PLACE OF THE GOTHIC LANGUAGE AMONG THE EAST GERMANIC GROUP OF LANGUAGES

The article is devoted to a comprehensive study of the place and specifics of the Gothic language within the East Germanic area, as well as the determination of its role for comparative historical linguistics. The relevance of the work is due to the need for an in-depth study of the earliest recorded states of the Germanic languages for a more accurate reconstruction of the Proto-Germanic language system. The aim of the research is to characterize the Gothic language as a key representative of the East Germanic branch, given the extreme fragmentation of the source base of other related languages (Vandalic, Burgundian, Gepidic, etc.). The comparative-historical, descriptive methods, and the method of linguistic reconstruction were applied in the course of the research. It has been established that the Bible translation by the Visigoth Bishop Wulfila (4th century) constitutes a unique cultural and linguistic phenomenon, thanks to which Gothic became the only fully documented system of its group. The article analyzes in detail the defining archaic features of the Gothic language: the preservation of ancient Indo-European vocalism, the absence of the umlaut phenomenon, the specifics of the operation of Grimm’s and Verner’s laws, as well as the preservation of such ancient grammatical categories as the dual (dualis) in pronominal and verbal paradigms and the synthetic mediopassive voice. Special attention is paid to the problem of the internal classification of the East Germanic languages and the phenomenon of the Crimean Gothic dialect, uniquely recorded by O. G. de Busbecq in the 16th century. A comparison of lexical material demonstrates a high degree of kinship among East Germanic tribes, but also indicates the presence of objective internal dialectal branching. It is proved that the Gothic language functions not only as a local illustration of the East Germanic area but as a fundamental basic matrix for the entirety of comparative linguistics. Its earliest fixation makes it a “standard” of archaism, without which the accurate reproduction of Proto-Germanic phonetics and morphology is practically impossible. It is concluded that further study of the Gothic language, in particular its lexical fund and grammatical structure, in comparison with the relict glosses of other East Germanic tribes, opens up new promising prospects for a much deeper understanding of the evolution of the Germanic languages in general.