Customer Reviews

An Introduction to the Gothic Language (Introductions to the older languages of Europe)

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This 190 page hardcover edition is a fine supplement to the classical works by Wright and Streitberg. Professor Bennett (born in 1907, and long associated with Notre Dame)is eminently qualified for such a work.

The work nicely intergrates Gothic within its Indo-European framework, displaying and commenting upon the relationships.

As an expert within the disapline of general Indo-European linguistics, the reader will note a healty dosage of modern linguistic terms and concepts.

The book is laid out into 28 chapters, each covering some aspect of the language (grammar, phonetics, historical aspects etc.)and each has some concluding exercises. [No answers are provided in a supplementary work (apparently), the user seeks out the answer in the work]. It is thus a book useful for classroom purposes. It has a fine 42 page Gothic-English dictionary, and a good bibliography. It also has a proper (though brief) index.

The various languages used in the text are clearly transliterated, and the type and layout is clutter-free. One objection I have is that he does not show his precise transliteration scheme for the IE (or PIE) words or for the Greek words, it appears that he is assuming that the instructor and student are familiar with his (or a standard?) scheme. As an expert with the Germanic languages he displays his adeptness here, perhaps too much so, as he seems to focus a bit heavily upon the Germanic/Latin angle as opposed to the German/IE/Greek aspects. But this may be just my bias.

The hardcover edition has 3 facsimiles of Gothic MSS, one of which is very unreadable (none on glossy paper). Bennett gives some room for discussion about the surviving texts. The hardbound edition is well made, it is smyth-sewn, no statements are made regarding the quality of the paper, but it feels acid-free.

All-in-all, a fine work, highly recommended for all students of this fine ancient language, and important for Biblical scholars as well who desire (or need) to access an early text of the NT. This grammar can get you up and running. A good book well worth $32.00.

While most Gothic language introductions and grammars assume a very thorough knowledge of Germanic comparative linguistics, this one actually defines most of the technical terms it uses. Has a good explanation of the rules and even some exercises (no answers, though). Seems adequate for classroom or self- study. Texts in Gothic are used from the very beginning (some original, some from ancient sources). Above all, the way the rules are presented and the choice of readings make this book a FUN learning experience.

This 190 page hardcover edition is a fine supplement to the classical works by Wright and Streitberg. Professor Bennett (born in 1907, and long associated with Notre Dame) is eminently qualified for such a work.

The work nicely intergrates Gothic within its Indo-European framework, displaying and commenting upon the relationships.

As an expert (i.e. Bennett) within the disapline of general Indo-European linguistics, the reader will note a healty dosage of modern linguistic terms and concepts.

The book is laid out into 28 chapters, each covering some aspect of the language (grammar, phonetics, historical aspects etc.) and each has some concluding exercises. [No answers are provided in a supplementary work (apparently), the user seeks out the answer in the work]. It is thus a book useful for classroom purposes. It has a fine 42 page Gothic-English dictionary, and a good bibliography. It also has a proper (though brief) index.

The various languages used in the text are clearly transliterated, and the type and layout is clutter-free. One objection I have is that he does not show his precise transliteration scheme for the IE (or PIE) words or for the Greek words, it appears that he is assuming that the instructor and student are familiar with his (or a standard?) scheme. As an expert with the Germanic languages he displays his adeptness here, perhaps too much so, as he seems to focus a bit heavily upon the Germanic/Latin angle as opposed to the German/IE/Greek aspects. But this may be just my bias.

The hardcover edition has 3 facsimiles of Gothic MSS, one of which is very unreadable (none on glossy paper). Bennett gives some room for discussion about the surviving texts. The hardbound edition is well made, it is smyth-sewn, no statements are made regarding the quality of the paper, but it feels acid-free.

All-in-all, a fine work, highly recommended for all students of this fine ancient language, and important for Biblical scholars as well who desire (or need) to access an early text of the NT. This grammar can get you up and running.

This is a highly praise worthy book. A good knowledge of Old English is helpful when tackling Gothic but not completely necessary. The book provides a good understanding of the history of the language as well as its place in the larger sphere of Indo-European linguistics.
Gothic is unique as the earliest attested Germanic language and the only attested East Germanic language.

An excellent and quite painless way to learn Gothic. Its biggest virtue lies in its organization. It's not a textbook, but it's definitely not a dry, dusty grammar like Joseph Wright's books (which, btw, are very useful books; they're just not the cover-to-cover type). The best thing about the book's layout is: it gets you reading Gothic right away! From the beginning, each chapter has:

1. a reading in Gothic (from Scripture generally, since practically all extant texts are of Wulfila's translation of the Bible);
2. all the vocab you need to understand it;
3. a manageable-sized description of some piece of grammar (say, a couple of classes of nouns here, a few more the next chapter) with exercises to help you drill yourself on them; and
4. some other information.

These last sections range from an easy-to-read discussion about Indo-European to the place of Gothic within the Germanic language family, to a brief history of the Gothic tribes, to (later) discussions about phonetics and morphology that are more technical, not b/c of their writing style but simply b/c they're packed with information. These stem from the book's expressed purpose of presenting Gothic not only as easily as possible for the learner, but in the context of comparative Germanics and comparative linguistics generally.

If you're not into comparative linguistics, you can ignore these parts and still learn the language with relative speed. It's a very versatile book. A decent amount of effort on each chapter of this book will amaze you with how soon you can read Gothic texts. Highly recommended.

This is an excellent introduction to the Gothic language for a beginner who does not have a thorough knowledge of Germanic linguistics. Divided into about 28 chapters, each chapter has a paragraph or so of Gothic reading (usually part of the Bible in Gothic), the applicable vocabulary, one or two new grammar topics, and a section on the history of the Gothic language, usually incorporating Germanic linguistics.

My only problems with this book are that the grammatical topics are not explained extremely clearly, so while this book is for a beginner, a background knowledge of the Indo-European/Germanic grammar structures would be very helpful. Also, there aren't really any practice exercises, except for being given verbs and nouns to conjugate/decline.

All in all, this is the best book out there for a beginner to the Gothic language.

The best book I've seen on Gothic. Layman friendly. These folks also sell Asatru rituals in West Goth and Old English.
This is the only book on Gothic I know of that is aimed at normal people and not PHds. This book belongs in the library of every student of the Old Ways. Wyatt Kaldenberg