Introduction

Crimean Gothic - known to its speakers as gutisk - is spoken by some 2.000.000 people in Crimea. It is also widely learned by linguistic minorities of the peninsula (250.000 Alans,120.000 Greeks, 75.000 Italians, 55.000 Tatars). It is the only surviving member of the eastern Germanic family and the only one with a written tradition.

As the majority language of a semi-autonomous ottoman province, it is widely used in local administration and education up to university level. It is also the official tongue of the Arian church and has a large litterature dating back to the early middle age.

The gothic people being mostly rural,Crimean Gothic is heavily dialectalized. Each particular province has its own dialect, sometimes quite divergent. Only the dialect of Frebør is written, however. It is the only one with an official status, albeit some regional forms are still locally used by the Church. The Frebør dialect is actually in the process of replacing local speeches, notably in the towns

History

Along with its sister tongue, German,English or Danish (an a few others), Crimean Gothic derives from Common Germanic, which in turn derives from Indo-European, the language of a number of copper age tribes dwelling in modern day Ukraine.

Germanic tongues were at first spoken by a few scandinavian tribes,but soon spread southwards, to modern day Germany and eastwards through the Baltic sea, toward modern day Poland. As tribes scattered, their languages began to diverge and mutual inteligibility was lost. Three dialectal areas formed : Northern around Scandinavia,Western, in Germany and then in England, and Eastern in Poland. It is from this latter group that Gothic emerged as a separate language during the first century B.C in the Danubian region.

Goths were then a backward, barbarian people, with only oral literature, and no intention to develop any kind of scholarly culture. They were nevertheless the - rather unwelcome - neighbors of the largest polity of the time : Romania. Romans were an highly civilized people, with an extensive literature and a very strong taste for scholarship and philosophy (at this stage of their history at least). They also had adopted a messianic religion whose aim was to encompass the whole world. They sent therefore some missionaries to the Goths and, in spite of initial reverses, managed to make some converts. In their effort to do so, they created a written language,designing an alphabet - invented by bishop Wulifila - and translating a part of their holly book : the Bible (this name means “the Book” in the second most important tongue of the Empire Greek or Hellenikon)

Wulfilan Gothic was an highly inflected language, still very close from its Germanic ancestor. An exemple of Wulfilan Gothic from circa 300 A.D is

2 inuh şis qam gamains allaize nasjands, allaize frawaurhtins afhrainjan, ni ibna nih galeiks unsarai garaihtein, ak silba garaihtei wisands, ei, gasaljands sik faur uns hunsl jas-sauş guda, şizos manasedais gawaurhtedi uslunein.
3 şata nu gasaihwands Iohannes, şo sei ustauhana habaida wairşan fram fraujin, garehsn, miş sunjai qaş:"sai, sa ist wişrus gudis, saei afnimiş frawaurhtşizos manasedais."

2. And because of this he has come the savior of all, to purify us from our sins, neither equal, neither similar to our righteousness,but the righteousness himself, setting himself as a sacrifice to God for us in order to buy off our faults.
3. And seeing then what was to be done by the Lord, John said in truth "see, this one is God's Lamb who will take the sins of the humankind

The Gothic kingdom fell to asiatic invaders and the greatest part of the people entered Romania as refugees. They proved very good at subverting their host, as they ended setting up kingdoms in Spain and Italy. These kingdom were to be short-lived, however, and their founders soon became assimilated. A few goths, however, clung to their homeland and maintained themselves in Southern Crimea where they mixed with iranian peoples. Their language survived in spite of heavy pressure from asiatic barbarians or Byzantines imperialists. By 1400 AD most of southern Crimea was speaking middle Gothic.

2. Fawr enem qam alleze kin soter,alleze frawawrzen tu arenien, ne iven ne galic unsere garezen, akgarez silv, i, hunslend sic Guşe, uslune frawawrzen mannaseşeseres.
3. sewend şeti Guş havede tu gatawjen, Johan qaş insunje " se ist Guşes lamp se şe afnimeş frawawrzen manaseşeseres.

With the decline of the Byzantine Empire,the Gothic Kingdom was virtually left to itself. By 1430, it managed to conquer the whole of Crimea, only to by submitted by Turkey in1 510. It retained, however some autonomy and its language has spread over the whole peninsula, absorbing the various tongues which weres poken in it before.

2. şet ist wefør sotera allere qam, frawørzenen allere gekateren, ne iven ne gelichgarezen unsere, no garezo silve, i frawørzen gumenşiedeseres sich Guşe hunslendsch afkøpeş.
3. şen is sew şe Guş tu gatøjen havede, nuqaş Joan sunjeve : "şa-her ist lampa Guşes,şe frawørzen gumenşiedeseres afnimeş"

Changes between modern and Wulfilan Gothic are not dramatic. Gothic has lost two consonnants (Hw and b) and gained one (v). It has also gained one vowel (ø) and has reduced diphtongues. At the morphological level, it has regularized declensions and acquired an article. The synthetic comparative and superlative forms of adjectives have also been lost and word order is no longer as free.

Vocabulary has also been extensively changed :

        - Some words have disapeared : marhs (horse), replaced by lue, hund (hundred), replaced by sade,f era(province), aba( man, husband).
        - The meaning of others has changed : tekan(to touch) becomes techen (to fuck), akrs (field) becomes acher (wild place), motareis (toll-taker) becomes moter : scoundrel, thief, staşs (place) becomes staş (country), gabruka (piece) becomes gepruche (coin)
        - A number of words have also been coined during the history of the language : flier (plane), selvefraşjer (computer), itstichen (renaissance, nationalistic movement).
        - Numerous borrowings have been made from neighboring tongues
- from substratic tongue Kymeren mainly words related to nature and hunting karech (birch), rafen (fox),ech (one)

- from Iranian Alan : sade (hundred),hazer (thousand), sode (war),farges (wolf).

- From Slavic : musch (husband),metsch (sword), igre (game),savjet (council)

- From Greek : jineche (whore),soter( savior), kevale (chief)

- From Italian : panke (bank),monede (money), pachen (to pay)

- From Turkish : Pazar (market),kawe (coffee), Pasche (Governor), evende (sir),luchem (lukum), rache (raki)

- From non-standart Gothic dialects :itkomen (to come back)

- From Khazar : lue (horse),kachen (emperor)