This is the oldest translation into German? | rewboss in brief

[@idraote]

As a lover of historical linguistics, hearing the Gothic Bible defined as old German does nothing for my nerves.

[@John_Weiss]

Yep, especially considering that the first "AltHochdeutsch" documents are from the 8th Century, IIRC…

[@AutoReport1]

It was a quite common opinion, maybe 200 years ago. I'd revise it though, there are only two branches, West Germanic and North Germanic. Gothic, Vandal and Burgundian are analogous to Iranian and the indic branch, and Norse is analogous to the misnamed East Iranian (Alanic). The various east Germanic languages split off from North Germanic earlier than the division of West Germanic, possibly even before the development of the runic system in southern Germania. Proto Norse of Sweden and Gothic have similar sound systems and IIRC more common semantic developments than between Gothic and West Germanic. There is some borrowing from Gothic into West Germanic, but sometimes this is at the level of folk etymology - misunderstanding a Gothic word or name for a similar sounding West Germanic one with a different origin and meaning.

[@marge2548]

Very interesting. I learn something new about my mother tongue almost every time I watch one of your videos. And I very much appreciate that! 🙂

[@embreis2257]

wow - thanks for this rare piece of information. I knew Gothic was extinct but the _Mondsee Fragments_ was new to me. 👍

[@hermannschaefer4777]

I guess they mixed up several thing. Luther's bible translation is often seen as the one point that helped standardizing new High German (together with "Kanzleisprache"). And the old Bible of the Goths is supposed to be the oldest written Text in Germanic languages. So, mix all this Info into a modern AI and you get what you found..

[@NicolaW72]

Indeed, that´s how it looks like. And then add to this that in many English Speaking Comics the Germanic "Germans" are represented by "Gothics" and you´ve the Mess.

[@O_Lee69]

That was my first thought, too.

[@RolandHutchinson]

Artificial intelligence is no substitute for natural ignorance. Just sayin'

[@Ashikawahong]

This is very likely. So many people use AI without fact checking nowadays. It's depressing. Every time I tried AI before, it seemed like the software tried to write something that would fit my assumptions about the topic, no matter how wrong the assumptions were in the first place

[@1989Nihil]

It looks like the way this AI - if, indeed, it was AI that generated that crappy output - works is to look for overlap in the various source materials that was feed to it, and then simply cut out and discard the bits that do not match, and then combining the rest. In this case: the translation of the Bible into a Germanic language, but discarding the distinction between West and East Germanic, as well as the time periods in which Wulfila and Martin Luther lived respectively.

[@twinmama42]

Well done. Linguistics simplified without a flaw. Thanks from a linguist.

[@HenryLoenwind]

TL;DR: Some English speaker mixed up Germanic and German...again.

[@lukasrentz3238]

It should be noted, that the "High German Languages" mentioned at 1:00 is not to be Confused with Hochdeutsch, the Standard German Variant. High German Languages include Hessian, Bavarian, Allemanic and Swabian (beside many others).

[@NicolaW72]

Indeed.

[@connectingthedots100]

And Bavarian can't be hochdeutsch 😅

[@RolandHutchinson]

And to add to the fun, two hundred years ago and more, they were all called "High Dutch" in English. That old meaning of "Dutch" persists in "Pennsylvania Dutch"(noun and adjective) but nowhere else in present-day English. And of course from a linguistic point of view Standard German is a High German dialect, though not a "Dialekt" in the usual German sense of the word.

[@charlesbruggmann7909]

@lukasrentz I have even seen Swiss German dialects described as the ‘highest German’

[@rewboss]

The standard German variant is called "Hochdeutsch" (or, more specifically, "bundesdeutsches Hochdeutsch") because it is in fact derived from High German dialects, particularly Saxon Chancery.

[@NicolaW72]

Thank you very much for this short, but very informative linguistic historical overview!🙂👍

[@pletiplot]

I appriciate very clean and enthusiastic voice and pronunciation.

