a question on protogermanic

[Ca Putt]

short question:

what is the singular(provided there is one^^) of Dugunthiz, Jugunthiz, Herunautoz, Skaduganganz and Wargozez probably.

thanks in advance.

[vartan]

My uneducated guess would be Dugunthi, Jugunthi, Herunauto, Skadugangan, and Wargoze.

[Ca Putt]

hmm simple extra "z" as plural, could work. Thanks for answering at all, doen't seem to be one of the most popular topics right now, I think I should rename the thread to something like "EB-Babe Pic collection" :clown:

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I remember seeing somewhere that "oz" was plural in some Proto-Germanic, so the "Herunautoz" could be the "Herunaut" in singular. But that doesn't quite look right and I know nothing about Proto-Germanic.

[Mediolanicus]

I remember seeing somewhere that "oz" was plural in some Proto-Germanic, so the "Herunautoz" could be the "Herunaut" in singular. But that doesn't quite look right and I know nothing about Proto-Germanic.

That was my idea too - an uneducated guess based on modern Dutch.

So I would say Dugunth, Jugunth, Herunaut, Skadugangan and Wargoz.

[Moros]

That was my idea too - an uneducated guess based on modern Dutch.

So I would say Dugunth, Jugunth, Herunaut, Skadugangan and Wargoz.

Jugunth I suppose most be correct seeing that in German we have a D there (Jugend). Probably comming from the th. In dutch there's also a d sound (Jeugd). In English we have youth.

So putting that in perspective with the other words it seems to be that you'd have z to make it plurarl. As in English, Dutch and German. Bound by a vowel. Tough I have no clue on what the choice of vowel is based for each word.

Either way blitz or gamegeek2 will probably enlighten us soon.

[Cadwalader]

I googled "protogermanic grammar" and immediately got a truly fine site: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/books/pgmc03.html#3_2

There was a table there:

3.2.5. The nt- stems

PGmc Go. ON OE OHG
Nom.sg. frijund frijōnds frændi frēond friunt
Gen.sg. frijundiza frijōndis frænda frēondes friuntes
Dat.sg. frijundi frijōnd frænda frīend friunte
Acc.sg. frijundun frijōnd frænda frēond friunt
Nom.pl. frijundiz frijōnds frændr frīend friunt
Gen.pl. frijundōn frijōndē frænda frēonda friunto
Dat.pl. frijundmiz frijōndam frændom frēondum friuntum
Acc.pl. frijundunz frijōnds frændr frīend friunt

EDIT: I can't copy and paste it so it looks like a proper table, it seems. You can easily find it on the site, though.

By the way, I realise that my half-assed google search doesn't prove anything; I'm hoping that a knowledgeable forum member will come and clear this up.

[Holtingar]

The Plurals depend on which declension the noun belongs to.
A lot of words in Proto-Germanic fall into the "a-declension" (also called the o-declension from an Indo-European perspective), so *wargaz 'outlaw, wolf' would pluralize as wargôz .
The final 'z' is not a plural marker, but a regular ending which occurs in most noun classes. It is cognate with the -s ending of classical languages. The vowel that preceeds the -z is important in a-declension nouns. -az is singular -ôz plural in that case.

So, to decline a masculine a-class noun like *wargaz, you would have (slashes and parenthetical characters indicate alternate endings depending on what is evidenced in the daughter languages):
Singular. Plural.
nom. wargaz wargôz
gen. wargez(a) wargon/em
dat. warga(i) wargamiz
acc. wargam/an warganz

and more to the original point in this thread an i-class: *Jugunthiz

Singular. Plural.
nom. jugunthiz jugunthijiz (this is sometimes rendered simply *jugunthîz)
gen. jugunthis(a) jugunthijam
dat. jugunthê/ai jugunthimz
acc. jugunthim jugunthinz

There are a lot of other declensions too, u-declensions, ô-declensions, n-declensions, and other consonant stems

This system of nominal declension is a common aspect of all Indo-European languages; the a-declension (nominative ending -az) is directly cognate with the o-declension in Greek (nom. -os) and Latin (-us).

On a side note, this may not match up precisely with the *variant* of Proto-Germanic depicted in the game. My understanding of the phonology and grammar is based on the reconstructions theorized by Joseph Voyles, Vladimir Orel, Don Ringe, and August Fick (who seem to be in general concord though they differ slightly in minor details).
I'm playing the 2.0 mod, and a lot of the proto-germanic words seem muddled, that isn't to say they're wrong, but I just don't know what stage in the language's development the authors were attempting to depict. There are reconstructions appearing side-by-side that would seem to be from different stages in the language's evolution. Some of the consonants are represented in a way that would make me believe that the mod authors attempted to depict the language during a transitional stage while Grimm's and Verner's laws were still working their effects on the consonant system. I can get on board with that, but Grimm's law is postulated to have occurred around 500 BC, WAY before 270, so that transition would have been complete by the time of the game. Verner's law also would have likely been complete, though it has weird dialectical reflexes depending on which Germanic language you look at (Gothic seems to have 'undone' Verner's law in many places).
I also don't understand what's going on with 'a' and 'o' in these reconstructions. By the time of the game, short 'o' and short 'a' had merged to 'a', and long 'â' and long 'ô' had merged to 'ô'...though I believe this change may still have been underway at that time.

