A Note on the Etymology of Brūtes/Brūtis ‘a (Latin-Speaking?) Bride’

The purpose of this article is to trace the etymology of the Late Latin word brūtes/brūtis ‘(Latin-speaking?) wife’ and try to decide whether the exact origin of this word can go back without doubt to the Gothic form *brūþs attested in the form of the acc. sg. in the Gothic translation of the Bible made by the bishop Wulfila in the 4th century AD, as is usually assumed in the scholarly literature. It is concluded that the origins of the word should rather be traced to East Germanic *brūþiz although all of the details are still not clear due to the lack of direct evidence and other hypotheses should also be considered.