Syntactic differences between Gothic and Greek in Wulfia's translation of the Bible

Abstract

In our paper we are going to concentrate upon the analysis of Gothic, the oldest literary language of Germania. We will take into account text samples of the Gothic Bible, namely, chapters Luke 1 and 2, as well as Matthew 6 and 8, and compare them with the original Greek text. The Gothic version of the Bible is based upon the Greek Bible and it is said to be a word for word translation of it. The translation was done by an Arian bishop named Wulfila who lived in the years c. 311–382 A.D. Although the Gothic text seems to be a literal translation of the original text, we found some areas where Gothic and Greek deviate from each other as far as syntax is concerned. It is those areas of difference that we are going to discuss.