Gothic Runic Inscriptions in Scandinavia

Abstract

Runologists from Sophus Bugge (1866–67) to, most recently, Edith Marold (2010) have claimed that there was a Gothic (East Germanic) linguistic element amongst the older futhark inscriptions of Scandinavia. In the present paper, this claim is viewed against a horizon of nineteenth-century Danish and Swedish nationalism, where “Goths” and “Gothic” became politically sensitive terms in view of the purported emigration of the Goths from a homeland in Scandinavia. This is followed by a discussion of the linguistic assumptions underlying the classification of some of the early Scandinavian inscriptions as Gothic, assumptions which (with Peterson 1998) are all rejected — including Marold’s recent insistence on the final -a of the Etelhem clasp form wrta ’created’ being a Gothic 3 pt. sg. ind. ending, cf. Gothic waúrhta ‘worked’. It is argued that this -a is as likely to reflect an Old High German (or even West Germanic) suffix, cf. OHG frumita ‘(he) furthered’.

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