Writing

Crimean Gothic still uses the alphabet Wulfila designed for it, albeit a few minority religious groups have adopted Greek, Hebrew or Arabic scripts. The Gothic alphabet has remained almost unchanged for 15 centuries. The values of a a few letters have been modified and a few digraphs have been introduced to follow the evolution of the language, but the conservativeness of the arian church prevented any deep reform. As a consequence a fourth century Goth would probably be able to read a Crimean Gothic text. Of course it is doubtful he would understand anything.

The Gothic alphabet is strictly phonemic : it does not note down allophones but allows a native speaker to correctly pronounce any unknown word. It is thus far more efficient than, say, the English or the French system.

Phonology

Vowels

Crimean Gothic is poorer in vowels than most Germanic tongues, a fact which is probably due to the influence of the neighboring and adstratic Slavic languages.

All vowels are clear cut, much like in Welsh.:

a is pronounced as in Italian or Spanish

i is always pronounced as in French

o is always open, like in French cotte

u is pronounced as in French loup

ø is pronounced as in French feu

e can be realized in two different ways

as in French ê before n, m, l and r

as in French le in any other case.

Diphtongues

Crimean Gothic has only six diphtongues

au pronounced a_o

ew pronounced e_u

aw pronounced a_u

aj pronounced aï

ej pronounced eï

ie pronounced i_e

Consonants :

Crimean Gothic has the following consonants

Glottal stops :they are always very hard, much like in Russian and are never aspirated

- b, found only in loanwords

- p

- k

- g

- t

- d

- ng

Fricatives : they are disctinctively palatal, much like in Russian (not by mere chance, of course)

- þ

- ch

- f

- v

- s

- sch

- z

Nasals

- n

- m

Laterals

- l : similar to the "dark l" of English

Trills

- r : always like in Russian

Semi-vowels

- j

- w