Gothic Alphabet

Here is another challenge, come up with a way that the Gothic Alphabet (the 4th Century alphabet not the script type) not only survives to modern time, but becomes the standard alphabet for most Germanic languages.
 
Make the Churches use it ... say by making Arianism (which was what the Gothic missionaries leant towards) more popular and resilient towards religious pressure from Rome
 
Was the Gothic Script still in use as late as the 6th century? If so, then having a surviving Gothic State (and an Arian Church which uses it while attempting to convert the rest of the Germans) would be the best way to go about it.
 
Goths stay out of Roman Empire.

As soon they enter it, and whatever if directly assimilated or ruling a roman population, they would be particularly romanized, and uses of Gothic script would become quickly pointless, critically in administrative matters were the Goths were fairly absents and that was made by Romans.

Lasting Arian Christianity is impossible past the IV century : when Germans entered in Romania, they began to mix with population and if it managed to survives up to the VI century (in the Homeist variant, that is more close to orthodox Christianism than the original Arianism) as it was barely and actively maintained by the kings in order to preserve the separation between Romans and Germans (both for avoiding the alliance and merging of their respective elites and the constitution of a stronger nobility, and to preserve the fighting role of German population) and even there, they didn't really prevented the individual conversions of Germans to Orthodoxy (while the conversion of Romans, or even Germans entered after the V in Romania, to arianism is anecdotal).
 
Here is another challenge, come up with a way that the Gothic Alphabet (the 4th Century alphabet not the script type) not only survives to modern time, but becomes the standard alphabet for most Germanic languages.

Since that was the runic alphabet, and THAT survived to some time after 1000, im sure its possible. Im also sure its pretty improbable.

Wacky idea: cyril and methodius use an extended runic alphabet to write slavic languages.

More likely, someone gets an eastern germanic tribe to convert to orthodoxy=catholicism, and they keep their bible. Then the west germanics want one too.

Third possibility. The Irish convert the anglo saxons, and use runes for writing stuff, rather than the latin alphabet. Then the equivalent of the synod of whitby goes the other way, England stays 'celtic christian', basically visible mostly in the script, and the evangelization of the continent that was spearheaded by the Angles and Irish uses runes. This would likely mean translating the bible into western vernaculars early on.
 
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Since that was the runic alphabet, and THAT survived to some time after 1000, im sure its possible. Im also sure its pretty improbable.

Wacky idea: cyril and methodius use an extended runic alphabet to write slavic languages.

More likely, someone gets an eastern germanic tribe to convert to orthodoxy=catholicism, and they keep their bible. Then the west germanics want one too.

Third possibility. The Irish convert the anglo saxons, and use runes for writing stuff, rather than the latin alphabet. Then the equivalent of the synod of whitby goes the other way, England stays 'celtic christian', basically visible mostly in the script, and the evangelization of the continent that was spearheaded by the Angles and Irish uses runes. This would likely mean translating the bible into western vernaculars early on.

Well, the Gothic alphabet had some characters in it which were based on runic letters, but it was also heavily influenced by Greek and wasn't Runic in and of itself. Also, the Irish did not use runes; their native alphabet was ogham, which had no relation to the Gothic or Runic alphabets and appears to have been truly native in birth. And, in any case, it was largely been replaced by the Latin alphabet by this period. Even if the Irish fully converted the English (and they did convert many of them; the northern kingdom of Northumbria was initially converted by Irish missionaries). I don't see any reason they would use any other alphabet than the Latin in that case.
 
Well, the Gothic alphabet had some characters in it which were based on runic letters, but it was also heavily influenced by Greek and wasn't Runic in and of itself. Also, the Irish did not use runes; their native alphabet was ogham, which had no relation to the Gothic or Runic alphabets and appears to have been truly native in birth. And, in any case, it was largely been replaced by the Latin alphabet by this period. Even if the Irish fully converted the English (and they did convert many of them; the northern kingdom of Northumbria was initially converted by Irish missionaries). I don't see any reason they would use any other alphabet than the Latin in that case.

Oops. Right.
 
We talked, briefly, about this in another thread

The problem with no-Latin scripts is the dominance of Latin script since the beginning of common era in western Europe (probably influencing the appearance of runic and oghamic ones) : if not reduced to a declining stage by romanisation, it would be by christianization eventually, as it happened to Ogham script OTL.
 
Youd really have to have the Bible translated into the local language and used as the language and script of christianity.

This would be tough, and as LSCatalina says, it never happened in the West. OTL in the East, you had Wulfila using a modified Latin alphabet for the Gothic bible, but 1) that was a modified Latin alphabet, and the Arian Heresy, too boot; 2) and Cyril and Methodius invented (probably Glagolitic) an alphabet to write the slavic languages in. But note, even the the Cyrillic alphabet (a modified Greek alphabet) won out.

How you get something that isnt modified Greek or Latin, I dont know.

My best guess is the Irish translate the Bible into Irish (instead of using Latin, as the did iotl), and then, when it came time to convert the Saxons, translate it into Saxon, writing it with the runes the Saxons were already using.

Since, otl, no one much bothered with translating bibles at that time, it would be tough.
 
