northern coast of the Sea of Azov. It is an East Germanic language, closely related to Biblical Gothic, however the language is not a lineal descendant of Biblical Gothic. Nonetheless the speakers of Mariupol Gothic refer to themselves as "Goths" and their language still shares enough similarities with Gothic to be considered related. The language is critically endangered, with only a handful of native speakers remaining, with most acquiring the language as an L2.

History

The history of the Goths in Ukraine begins with the Ostrogothic settlement of the Black Sea in the 4th century. Along with the Greeks, Alans, Bulgars and others, they made up part of the population in Crimea that followed Orthodox Christianity and were incorporated into the Byzantine Empire as the Principality of Theodoro. After the secession of the principality in the 13th century, Theodoro was overrun by the Mongols and became a vassal of the Golden Horde. The principality enjoyed a period of peace until the Ottoman Empire annexed its capital city of Mangup in 1475.

The Goths managed to maintain their culture and language throughout Ottoman occupation, however a great number of them converted to Islam and assimilated into the Crimean Tatars. During her reign, Catharine the Great invited the Christian Crimean Goths to settle recently conquered lands north of the Sea of Azov. There they were given a special protective status within the Russian Empire and were exempt from the draft.

During World War II many Goths were expelled to various oblasts in Siberia to work as slave labour for the Soviet war machine. Like the Germans in the USSR, the Goths were feared to be sympathetic to the Nazis and therefore were persecuted heavily during World War II. While some Goths returned to the Black Sea after the war, many others had emigrated abroad to countries such as Brazil and Argentina.

Orthography

Since the 1920s Mariupol Gothic has been written in a Cyrillic alphabet based off of the Ukrainian script. The Biblical Gothic alphabet is also used, but it has been mostly limited to the liturgy. However, the Biblical Gothic letter þiuþ <𐌸> was imported to represent the /θ/ sound, it takes a form identical to that of Cyrillic psi.

Letter	Position	Phoneme
А а	1	/ɐ/
Б б	2	/b/
В в	3	/v/
Г г	4	/ɣ/
Ґ ґ	5	/g/
Д д	6	/d/
Е e	7	/e/
Є є	8	/je/
Э э	9	/ə/
З з	10	/z/
И и	11	/i/
К к	12	/k/
Л л	13	/l/
М м	14	/m/
Н н	15	/n/
О o	16	/o/
П п	17	/p/
Р р	18	/r/
С с	19	/s/
Т т	20	/t/
У у	21	/u/
Ф ф	22	/f/
Ѱ ѱ	23	/θ/
Х х	24	/x/
Ш ш	25	/ʃ/
Щ щ	26	/ʃt/
Ы ы	27	/ɨ/
Ю ю	28	/ju/
Я я	29	/ja/

Phonology

Vowels

In comparison to most other Germanic languages, Mariupol Gothic has an incredibly small vowel inventory of just 7 vowels.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e	ə	o
Low		ɐ

Nouns

Strong Masculine Stems

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	дахс	дагэс
Oblique	дах	дагэнс

Weak Masculine Stems

Mariupol Gothic weak masculine stems are inherited exclusively from Proto-Germanic an-stem masculine nouns. Example of a weak masculine stem noun, мӣнэ (moon):

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	минэ	минэнс
Oblique	минэ	минэнс

Strong Feminine Stems

Mariupol Gothic strong feminine stems are made up of former Proto-Germanic ō-, ī- and jō-stem feminine nouns. Example of a strong feminine stem noun, раздэ (language):

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	раздэ	раздэс
Oblique	раздэ	раздэс

Weak Feminine Stems

Mariupol Gothic weak feminine stems are made up of former Proto-Germanic ōn- and in-stem feminine nouns. Example of a weak feminine stem noun, тунгэ (tongue):

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	тунгэ	тунгэнс
Oblique	тунгэн	тунгэнс

Strong Neuter Stems

Gothish strong neuter stems are made up of former Proto-Germanic a- and u-stem neuters. Example of a strong neuter stem noun, бро̄т (bread):

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	брот	бродэ
Oblique	брот	бродэ

Weak Neuter Stems

Mariupol Gothic weak neuter stems are inherited exclusively from Proto-Germanic an-stem neuters. Example of a weak neuter stem noun, о̄гэ (eye):

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	огэ	огэнэ
Oblique	огэ	огэнэ

Adjectives

The adjectives have been greatly simplified since Proto-Germanic. They are divided into two different forms, strong and weak, and agree with case, number and gender with the noun they modify.

Strong							Weak
	Masculine		Feminine		Neuter		Masculine		Feminine		Neuter
	SG	PL	SG	PL	SG	PL	SG	PL	SG	PL	SG	PL
NOM	-с	-э	-э	-эс	-этэ -	-э	-э	-энс	-э	-энс	-э	-энэ
OBL	-								-эн

Verbs

	Present		Preterite
	SG	PL	SG	PL
1st	быдэ	быдэмс	бо̄т	будэм
2nd	быдэс	быдэт	бо̄ст	будэт
3rd	быдэт	быдэн	бо̄т	будэн
	INF	IMP	PART.PRS	PART.PST
	бѥдэн	бѥт	бѥдэнтс	бодэнс

Sound Changes

Palatalization

Mariupol Gothic changes /s/ to /ʃ/ before all sonorants (/m/, /n/, /l/, /w/). Additionally it changes /sk/ to /ʃ/.

UDHR

All fers sein geborn frije

/ɑl fers sain gəˈborn friː/

All men are born free...