Gothic language

===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''
Description	What you type	What you get
Italic	''Italic text''	Italic text
Bold	'''Bold text'''	Bold text
Bold & italic	'''''Bold & italic text'''''	*Bold & italic text*
Description	What you type	What you get
Reference	Page text.<ref>[https://www.example.org/ Link text], additional text.</ref>	Page text.^[1]
Named reference	Page text.<ref name="test">[https://www.example.org/ Link text]</ref>	Page text.^[2]
Additional use of the same reference	Page text.<ref name="test" />	Page text.^[2]
Display references	<references />	↑ Link text, additional text. ↑ Link text