Youd really have to have the Bible translated into the local language and used as the language and script of christianity.
Christianity was definitely too associated with Romania to that happening. Greek or Latin, that's the choices.
And seeing how much Greek christianity was missionary (Cyril and Methodius conversion of Slavs wasn't that popular in Byzantine court) and somewhat limited to imperial diplomacy...

My best guess is the Irish translate the Bible into Irish (instead of using Latin, as the did iotl), and then, when it came time to convert the Saxons, translate it into Saxon, writing it with the runes the Saxons were already using.
There's a big problem. The only liturgic languages were hebrew, greek and latin. Nothing more (the adoption of slavon as such was surprising even OTL).
Having gaelic and oghamic considered fitting for a sacred usage for a catholic-orthodox liturgy is simply a big no-no.
It's not "no one much bothered with translating", it's that translating bibles was associated with heresy. Period.
Conversion of Saxons : what made Saxons preserving up to the VII their pagan rites was less Irish and Bretons being lazy about it, than Saxons willing to preserve their ways (among other reasons, in order to keep themselves distinct from the brittano-roman population, and a lack of "diplomatic" motivation to convert)
 
Getting the Franks to accept Arian instead of Nicene Christianity (and move Arianism from a Gothic-only club to a translate-Bible-into-every-native-language-club) and you're half-way there.

Also, isn't the Gothic alphabet more derivative of the Greek one?
 
Getting the Franks to accept Arian instead of Nicene Christianity (and move Arianism from a Gothic-only club to a translate-Bible-into-every-native-language-club) and you're half-way there.


1) Eastern Germans converted to arianism OTL because it was part of the Arian or Arian-favoring emperors.
It was accepted by their rulers because it gave them not only a good religious base on which make support their legitimacy (the king being associated to Christ, subordinate but more or less equal to God) but because it allowed them as well to be more accepted by Rome.

2) Why did Franks never were converted to Arianism? Less unified (a collection of tribal kings), already in the favors of Romans (being relative sure allies in this region), and finally support from Arian emperors ceased, short of Arian emperors.

3) When Colvis strengthened his power, Arianism was pretty much a non-option : it would have meant a submission over Theodoric's dominion, a certain clash with local elites (essentially, to not say entirely, orthodox) that even when he was pagan saw him in a good light (mostly because he WASN'T arian).

4) Why Arianism was a german-only club? It was theorically such because germanic kings wanted to preserve the distinction between german and roman elites : preventing the appearance of a merged romano-german nobility, having the possibility to lower the roman elites (that were, in urban places, mostly religious ones as bishops), and to maintain the distinction in order to, perhaps, keep the german elites as the bulk of armed forces (fearing that a romanisation would make them lost that).

Even with supporting it as they could, they failed.
Because whatever they wanted, they couldn't prevent the effective merging of population (it's one of the reasons Franks managed to dominate, they didn't cared too much about this merge happening) and the conversion to orthodoxy (while roman conversion to Arianism are almost unheard of)

Basically : Roman Orthodoxy was attractive, as it represented a will to put roots on the country and allowed wider alliances. Gothic Arianism wasn't because it maintained a less and less desirable separation and increased the risks of clashs.

Also, isn't the Gothic alphabet more derivative of the Greek one?
Being not greek, whatever in script or language, or latin or hebrew, is enough to consider its use in a liturgic manner as heterodoxial.
 
I'm going to try resurrecting this thread because I just thought of an idea. Would it be possible to bring the Gothic Alphabet back as a Germanic alphabet through a cultural revival or something, maybe during the 30 Year's War or the something?
 
I'm going to try resurrecting this thread because I just thought of an idea. Would it be possible to bring the Gothic Alphabet back as a Germanic alphabet through a cultural revival or something, maybe during the 30 Year's War or the something?

Probably not. The Latin alphabet had been well-entrenched for around a thousand years by this stage, and was the alphabet used by pretty much every country in Western and Central (and quite a few in Eastern) Europe. What's more, this kind of "cultural revival" sounds more like the sort of thing associated with the 19th-century Romantic nationalist movements. Seventeenth-century people tended not to think in nationalistic terms (or at least in terms that modern people would think of as nationalistic), so they're unlikely to adopt a whole new alphabet just to be more "Germanic".
 
Well, the Gothic alphabet had some characters in it which were based on runic letters, but it was also heavily influenced by Greek and wasn't Runic in and of itself.
The character shapes, and the order of the letters, were often Greek, but the names of the letters seem to have been the 24 rune names, except for the additional signs.
 
Probably not. The Latin alphabet had been well-entrenched for around a thousand years by this stage, and was the alphabet used by pretty much every country in Western and Central (and quite a few in Eastern) Europe. What's more, this kind of "cultural revival" sounds more like the sort of thing associated with the 19th-century Romantic nationalist movements. Seventeenth-century people tended not to think in nationalistic terms (or at least in terms that modern people would think of as nationalistic), so they're unlikely to adopt a whole new alphabet just to be more "Germanic".

my idea is to tie it to Protestantism, so that the Protestant leaders would see as a way to further distance themselves from Rome.
 
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