[@Tudsamfa]

So is it the oldest surviving translation into a Germanic language, and someone just mixed up Germanic and German somewhere?

[@karlkarlos3545]

happens all the time with English speakers. If they just would start calling Germans "Deutsch" there wouldn't be any confusion.

[@berlinflight_tv]

@@karlkarlos3545The Dutch have entered the chat. 😉

[@Tudsamfa]

@@karlkarlos3545 Surely that wont cause any problems at all when they instead confuse Deutsch and Dutch. Ok, how about this: We call German "Upperlandish", ok?

[@karlkarlos3545]

@@TudsamfaWell, what about "Netherlanders" in place of Dutch? Too much changes at once I guess.

[@abruemmer77]

Exactly.

[@hypatian9093]

Another educational and entertaining video - that's why we come to rewboss videos :)

[@jolotschka]

Very informative as expected 😊

[@jimbobjones5972]

Please keep laying out the facts on this stuff. They are not only fascinating, but also unknown to many people. As far as the publication goes, well, this is what happens when you lay off all the fact checkers and copy editors.

[@baritonfelix]

We need a Gothic revival.

[@Reichsritter]

Hitler wanted that

[@MichaEl-rh1kv]

Sound like an AI-induced mix-up between Wulfila's and Luther's bible translations.

[@Llortnerof]

Or a rather human mixup between German and Germanic.

[@mcedeias7788]

Interesting video. I noticed some slip-ups in the video: Around 2:20, when you show the different germanic languages, I guess it's supposed to be the german name in italics, then the english name. However, for both english and scots, both times it's the english name, and the dutch names are switched around, eg showing "Dutch" where the german name should be, and "Niederländisch" where the english name should be.

[@rewboss]

You're right about "English" and "Dutch"; but "Scots" is correct. That's the name of the language in both German and English.

[@mcedeias7788]

@@rewboss Ok, I have never heard that... (I am from Germany), but you have done the research, so I'll believe you.

[@Noodles.FreeUkraine]

Very much on point. They definitely got Wulfila and Luther mixed up. Tbh, while not instantly recognizable by a contemporary German speaker, the Gothic original does make sense when you have a modern German translation for comparison. Considering the long time-frame separating those two, they're remarkably close. Linguistics can be a truly fascinating topic, for sure.

[@SchmulKrieger]

A lot is understandable, not so much in verb conjugations, and you have to learn vocabulary that were used by both languages at a time. For example the Kingdom of God is translated as ›Weltvolk‹ or similar. As in Old English, the Earth made by God is middelgearð or middelearð. Which indicates still a very pagan substrate.

[@haraldputensen7955]

Danke!

[@rewboss]

Wow, thank you!

[@paolagrando5079]

Is only me or the video stops abruptly without even finishing the word "language"?

[@KaiHenningsen]

Just you.

[@leahschatzler9183]

It's the same for me :(

[@xouxoful]

Fun fact, the equivalent for french is is the oath of Strasbourg (842) written half in proto-french, and half in proto low german, with both text being an exact translation of the other.

[@mizapf]

02:41 Thank you for not lisping "Martin Luther". (Still, the u should be short, like "Lutter" :-) .)

[@MrGreatplum]

Love this dive into linguistics!

[@thalamay]

I have a fringe hypothesis (wouldn’t go so far as to call it a theory), that there really wasn’t much of a difference between West- and East-Germanic languages (or peoples for that matter). Of course we will never know as we only have a Gothic text and no texts from any of the other Germanic tribes. But we do know that what is the Southern German language area today was settled by East-Germanic tribes after they kicked out the Celts, like Suebi and Longobards. They clearly could communicate with their neighbours and it was that region which later became most influential in the genesis of Old High-German. Of course it’s possible that the West-Germanic Franks forced their language on their new subjects in Southern Germany in the 8th century, but given that they didn’t really migrate into those lands, I kinda doubt that. So they must have been speaking similar languages, more like dialects if anything. So it wouldn’t surprise me if someone reading from the Wulfila Bible could have been understood by a random German living at the Rhein in the 4th century. But as I said, we‘ll probably never know.

