Vandalic language

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==

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: • 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. This could point to either a loss of the sound represented by or errors introduced by authors unfamiliar with the sound. The Proto-Germanic fricatives * and * often turned into or , but there are also some names in which they were retained or otherwise represented distinctly: , . Initial is sometimes written as . This could be an issue of Latin spelling or a point to the development of . Examples are , < Proto-Germanic and , < . The Proto-Germanic cluster * can be found strengthened to . The Proto-Germanic cluster * can become , as in from Proto-Germanic . == Grammar ==

Very little is known about Vandalic grammar, but some things can be extracted from extant Vandalic material. Morphology The original Proto-Germanic *-z used to mark the nominative masculine singular in nominals, which was lost in West Germanic early on, is attested within some preserved Vandalic forms as -s or as part of -x (occasionally found Romanized in some name attestations as -us). This marker is potentially to be deemed an archaic feature since it is lost in most words, with complete loss in Ostrogothic names from the 6th century onward. 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 . == Writing system ==

The few names on coins issued by the Vandalic kingdom were written in Latin script. ==See also==