Gothic language

Gothic language dead language belonging to the now extinct East Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages ). Gothic has special value for the linguist because it was recorded several hundred years before the oldest surviving texts of all the other Germanic languages (except for a handful of earlier runic inscriptions in Old Norse). Thus it sheds light on an older stage of a Germanic language and on the development of Germanic languages in general. The earliest extant document in Gothic preserves part of a translation of the Bible made in the 4th cent. AD by Ulfilas , a Gothic bishop. This translation is written in an adaptation of the Greek alphabet, supposedly devised by the bishop himself, which was later discarded.

Bibliography: See J. Wright, Grammar of the Gothic Language and the Gospel of St. Mark (2d ed. 1954).

Goth·ic / ˈgä[unvoicedth]ik/ • adj. 1. of or relating to the Goths or their extinct East Germanic language, which provides the earliest manuscript evidence of any Germanic language (4th–6th centuries ad). 2. of or in the style of architecture prevalent in western Europe in the 12th–16th centuries , characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, and flying buttresses, together with large windows and elaborate tracery. 3. (also pseudoarchaic Gothick) belonging to or redolent of the Dark Ages; portentously gloomy or horrifying: 19th-century Gothic horror. 4. (of lettering) of or derived from the angular style of handwriting with broad vertical downstrokes used in western Europe from the 13th century, including Fraktur and black-letter typefaces. 5. (gothic) of or relating to goths or their rock music. • n. 1. the language of the Goths. 2. the Gothic style of architecture. 3. Gothic type. DERIVATIVES: Goth·i·cal·ly / -ik(ə)lē/ adv. Goth·i·cism / ˈgä[unvoicedth]əˌsizəm/ n.