Goths - Etymology

Etymology

The Goths have had many names, possibly due to their population being composed of many separate ethnic groups. People known by similar names were key elements of Proto-Indo-European and later Germanic migrations. Nevertheless, they believed (as does the mainstream of scholarship) that the names derived from a single prehistoric ethnonym owned by a uniform culture in the middle 1st millennium BC, the original "Goths".

Etymologically, the ethnonym of the Goths derives from the stem Guton-", which gave Proto-Germanic *Gutaniz (also surviving in Gutes (Swedish Gutar), the self-designation of the inhabitans of Gotland in Sweden). Related, but not identical, is the Scandinavian tribal name Geat (the inhabitants of Swedish Götaland/Geatland), from the Proto-Germanic *Gautoz (plural *Gautaz). Both *Gautoz and *Gutaniz are derived (specifically they are two ablaut grades) from the Proto-Germanic word *geutan, meaning "to pour". The Indo-European root of the "pour" derivation would be *gheu-d- as it is listed in the American Heritage Dictionary (AHD). *gheu-d- is a centum form. The AHD relies on Julius Pokorny for the same root. The ethnonym has been connected with the name of a river flowing through Västergötland in Sweden, the Göta älv, which drains Lake Vänern into the Kattegat.

Interestingly Old Norse records do not distinguish between the Goths and the Gutes (Gotlanders) and both are called Gotar in Old West Norse. The Old East Norse term for both Goths and Gotlanders seems to have been Gutar (for instance, in the Gutasaga and in the runic inscription of the Rökstone). However, the Geats are clearly differentiated from the Goths, or Gutes, in both Old Norse and Old English literature.

At some time in European prehistory, consonant changes according to Grimm's Law created a *g from the *gh and a *t from the *d. This same law more or less rules out *ghedh-, The *dh in that case would become a *d instead of a *t.

According to the rules of Indo-European ablaut, the full grade (containing an *e), *gheud-, might be replaced with the zero-grade (the *e disappears), *ghud-, or the o-grade (the *e changes to an *o), *ghoud-, accounting for the various forms of the name. The zero-grade is preserved in modern times in the Lithuanian ethnonym for Belarusians, Gudai (earlier Baltic Prussian territory before Slavic conquests by about 1200 CE), and in certain Prussian towns in the territory around the Vistula River in Gothiscandza, today Poland (Gdynia, Gdansk). The use of all three grades suggests that the name derives from an Indo-European stage; otherwise, it would be from a line descending from one grade. However, when and where the ancestors of the Goths assigned this name to themselves and whether they used it in Indo-European or proto-Germanic times remain unsolved questions of historical linguistics and prehistoric archaeology.

A compound name, Gut-þiuda, at root the "Gothic people", appears in the Gothic Calendar (aikklesjons fullaizos ana gutþiudai gabrannidai). Parallel occurrences indicate that it may mean "country of the Goths": Old Icelandic Sui-þjòd, "Sweden"; Old English Angel-þēod, "Anglia"; Old Irish Cruithen-tuath, “country of the Picts”. Evidently, this way of forming a country or people name is not unique to Germanic.