Gothic language

==Comparison to other Germanic languages==
For the most part, Gothic is known to be significantly closer to Proto-Germanic than any other Germanic language{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}} except for that of the (scantily attested) [[Proto-Norse|Ancient Nordic]] runic inscriptions, which has made it invaluable in the reconstruction of Proto-Germanic{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}. In fact, Gothic tends to serve as the primary foundation for reconstructing Proto-Germanic{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}. The reconstructed Proto-Germanic conflicts with Gothic only when there is clearly identifiable evidence from other branches that the Gothic form is a secondary development.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}

===Distinctive features===
Gothic fails to display a number of innovations shared by all Germanic languages attested later:
* lack of [[Germanic umlaut]],
* lack of [[Rhotacism (sound change)|rhotacism]].

The language also preserved many features that were mostly lost in other early Germanic languages:
* dual inflections on verbs,
* morphological passive voice for verbs,
* reduplication in the past tense of Class VII strong verbs,
* clitic conjunctions that appear in second position of a sentence in accordance with [[Wackernagel's Law]], splitting verbs from pre-verbs.

====Lack of umlaut====
Most conspicuously, Gothic shows no sign of morphological umlaut. Gothic {{lang|got-Latn|fotus}}, {{abbr|pl.|plural}} {{lang|got-Latn|fotjus}}, can be contrasted with English ''foot'' : ''feet'', German {{lang|de|Fuß}} : {{lang|de|Füße}}, Old Norse {{lang|non|fótr}} : {{lang|non|fœtr}}, Danish {{lang|da|fod}} : {{lang|da|fødder}}. These forms contain the characteristic change {{IPA|/u/}} > {{IPA|/iː/}} (English), {{IPA|/uː/}} > {{IPA|/yː/}} (German), {{IPA|/oː/}} > {{IPA|/øː/}} (ON and Danish) due to i-umlaut; the Gothic form shows no such change.

====Lack of rhotacism====
Proto-Germanic ''*z'' remains in Gothic as ''z'' or is devoiced to ''s''. In North and West Germanic, ''*z'' changes to ''r'' by [[Rhotacism (sound change)#Germanic languages|rhotacism]]:
* Gothic {{lang|got-Latn|dius}}, [[genitive case|{{abbr|gen.|genitive}}]] {{abbr|sg.|singular}} {{lang|got-Latn|diuzis}} ≠
* Old English {{lang|ang|dēor}}, {{abbr|gen.|genitive}} {{abbr|sg.|singular}} {{lang|ang|dēores}} "wild animal" (Modern English ''deer'').

====Passive voice====
Gothic retains a morphological passive voice inherited from Indo-European but unattested in all other Germanic languages except for the single fossilised form preserved in, for example, Old English ''hātte'' or Runic Norse ({{circa|400}}) ''haitē'' "am called", derived from Proto-Germanic ''*haitaną'' "to call, command". (The related verbs ''heißen'' in modern German and ''heten'' in Dutch are both derived from the active voice of this verb but have the passive meaning "to be called" alongside the dated active meaning "to command".)

The morphological passive in North Germanic languages (Swedish ''gör'' "does", ''görs'' "is being done") originates from the [[Old Norse]] [[Old Norse morphology#Suffixes and clitics|middle voice]], which is an innovation not inherited from Indo-European.

====Dual number====
Unlike other Germanic languages, which retained dual numbering only in some pronoun forms, Gothic has dual forms both in pronouns and in verbs. Dual verb forms exist only in the first and second person and only in the active voice; in all other cases, the corresponding plural forms are used. In pronouns, Gothic has first and second person dual pronouns: Gothic and Old English ''wit'', Old Norse ''vit'' "we two" (thought to have been in fact derived from ''*wi-du'' literally "we two").

====Reduplication====
Gothic possesses a number of verbs which form their preterite by reduplication, another archaic feature inherited from Indo-European. While traces of this category survived elsewhere in Germanic, the phenomenon is largely obscured in these other languages by later sound changes and analogy. In the following examples the infinitive is compared to the third person singular preterite indicative:

* Gothic ''saian'' "to sow" : '''''sai'''so''
* Old Norse ''sá'' : '''''se'''ri'' < Proto-Germanic *'''''se'''zō''
* Gothic ''laikan'' "to play" : ''lailaik''
* Old English ''lācan'' : '''''leo'''lc'', ''lēc''

===Classification===
The standard theory of the origin of the Germanic languages divides the languages into three groups: [[East Germanic languages|East Germanic]] (Gothic and a few other very scantily-attested languages), [[North Germanic languages|North Germanic]] ([[Old Norse language|Old Norse]] and its derivatives, such as [[Swedish language|Swedish]], [[Danish language|Danish]], [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]], [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]], and [[Faroese language|Faroese]]) and [[West Germanic languages|West Germanic]] (all others, including [[Old English]], [[Old High German]], [[Old Saxon]], [[Old Dutch]], [[Old Frisian]] and the numerous modern languages derived from these, including [[English language|English]], [[German language|German]], and [[Dutch language|Dutch]]). Sometimes, a further grouping, that of the [[Northwest Germanic]] languages, is posited as containing the North Germanic and West Germanic languages, reflecting the hypothesis that Gothic was the first attested language to branch off.

A minority opinion (the so-called '''Gotho-Nordic''' hypothesis) instead groups North Germanic and [[East Germanic languages|East Germanic]] together. It is based partly on historical claims: for example, [[Jordanes]], writing in the 6th century, ascribes to the Goths a Scandinavian origin. There are a few linguistically significant areas in which Gothic and Old Norse agree against the West Germanic languages.

Perhaps the most obvious is the evolution of the [[Proto-Germanic language|Proto-Germanic]] *''-jj-'' and *''-ww-'' into Gothic ''ddj'' (from Pre-Gothic ''ggj''?) and ''ggw'', and Old Norse ''ggj'' and ''ggv'' ("[[Holtzmann's Law]]"), in contrast to West Germanic where they remained as semivowels. Compare Modern English ''true'', German ''treu'', with Gothic ''triggws'', Old Norse ''tryggr''.

However, it has been suggested that these are, in fact, two separate and unrelated changes.<ref>{{Cite book |first=J. B. |last=Voyles |title=Early Germanic Grammar |year=1992 |location=San Diego |publisher=Academic Press |pages=25–26 |isbn=0-12-728270-X}}
</ref> A number of other posited similarities exist (for example, the existence of numerous inchoative verbs ending in -''na'', such as Gothic ''ga-waknan'', Old Norse ''vakna''; and the absence of gemination before ''j'', or (in the case of old Norse) only ''g'' geminated before ''j'', e.g. Proto-Germanic *''kunją'' > Gothic ''kuni'' (kin), Old Norse ''kyn'', but Old English ''cynn'', Old High German ''kunni''). However, for the most part these represent [[Comparative method#Terminology|shared retentions]], which are not valid means of grouping languages. That is, if a parent language splits into three daughters A, B and C, and C innovates in a particular area but A and B do not change, A and B will appear to agree against C. That shared retention in A and B is not necessarily indicative of any special relationship between the two.

Similar claims of similarities between [[Old Gutnish]] (''Gutniska'') and [[Old Icelandic]] are also based on shared retentions rather than shared innovations.

Another commonly-given example involves Gothic and Old Norse verbs with the ending ''-t'' in the 2nd person singular preterite indicative, and the West Germanic languages have ''-i''.  The ending ''-t'' can regularly descend from the Proto-Indo-European perfect ending ''*-th₂e'', while the origin of the West Germanic ending ''-i'' (which, unlike the ''-t''-ending, unexpectedly combines with the zero-grade of the root as in the plural) is unclear, suggesting that it is an innovation of some kind, possibly an import from the optative. Another possibility is that this is an example of independent choices made from a doublet existing in the proto-language.  That is, Proto-Germanic may have allowed either ''-t'' or ''-i'' to be used as the ending, either in [[free variation]] or perhaps depending on dialects within Proto-Germanic or the particular verb in question. Each of the three daughters independently standardized on one of the two endings and, by chance, Gothic and Old Norse ended up with the same ending.

Other [[isogloss]]es have led scholars to propose an early split between East and [[Northwest Germanic]]. Furthermore, features shared by any two branches of Germanic do not necessarily require the postulation of a [[proto-language]] excluding the third, as the early [[Germanic languages]] were all part of a [[dialect continuum]] in the early stages of their development, and [[language contact|contact]] between the three branches of Germanic was extensive.

Polish linguist [[Witold Mańczak]] argued that Gothic is closer to German (specifically [[Upper German]]) than to Scandinavian and suggested that their ancestral homeland was located in the southernmost part of the Germanic territories, close to present-day Austria, rather than in Scandinavia. [[Frederik Kortlandt]] has agreed with Mańczak's hypothesis, stating: "I think that his argument is correct and that it is time to abandon Iordanes' classic view that the Goths came from Scandinavia."{{sfn|Kortlandt|2001}}
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