Lesson 5

In this lesson you'll learn:
- How to ask rhetorical questions
- How to decline O-stem nouns
- How to say which language(s) you speak and ask which language(s) someone speaks
- The full declension of adjectives
- The full declension of "the"

Rhetorical questions

If you bump up to someone, you might say: "Hey, can't you see!?", of course an answer isn't expected here. Phrases which look like questions, but without an expected answer are rhetorical questions.

There is a special way to form rhetorical questions in Gothic. If it is a negation (question with not, can't etc.), -u is added to "ni", you get "niu".
Example: "Can't you see?", "Niu magt saihwan?".

This can also be done with the word "ja", which is changed in "jau".

An example can be found in John in the Bible.

John 7:48
     sai, jau ainshun þize reike galaubidedi imma aiþþau Fareisaie?

Literally: "Look, yes (rhetorical) any - of the (plur.) - rulers (gen. Plur.) - believed (subj. Plur.) - him - or - of the Pharisees?

    Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?

How to decline O-stems

We have already seen masculine and neuter nouns, but what about feminine nouns? O-stem nouns are important feminine nouns.

The o-stem nouns look a bit like the feminine adjective, let's look back:

• Nom. Sing. = mikila
• Gen. Sing. = mikilaizos
• Dat. Sing. = mikilai
• Acc. Sing. = mikila

The difference is that in the genitive singular (and plural) the "aiz" is not used in the noun.

Let's look at the word stibna (voice):

• Nom. Sing. Stibna
• Gen. Sing. Stibnos
• Dat. Sing. Stibnai
• Acc. Sing. Stibna

 

• Nom. Plur. Stibnos
• Gen. Plur. Stibno
• Dat. Plur. Stibnom
• Acc. Plur. Stibnos

The nominative and accusative are the same in feminine words, both nouns and adjectives. The only difference between O-stem nouns and the adjective is that in the adjective "aiz" before "os" is added before the suffix (the bold part) in the genitive and that the dative plural is "aim" instead of "om", take a look:

• Nom. Sing. Mikila
• Gen. Sing. Mikilaizos
• Dat. Sing. Mikilai
• Acc. Sing. Mikila

• Nom. Plur. mikilos
• Gen. plur. mikilaizo
• Dat. plur. mikilaim
• Acc. plur. mikilos  

 How to say which language(s) you speak or to ask which language(s) someone speaks

With this knowledge, we can learn how to say which languages we speak or to ask which languages someone speaks, if we know the right words.
"Which" as in "Which language?" is hwileiks (adj. A).

Language can be translated with razda (f. O).

Above, in the part about the adjective declensions, we learned how to use an adjective in combination with a feminine noun. In "Which language do you speak", language is the thing which is spoken, this is the accusative. We see above that mikila is the accusative singular feminine form of the adjective. This means that hwileika is what we need to use here. Razda simply stays razda, as this is the accusative form too. We learned in an earlier lesson that "you speak (sing.)" = rodeis. Now we can translate "Which language do you speak?"
This becomes:

Hwileika razda rodeis?

If you want to use the plural, you simply use the plural accusative form of hwileika and razda: hwileikos and razdos

Hwileikos razdos rodeis?

Now what if you want to say which languages you speak? You can use "rodja" (I speak) and "razda" (language accusative singular form), but how do you say that you speak French or Gothic? For this we'll learn some new vocabulary:

• Gothic = *Gutisks (adj. A)
• French = *Fragkisks (adj. A)
• Greek = *Krekisks (adj. A)
• Hebrew = *Haibraiwisks (adj. A)
• Spanish = *Heispanisks (adj. A)
• Finnish = *Finnisks (adj. A)

Now you only need to add the fem. Sing. Acc. form in front of razda, so if you'd want to say, "I speak Gothic", you'd use *Gutiska:

Rodja *Gutiska razda

The same for the other words:

Rodja *Heispaniska razda
Rodja *Haibraiwiska razda
Etc.

The masculine and neuter A-stem adjective

The masculine and neuter forms are a bit different:

• Masculine / Neuter
• Nom. Sing. Mikils / mikil
• Gen. Sing. Mikilis / mikilis
• Dat. Sing. Mikilamma / mikilamma
• Acc. Sing. Mikilana / mikil

• Nom. plur. mikilai / mikila
• Gen. plur. mikilaize / mikilaize
• Dat. plur. mikilaim / mikilaim
• Acc. plur. mikilans / mikila

The dative form of both the masculine and neuter is the same in singular and plural, just like the genitive.
The nominative and accusative of the neuter form are the same in the singular (mikil and mikil) and in the plural (final -a).

 As you see, they are quite similar to the full demonstrative pronoun, or "the".

The full demonstrative pronoun or "the"

•  Masculine / Neuter / Feminine
• Nom. Sing. sa / þata / so
• Gen. Sing. þis / þis / þizos
• Dat. Sing. þamma / þamma / þizai
• Acc. Sing. þana / þata / þo

• Nom. plur. þai / þo / þos
  Gen. plur. þize / þize / þizo
  Dat. plur. þaim / þaim / þaim
  Acc. plur. þans / þo / þos

Vocabulary:

Language = razda (f. O)
about = bi + acc.
Voice = stibna (f. O)
Border = marka (f. O)
many, much = filu + gen.
he/she says = qiþiþ
other = anþar (adj. A)
land = land (n. A)
not .... but = ni ... ak
nobody = ni manna
he/she can = mag
except = alja + dat.
not at all = ni allis
boka = letter (f. O) (Plural = text)
boko = of the text
Aiwlalios = of the Eulalia

Reading text:
"Niu sa skalks filu razdo rodeiþ?",
qiþiþ du imma (anþaramma skalka) þiudans ana þamma akra bi skalk is. Sa þiudans ist in anþaramma landa jah her ana þamma landa, ana markai fragkiskai ni rodjand in Gutiskai razdai, ak in Fragkiskai razdai. Ni manna mag rodjan þo Gutiska razda her, alja þamma skalka þis þiudanis. Jainar ist Fragkisks gadrauhts. Sa skalks rodeiþ miþ imma in þizai Fragkiskai razdai:
 "A czo no's voldret concreidre li rex pagiens."
Afar þata sa gadrauhts qiþiþ du þiudana: "Hwa!? Sa skalks ni rodeiþ allis in Fragkiskai razdai! Is þatainei qiþiþ waurda boko Aiwlalios!"