In its vocabulary Gothic has a number of Indo Germanic words which are not found in the other Germanic languages, as `to breathe forth,' Latin animus, `breath;' aljis, 'other,' Latin alius. On the other hand, it has no etymological repre sentation of such common Germanic words as do, say, fall, mother, for which it substitutes taujan, (ripen, driusan, ai.pei. As might be ex pected in a translation of the Bible. Greek and Latin loan-words are quite numerous. It has likewise borrowed a few Celtic words, as kelikn, `tower,' from Gallic celicnon, and two from the Slavic, plinsjan, 'to dance,' and smakka, 'fig' (cf. Old Church Slavic !desalt, smoky).
Literary Gothic. is sometimes termed West Gothic, to distinguish it from East. or Krim, Gothic. The Crimean Goths preserved their iden tity until the sixteenth century. A collection of eighty-six Krim Gothic words was made in 1595 by a Fleming named Busbeck. The list, which is of great value as being the only remnant of this dialect of Gothic, is in general accurate, al though some errors naturally crept in, as han'r, `thousand,' which is a loan-word from Persian hazer. It adds a number of words to the Gothic vocabulary. as micra. 'ant,' tint*, 'ring,' ada, `egg.' waghen, 'wagon.' In phonology Krim Gothic seems to have differed from the language of Wulfila. The vocabulary of Busbeek contains little information on inflection. If we may judge, however, from such hints as Krim oeghene be side Gothic augdna, 'eyes,' Krim ahtc,' 'eight,' beside Gothic ahtau, Krim singhen, 'to sing,' be side Gothic siggwan, Krim tag (for *dag), 'day,' beside Gothic dags, it would seem that a change had taken place within the twelve centuries be tween Wulfila and Busbeck, which was, roughly speaking, analogous to the transition from Old to Middle High German.
To the same East Germanic group as the Gothic belong the Vandal and Burgundian lan guages, of which only scanty fragments, chiefly proper names, survive.
The Gothic alphabet was invented by Wulfila. He took as his basis the Greek letters, adding some Latin characters, and a few signs from the runes which were previously in use among the Goths. The number of letters was twenty-seven, of which two, corresponding to the Greek koppa and sampi, had numerical values alone, and a third, the equivalent of the Greek chi, was used only in foreign proper names. The alphabet really consisted, therefore, of twenty-four letters, which are, in modern editions of Gothic texts, transliterated into the ordinary Roman alphabet with the addition of p and hu.
Consult: Bernhardt, Kurzgefasste gotische Grammatik (Halle, 1885) ; Braune, Gotische Grammatik (4th ed., ib., 1895) ; Streitberg, Gotisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg, 1896) ; Wright, Primer of the Gothic Language (2d ed., Oxford, 1899) ; Kluge, "Geschichte der gotischen Sprache," in Paul, Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, vol. i. (2d ed., Strassburg, 1901) ; Skeat, Mwso-Gothic Glossary (London, 1868) ; Balz, Comparative Glossary of the Gothic Lan guage (Mayville, Wis., 1887-89) ; Feist, Grun driss der gotischen Etymologie (Strassburg, 1888) ; Uhlenbeck, Kurzgefasstes etymologisches der gotischen Sprache (2d ed., Am sterdam, 1900) Tomasehek, Die Goten in Taurien (Vienna, 1881) ; Loewe, Die Reste der Germanen am Schivarzen Meere (Halle, 1896) ; Wrede, Ueber die Sprache der Wandalen (Strassburg, 1886) ; id., Ueber die Sprache der Ostgoten in Italien (ib., 1891). For editions of the Gothic texts, see the bibliography on WULFILA.