[@brittakriep2938]

The Vandals ( in german Vandalen) are not extinct! In Netherlands some , van Daalen' still exist!

[@NicolaW72]

And some survived at Soccer Games.

[@theoztreecrasher2647]

@@NicolaW72 🤣🤣 And many of them now inhabit the far side of the Channel! 😉😊

[@SchmulKrieger]

van Daalen means from the village(s). Especially because it's Wandals, the V is for the Germanic /w/ sound. Not f.

[@brittakriep2938]

@@SchmulKrieger : In german V is mostly spoken F. For example voll ( full) is spoken foll, but not woll. Or Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika is spoken Fereinigte Staaten fon Amerika ( United States of America).

[@SchmulKrieger]

@@brittakriep2938 so what? The V und Vandali is Latin for Germanic w, not v. In German it is even written Wandalen. The van in van Daalen is a presupposition meaning from/of, like German von, and has nothing to do with this Germanic tribe's name.

[@joelthorstensson2772]

Hi, RewBoss! At 2:24, you forgot two North Germanic languages: Faroese and Elfdalian.

[@martinc.720]

“Forgot”, or was he just giving examples? “You forgot” comments seem to be becoming a “thing” on social media, but I’m not sure that he intended to present a complete list.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

It's also missing Frisian and Yiddish under West Germanic, plus a whole bunch of East Germanic languages that we know existed, but have no documentation of. I don't think it's supposed to be an exhaustive list.

[@Jtngetabettername]

Also 'Dutch' is placed in the German column

[@sheeple04]

​@@JtngetabetternameYes? Dutch is based on Low Franconian German dialects, related to Low German. But it split so long ago that its also quite a bit different from Low German (although the dialects in northeastern NL are classified under Low Saxon Low German) So yeah, Dutch is also West Germanic. What he didnt add either is Frisian (sometimes split in 3 varieties) and well, Low German which is also often considered seperate from Standard German thats more based on High German. But he was moreso listing examples rather then a complete list, so

[@Jtngetabettername]

@@sheeple04 I don't have doubts with Dutch being West Germanic: it's that, in the video, 'Dutch' is placed where the words in German are placed, and 'Niederländisch' is instead placed in the English word column

[@SchmulKrieger]

There were several translations of the bible into German, but all were based on the Vulgata and other Latin translations, while Luther's is based on the Greek and Hebrew bible as the base for gis translation. That's the innivative thing. E.g. the Heliant or the actual Evangelienharomonie, which is the New Testament by Otfrit or Otfried or several writings of his name, who made it 5 books long in which the fifth is more to explain Jesus as a figure. Throughout the Middle Ages, Central Europe was still very pagan, especially in the 8th and 9th century. It's not from somewhere that Jesus Christ was depicted as a king or war leader of a tribe, and that he had twelve strong fellowmen and stuff like that. Jesus was rewritten as if he were a Germanic person and leader of a Germanic tribe.

[@flippert0]

It's easy: the Gothic language is 'Germanic' but not 'German'. The oldest bible related translation to a variety of German ('Old Saxon' a.k.a. 'Old Low German' in this case) was the 'Heliand' in the first half of the 9th century. The Heliand is a synoptic re-telling or paraphrase of the New Testament in terms, that Saxon tribesmen of that time could understand (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliand).

[@NuEM78]

Old Saxon is not a variety of German, though.

[@fruzsimih7214]

​@@NuEM78Yeah, Old Saxon is a variety of Low German, not High German.

[@fariesz6786]

sounds like another mix-up of "German" and "Germanic" incidentally Jackson Crawford had a video about this kind of confusion the other day. he half-jokingly proposed something like the Grimmian languages. i suggetsed Goethic but please don't take that seriously - Goethe is way too overrated!

[@stelleratorsuprise8185]

You should include Yiddish into the list of west germanic languages.

