Vandalic language

Vandalic was the Germanic language spoken by the Vandals during roughly the 3rd to 6th centuries. It was probably closely related to Gothic, and, as such, is traditionally classified as an East Germanic language. Its attestation is very fragmentary, mainly due to the Vandals' constant migrations and late adoption of writing. All modern sources from the time when Vandalic was spoken are protohistoric.

Classification

Vandalic is traditionally classified as an East Germanic language, that the language of the Vandals was actually Gothic; and that they were different languages that separated early on, without having an intermediary East Germanic ancestor.

History

thumb|The Vandals during the [[Migration Period]]

According to their own mythology, the Goths originally came from Scandinavia. It is debated whether Gothic, and by extension Vandalic, came from Scandinavia, as linguistic evidence shows no specific relation between North Germanic and either Gothic or Vandalic. Still, it is possible that both the Goths and the Vandals migrated from Scandinavia southwards, where their respective languages started to diverge from Proto-Germanic. The Vandalic language is presumed to still have been spoken at the time of the Byzantine conquest. It likely disappeared before the end of the century.

Attestation

Very little is known about the Vandalic language other than various phrases and a small number of personal names of Vandalic origin, mainly known from documents and coins. Most Vandalic names were recorded by native speakers of Latin or Greek, who might have misinterpreted phonemes or assimilated names to those common in their mother tongue.

The regional name Andalusia is traditionally believed to have derived from Vandalic, although this claim is contested. Following the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, from the 8th century to the end of the 15th the region was called .

In one inscription from the Vandal Kingdom, the Christian incantation of ("Lord, have mercy!") is given in Vandalic as "". The same phrase appears in 15 by Pseudo-Augustine: "". It is possible that this sentence is, in fact, Gothic, since the Vandals might have used Gothic as liturgical language.

The epigram in the Latin Anthology, of North African origin and disputed date, contains a fragment in a Germanic language that some authors believe to be Vandalic, although the fragment itself refers to the language as "Gothic". This may be because both languages were East Germanic and closely related; scholars have pointed out in this context that Procopius refers to the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepids as "Gothic nations" and opines that they "are all of the Arian faith, and have one language called Gothic". The fragment reads:

Other surviving Vandalic words are , "master" and , "King of the Vandals".

Phonology

The phonological features of Vandalic are similar to those of Gothic.

Vowels

The following vowel inventory is based on Wrede:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

! colspan="2" rowspan="2" |

! colspan="2" |Front

! colspan="2" |Central

! colspan="2" |Back

!<small>short</small> !! <small>long</small>

!colspan="2" |High

| align="center" |

|align="center" |

| align="center" |

!colspan="2" |Mid

!colspan="2" |Low

Vandalic was sometimes written by Latin authors.

The Proto-Germanic long vowel * is often written in Vandalic names as (, ), but it is also represented as , .

The Proto-Germanic short vowel * is often written as in Vandalic when it was not followed by *. For example, contains -i because g comes after the vowel, but retains the *e since r comes after the vowel. It could either mean that * turned into in Vandalic or that the Vandalic short was interpreted as by non-natives.

Similar to Gothic, Vandalic does not seem to have i-umlaut. One example of items that demonstrate the lack of umlaut are names that contain the form * (< Proto-Germanic 'army'): , , , vs. Old English , the latter of which does show umlaut with the Proto-Germanic *a having shifted to e. where it has changed to . For example, compare the Vandalic form (as in ) 'spear' to Old English .

The word-initial inherited from Proto-Germanic does not consistently appear in Vandalic names recorded by Greek or Latin authors (e.g., the element in and , from Proto-Germanic 'army'). Sometimes the same name appears with and without , depending on the author. However, royal names on Vandal coins use a conservative official spelling, with the always being written. or -o (as in Old Dutch or Old High German) as their equivalents of this ending instead; compare Old English against the potential Vandalic form *.

Vocabulary

The tables below show various Vandalic words, phrases and forms that survive in (or as) names and various Latin texts. The majority of these were taken from .