I've been looking for some info about the form of Proto-Germanic depicted in the game, but haven't found anything comprehensive yet.
Again, my intention isn't to criticize or anything, I've been studying comparative historical linguistics for years and I haven't seen the concept applied in such a creative enterprise as EB anywhere. I'm completely blown away by the idea that there is a free mod for a computer game that had developers who are well-read enough to have even known what Proto-Germanic is.

[gamegeek2]

Thing is, EB doesn't use Proto-Germanic, but rather Pre-Germanic Indo-European. Proto=Germanic is about 100 AD, out of the EB timeframe - a good number of sound changes happened over those 372 years.

BTW, I think Jugunthiz and Dugunthiz are in the singular.

[vartan]

Thing is, EB doesn't use Proto-Germanic, but rather Pre-Germanic Indo-European. Proto=Germanic is about 100 AD, out of the EB timeframe - a good number of sound changes happened over those 372 years.

BTW, I think Jugunthiz and Dugunthiz are in the singular.
I'd be really concerned if there was any pre-germanic IE in there. Wooooh. Sends shivers down my spine.

[Holtingar]

Thing is, EB doesn't use Proto-Germanic, but rather Pre-Germanic Indo-European. Proto=Germanic is about 100 AD, out of the EB timeframe - a good number of sound changes happened over those 372 years.

BTW, I think Jugunthiz and Dugunthiz are in the singular.

Right, Jugunthiz is singular. That's what I typed in the declension in my earlier post.

I know it's pre-Germanic, but a lot of the names exhibit fully developed Proto-Germanic traits, like Verner's Law, o>a, etc. these appear side-by-side with some of the more Pre-Germanic IE vocab.
I guess my question was more whether different settlements or different regions were intended to exhibit dialectical variations.

Many of the faction member names exhibit fully-developed Proto-Germanic names: ex. Hermalausaz, if that were a Pre-Germanic IE name we would expect a form like *Xermolousos. Note that I ended that one with an 's' not a 'z', the -z endings were a result of a residual or final reflex of Verner's law: Because of the shift to initial syllable stress, word-final voiceless fricatives ('f' 'th' 'h' 's') became voiced, again this was a later reflex of the regular constraints of Verner's law, which preccede the shift to initial syllable stress where those voiceless fricitaves became voiced fricatives before a stressed syllable. ex. [where ' after a vowel = stress] IE *pHtê'r 'father' > PreGmc. *fathê'r > ProtoGmc. *fa'ðêr, contrasted with IE *bhre'Htêr 'brother' > PreGmc *brâthêr > Proto-Germanic *brôthêr. By the time Verner's law and the stress shift had worked their way through the system, the changes expanded to affect word-final fricatives because the first syllable of the following word in a sentence would have by then been stressed. ex. PreGmc IE *swordo's xropno's 'black raven' > Pre-Germanic *sworto's xrofno's > Proto-Germanic. *swa'rtaz hra'bnaz. Logically, one would expect *hra'bnaz; to end in an 's' since there is no following stressed syllable, but the difference would have been analogically leveled so that even a sentence-final word would exhibit a -z from an inherited IE -s.

My point in all of this is, the defining characteristics of Proto-Germanic are Grimm's Law, Verner's Law, and the shift to initial syllable stress (there are a host of others, including but those three are the most prominent). Grimm's law is posited to have occured around 500 BC and Verner's law occured shortly after, or possibly even simultaneously. That leaves only the shift to initial stress, which interacted with the final stage of Verner's law while it was still underway, so it couldn't have happened much later that 300 BC (though I may have to check that). And the date at which you can begin calling it Proto-Germanic and not Pre-Germanic IE depends on whose opinion you follow. To some Indo-Europeanists, the effects of Grimm's law (500 BC) are radical enough to warrant removing 'Indo-European' from the designation all together. The point is, you can safely call the language as a *form* of Proto-Germanic if it includes those three changes, which many of the names in EB seem to. If it was Pre-Germanic IE, the faction would be called *Swebho(s)es and, as mentioned earlier, character names like *Hermalausaz would appear as *Xermolousos.

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I want to reiterate that It's amazing that this kind of thing can even be discussed with regard to a mod that you can download for FREE.
One thing that I really appreciate about the mod is the way it promotes an accurate view of a peroid that most people today don't know much about at all.

Playing a game as detailed as this can only make someone new to the period want to learn more.

I'm not a hard-core gamer, or even a gamer at all - I came across EB almost by accident, and I've never seen anything that even comes close to the level of studious attention to historical detail seen in EB.
Hats off to the whole team.

[vartan]

I want to reiterate that It's amazing that this kind of thing can even be discussed with regard to a mod that you can download for FREE.
One thing that I really appreciate about the mod is the way it promotes an accurate view of a peroid that most people today don't know much about at all.

Playing a game as detailed as this can only make someone new to the period want to learn more.

I'm not a hard-core gamer, or even a gamer at all - I came across EB almost by accident, and I've never seen anything that even comes close to the level of studious attention to historical detail seen in EB.
Hats off to the whole team.
Sad thing is how easy it can be (but not must be) to take for granted all the small things like the linguistics behind the native names of units. Still, considering the fact that the only line in the installation agreement reads something like "I will read more history"...:book: