Gothic Language

Gothic Language, the oldest extant member of the Teutonic family. Of this, only one document (and that of the form used by the Mceso-Goths of the lower Danube in the fourth century) survives, the Codex Argenteus (Silver Codex), which is preserved in the University of Upsala in Sweden, and which contains portions of the Gospels and other fragments of the Gothic version of the Bible made by Bishop Ulfilas, apostle of the Moeso-Goths, who died about the year 380. Gothic is usually spoken of as a member of the Low German in contradistinction to the High German branch of the Teutonic group; but at that time no such distinction existed, the High German not having yet been differentiated, and it would be more correct to say that it represents the oldest known form of Teutonic speech which was originally of exclusively Low German type. The correct form of the word is Gotic, as always written by the people themselves and by the Romans, but the vicious spelling Gothic, due to Greek influence, is now too firmly established to be set aside. The language continued to be spoken in Moesia (the present Servia and Bulgaria) till the ninth century, when it died out without leaving any issue, as was the case with the Vandal, Burgundian, Lombard, and so many other Teutonic tongues spoken about the same period. [Teutonic Languages.]