[@charlesbruggmann7909]

Peter Heather (Prof at King‘s London) ascribes the conversion of the Goths and other Germanic ‘barbarians’ to the availability of Wulfila’s bible and other liturgical materials in their language. The Catholic Church called this ‘Arianism’ - a heresy. It might also be worth pointing out that, at the time, the Goths lived around the Black Sea - nowhere near modern Germany.

[@Afriqueleblanq]

Catholicism is heresy

[@varana]

At that time, there was no distinction between what we now call Catholic and Orthodox. Wulfila lived in a time when the debate about the exact nature of Christ (man, God, both, how) was at its height, and Wulfila belonged to a tradition that we nowadays usually call "Arianism". Ultimately, Trinitarian Christianity prevailed, i.e. what is now the vast majority of Christianity (Catholic, most Orthodox, most Protestants). So it wasn't Wulfila's missionary and translation efforts specifically that were called "Arianism", and he didn't play a major role in its development. He just happened to belong to that certain theological school, and his work was instrumental in the conversion of most Germanic tribes to Arian Christianity.

[@John_Weiss]

IIRC, -a lot_ some of our texts in Althochdeutsch are actually prayer lessons. And legal documents. _Edit:_ I forgot about that codex 1:29.

[@tietah1262]

Idk why but it bothers me so much that in 2:26 every English word for the respective language is to the right, whilst the German is to the left. For all, except for Dutch/Niederländisch. Good video though

[@AleaumeAnders]

Ah, the wonderful problem of many anglophones, to distinguish between german and germanic. Would have been more practicable to keep using the word dutch for the german languages, instead of applying it to the "hollanders" to prevent that problem. ;)

[@KaiHenningsen]

... Netherlanders. Or do you want the Germans "Prussians"?

[@f.k.3762]

Detective Rewboss strikes again

[@UnbelievableEricthegiraffe]

So the oldest known translation into Old German was of a work of fiction. According to research, the person who translated it was from the North East of England. It was probably written by an ancestor of the original writer in what is now Germany. Apparently, they are still mastering modern English around the North East England to this day. 😮.

[@theoztreecrasher2647]

Don't knock it. Deciphering the accents is half the fun of a trip to the Isles of Bwitain, Ewic! 😜🤣🤣

[@abgekippt]

And I thought the Bible was written by the Brothers Grimm

[@dlevi67]

No, they wrote other fairy tales

[@NicolaW72]

No. Definetely not. But the Brothers Grimm started writing a Dictionary.

[@vrenak]

@@dlevi67 wrote down, or collected is a better description of what they did.

[@dlevi67]

@@vrenak I think you missed the point...

[@theoztreecrasher2647]

@@dlevi67 Ah well! At least where we're going it's gunna be warm! 😜😁😇

[@idnwiw]

Mondseer Fragmente? So Austrian German is in fact the original Standard German, nice to know

[@henningbartels6245]

Despite all the wrong claims of the person with the bible, it is intresting that the English Wikipedia names around 500 AD as the starting point of Old High German.

[@robert48719]

Take a look at the counting system of the gothics and how they named the numbers. And you will see how similar it actually was to German. It's like literally the same

[@rewboss]

Nevertheless, German did not descend from the Gothic language. The two languages are closely related, but they are cousins.

[@nicolashugli9661]

Martin Luther was born in 1483 and was therefore already around in the 15th century :P Great video nontheless

[@dodixaverius9176]

Not really? In English if i recall correcrly when you refer to the century it mean an era of 100 years before the listed century. So 16th century start from 1501 to 1600. And according to quick google search the bible in question was first translated in 1522.

[@rewboss]

Technically, yes, but he was a teenager when that century came to an end, and didn't start work on his bible until the early 1520s.

[@ronaldderooij1774]

Just when it became interesting, the video ended..... 😞

[@MrTohawk]

I always thought the Oaths of Strasbourg were the oldest French-German documents

[@SchmulKrieger]

No. In this sense, the English language is the first German as German declared language, because þeodisc was the name for the language by the Anglo-Saxons and got mentioned 50 or 100 years earlier to the Oaths of Strasbourg in a Latin document.

[@rewboss]

They were written in 842, while the Mondsee Fragments date from around 810. The Oaths of Strasbourg are important for the French language, however, because they are the oldest texts written consisently in a Romance language (as distinct from Latin).

[@K__a__M__I]

Now I'd _really_ like to know what the extinct East Germanic languages sounded like!

[@varana]

Because we have extensive parts of Wulfila's Gothic bible, we have a pretty good chunk of text to work from. We should still keep the usual caveats about reconstructing pronunciation from text alone in mind, even though the Gothic alphabet was specifically invented for that project. There are several attempts to read the Wulfila bible on KZbin, e.g. watch?v=-qRMIx7Hc6U - esp. from 1:15 onwards, when whole sentences are being pronounced. P.S. The other East Germanic languages are basically lost. We have only names and very few words, so e.g. for Burgundian, we can't even establish its classification as East Germanic with certainty.

[@Tudsamfa]

People always type stuff like that, as if there aren't 7000 alive languages that they don't know what they sound like either. To answer your question, probably a lot like 1000 year old Dutch/German/Frisian. I doubt anyone can even hear much of a difference between these unless they actually understand 1. Surprisingly enough, I wanted to check by listening to an old frisian text, but was instead recommended someone trying to teach Gothic pronunciations. So maybe click on that channel with the AI generated Aryan Stereotype if you want to know that badly. Seems like patreotism and nationalism go hand in hand on that channel, but I cant stop you.

[@K__a__M__I]

@@varana Thank you very much, absolutely fascinating to hear familiar sounds and phonetics and others that are completely alien.

[@idraote]

Gothic is studied in Italian university as part of Germanic philology exam. As I minored in German at university, I took this exam and the Gothic of the Vulfila Bible is surprisingly reasonably easy. One needs a interlinear translation, of course, but once you have it, it is not difficult to link the modern German word to the old Gothic word. Pronunciation, as reconstructed, is not complicated although there are a few points of contention.

[@keyem4504]

If you hadn't spelled it out, your pronounciation of Mondsee would have thrown me off completely. Was that on purpose?

[@martinc.720]

Yep. Specifically for you.

[@Reichsritter]

yeah it should be Moon sea

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

Yet another case of not understanding the difference between German and germanic.

[@martinbruhn5274]

I didn't know gothic was germanic at all

[@Afriqueleblanq]

Only English Bibles ever called the Spirit (Gr: pneuma) of God a ghost (Gr fantasmo ) Us non-Anglophones consider those old English Bibles, errantly translated, as bordering upon being blasphemous. I am thankful for better, older, translation in my own mother tongue.

[@rewboss]

It's not that: the English "ghost" has changed its meaning over time. It did originally mean "spirit", as in the phrase "to give up the ghost". The German word "Geist" preserves the original meaning (heiliger Geist = Holy Spirit).

[@feynstein1004]

Eh weren't the Goths originally from Ukraine though? That would make them Slavic and not Germanic, I think? 🤔

[@theChaosKe]

Goths originally came from gotland, an island in sweden, they then settled in poland and eventually ended up in crimea before the huns came and forced them westward into the roman empire.

[@feynstein1004]

@@theChaosKe Hmm

[@varana]

Also, the Gothic language is very obviously a Germanic language, not a Slavic one, which is what matters here. People move around a lot, and current linguistic and ethnic distributions don't have to match ancient ones (or rather, often don't).

[@feynstein1004]

@@varana Tru dat

[@fruzsimih7214]

Do you think that languages spring from the soil and are not carried with them by people? There were no Slavs in Eastern Europe in the 4th century.

[@dinola3268]

The German Language was invented by Martin Luther!

[@martinc.720]

Languages evolve over centuries, they are not invented by one person.

[@dinola3268]

​@@martinc.720😂😅😂

[@idraote]

I wouldn't say that.

[@martinc.720]

@@dinola3268 You're right, you're pretty funny.

[@vrenak]

He has a lot to answer for then.