Mariupol Gothic

Mariupol Gothic
Гутишка (Gutiškă)
Pronunciation	['ɦutɪʃkə]
Created by	Aelfwine
Date	2019
Setting	Earth
Native to	Ukraine
Language family	Indo-European Germanic East Germanic Mariupol Gothic
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Germanic Old Gothic Middle Gothic
Writing systems	Cyrillic Latin
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Ukraine, Russia

Mariupol Gothic (natively Гутишка Gutiškă ['ɦutɪʃkə]) or Gothish is a Germanic language spoken by approximately 45,000 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.

Historical Development

Classical Gothic (c. 400–800)

• Loss of initial /h/ in all positions.
  • handu → andu "hand"
  • hūs → ūs "house"
• Simplification of geminate consonants.
  • /tt kk ss/ → /t k s/
  • sittan → sitan “to sit”
• Raising of long mid vowels.
  • /eː/ → /iː/
    • dēdan → dīdan “to do”
  • /oː/ → /uː/
    • bōks → būks “book”
• Short vowels remained unchanged during this stage.

Early Middle Gothic (c. 800–1200)

• Palatalization of velar consonants before front vowels.
  • /k/ → /t͡ʃ/
    • mikils → /mit͡ʃils/ “big”
  • /g/ → /j/
    • giban → /jiban/ "to give"
• Reduction of unstressed non-high vowels.
  • /a e o/ → [ə] in unstressed syllables
    • sunō → sunə “sons”
• Fronting of /β/
  • /β/ → /v/
    • /jiban/ → /jivan/ "to give"

Late Middle Gothic (after c. 1200)

• Lowering of short /i/.
  • /i/ → /ɪ/
• Loss of vowel length contrast.
  • Long and short vowels merged, with /ɪ/ remaining distinct from /i/.
    • dīdan → didan “to do”
    • mikils → /mɪt͡ʃəls/ “big”
  • /uː u/ → /u/
    • būks → buks “book”
• Loss of word-final high vowels.
  • Final /i u/ → ∅
    • suni → sun "son"
    • andu → and "hand"
• General weakening of /g/ in all positions.
  • /g/ → /ɣ/ → /ɦ/
    • dag → /daɦ/ “day”

Modern Gothic (c. 1600 onwards)

• Word-final obstruent devoicing.
  • /b d z v ɦ/ → [p t s f h] word-finally
    • /daɦ/ → [dah] “day”
• Secondary palatalization of dental consonants and affricates before front vowels.
  • /t d s z n r l t͡ʃ/ → [Cʲ] / _ {i, e}
    • nі → [nʲi] “not”

Orthography

Since the 1800s 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.

Orthography of Mariupol Gothic

Cyrillic	Latin	Phoneme	Notes
а	a	/a/	Also represents unstressed /ə/
б	b	/b/
в	w	/v/
г	h	/ɦ/
ґ	g	/g/	Mostly loanwords
д	d	/d/
е	e	/e/	Also represents unstressed /ə/
є	je	/je/
з	z	/z/
и	ĭ / ï	/ɪ/	Often written i in non-scholarly Latin
i	i	/i/
ї	ji	/ji/	Can also represent /jɪ/
й	j	/j/
к	k	/k/
л	l	/l/
м	m	/m/
н	n	/n/
о	o	/o/	Also represents unstressed /ə/
п	p	/p/
р	r	/r/
с	s	/s/
т	t	/t/
у	u	/u/
ф	f	/f/
ѱ	þ	/θ/	Inherited from Gothic 𐌸
ч	č	/t͡ʃ/
ш	š	/ʃ/
ю	ju	/ju/
я	ja	/ja/

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Mariupol Gothic

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p b			t d			k (g)
Fricative		f v	θ	s z	ʃ			ɦ
Affricate					t͡ʃ
Nasal	m			n
Approximant				r l		j

• All consonants may undergo secondary palatalization [ʲ] before front vowels; this palatalization is allophonic and not phonemic.
• Word-final obstruents are devoiced phonetically but remain voiced phonemically.

Vowels

Vowel phonemes of Mariupol Gothic

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɪ	u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

• The vowel /ə/ occurs only as an allophone of unstressed /a e o/ and is not considered phonemic.

Nouns

Strong Masculine Stems

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

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, брот (bread):

Adjectives

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

Verbs

All verbs regardless of class share an infinitive ending in -eн.

The passive voice is formed with the past participle and the word геeн geen "to go."