Principles Old English phonetic changes

In 1737, Lars Roberg, a physician of Uppsala, made a woodcut of one page of the manuscript; it was included in Benzelius' edition of 1750, and the woodcut is preserved in the Linköping Diocesan and Regional Library. Another edition of 1854–7 by Anders Uppström contained an artist's rendition of another page. In 1927, a facsimile edition of the Codex was published.

The standard edition is that published by Wilhelm Streitberg in 1910 as Die Gotische Bibel (The Gothic Bible).

4. What phonetic characteristics differentiated the Proto- Germanic language from Indo- European parent language?

Sound changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic

The following changes are known or presumed to have occurred in the history of Proto-Germanic up to the point that it began to break up into distinct dialects. The changes are roughly in chronological order, with changes that operate on the outcome of earlier ones appearing later in the list.^[3]

Loans into Proto-Germanic from other Indo-European languages can be relatively dated by how well they conform to Germanic sound laws. Since the dates of borrowings and sound laws are not precisely known, using the loans for absolute, or calendar, chronology would be impossible.

Most loans from Celtic appear to have been made before or during the Germanic Sound Shift.^[20] For instance, one specimen *rīkz 'ruler' was borrowed from Celtic *rīgos 'king', with g → k.^[21] It is clearly not native because PIE *ē → ī is not typical of Germanic but is a feature of Celtic languages. Another is *walhaz "foreigner; Celt" from the Celtic tribal name Volcae with c → h and o → a. Other likely Celtic loans include *ambahtaz 'servant', *brunjōn 'mailshirt', *gīslaz 'hostage', *īsarna 'iron', *lēkijaz 'healer', *lauđan 'lead', *Rīnaz 'Rhine', and *tūnaz, tūnan 'fortified enclosure'.^[22][23] These loans would likely have been borrowed during the Celtic Hallstatt and early La Tène cultures when the Celts dominated central Europe, although the period spanned several centuries.

From East Iranian have come *hanapiz 'hemp' (cf. Persian kanab), *humalaz, humalōn 'hops' (cf. Ossetian xumællæg), *keppōn ~ skēpan 'sheep' (cf. Pers čapiš 'yearling kid'), *kurtilaz 'tunic' (cf. Osset k^wəræt 'shirt'), *kutan 'cottage' (cf. Pers kad 'house'), *paidō 'cloak',^[24] *paþaz 'path' (cf. Avestan pantā, g. pathō), and *wurstwa 'work' (cf. Av vərəštuua).^[25][26] These words could have been transmitted directly by the Scythians from the Ukraine plain, groups of whom entered Central Europe via the Danube, and created the Vekerzug Culture in the Carpathian Basin (6th-5th centuries BC), or by later contact with Sarmatians, who followed the same route.^[27] Unsure is *marhaz 'horse', which was either borrowed directly from Scytho-Sarmatian or through Celtic mediation.

Main article: Germanic substrate hypothesis

The term substrate with reference to Proto-Germanic refers to lexical and phonological items that do not appear to be explained by Indo-European etymological principles. The substrate theory postulates that these elements came from a prior population that remained among the Indo-Europeans and was sufficiently influential to transmit some elements of its own language. The theory of a non-Indo-European substrate was first proposed by Sigmund Feist, who estimated that about 1/3 of the Proto-Germanic lexical items came from the substrate.^[28]

However, research in Germanic etymology continues and as more and more plausible explanations for Germanic words whose origins were previously unclear or controversial are being proposed, and which explain those words in terms of reconstructed Indo-European words and morphology, the proportion of Germanic words without any plausible etymological explanation decreases. Estimates of that proportion are typically outdated or inflated as many proposals were unknown to scholars compiling lists of unexplained Germanic words.